An expert on Leonardo DaVinci's Mona Lisa says he has determined the date the mysterious woman died, and her final resting place.
The woman who has captivated art lovers for centuries died on July 15, 1542, and was laid to rest at a convent in central Florence, where she lived out the final days of her life, according to Giuseppe Pallanti.
He says he found a death notice in the archives of a church in Florence. It refers to "the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, deceased July 15, 1542, and buried at Sant'Orsola," according to reports in the Italian press.
It is widely believed that the subject of the painting, which now hangs in the Louvre in Paris, is Lisa Gherardini, born in May 1479, later to become del Giocondo's second wife.
Sant'Orsolo, the convent where Gherardini died at 63, is near the San Lorenzo basilica. It is now disused and lying in ruins.
"It was in this convent that Mona Lisa placed her youngest daughter Marietta, who later became a nun. And it was there that Lisa, as stipulated in the will of her husband who died four years before her, ended her life," Pallanti told the daily paper La Repubblica on Friday.
Pallanti also believes Gherardini was widowed and ill when she died. And he says the documents show she was a famous figure in Florentine society because the entire parish turned out for her funeral.
Pallanti's latest discovery is the fruit of nearly 30 years spent combing through Florence's archives -- a process that has resulted in Pallanti's book "Mona Lisa Revealed: The True Identity of Leonardo's Model."
The discovery prompted praise from Carlo Pedretti, another Da Vinci expert. He called for a search of the convent site for Gherardini's remains.
"Thanks to modern techniques, scientists can determine her physical aspect, maybe even her face and thereby make an important contribution" to establishing her identity, Pedretti told the ANSA news agency.
