Archaeologists are convinced that they have found a complete skeleton of the woman, who inspired Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece Mona Lisa, buried beneath the floor of a convent in Florence, Italy.
Reportedly, a team of archaeologist has unearthed a skeleton from the abandoned Convent of Saint Ursula that they believe belonged to Lisa del Gherardini, the lady depicted in the Mona Lisa. She became a nun after her husband's death and died at the convent in 1542, aged 63.
The digging started one year back and archeologists that time found a skull five feet under the convent's original floor. They could not, however, continue the digging anymore due to fund scarcity. But this week, the team has found the skeleton.
"That altar was certainly in use at Lisa Gherardini's time," said Valeria D'Aquino, an archaeologist at the Tuscan Superintendency.
Researchers will undergo tests of the bones to identify the match with the skull that was found last year. They also aim to reconstruct Lisa's face to match the facial features of the iconic painting.
''We don't know yet if the bones belong to one single skeleton or more than one. But this confirms our hypothesis that in St.Ursula convent there are still human bones and we cannot exclude that among them there are bones belonging to Lisa Gherardini," archeologist Silvano Vinceti, who is in charge of the dig, said.
The French government currently owns the right of the famous Mona Lisa painting.
