Speculations about Mona Lisa

[citation needed] People of Arezzo in the Val di Chiana, a valley in Tuscany, have traditionally claimed the Mona Lisa landscape as theirs.

An article published in the journal Cartographica suggests that the landscape consists of two parts which when placed together correspond to Leonardo's topographic map, the Val di Chiana.

Another contender is the Isleworth Mona Lisa, which had been hidden in a Swiss bank vault for 40 years before being unveiled to the public on September 27, 2012.

[4] The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich has dated the piece to Leonardo's lifetime, and an expert in sacred geometry says it conforms to the artist's basic line structures.

The explanations range from scientific theories about human vision to curious supposition about Mona Lisa's identity and feelings.

Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University has argued that the smile is mostly drawn in low spatial frequencies, and so can best be seen from a distance or with one's peripheral vision.

[14][15][16] Christopher Tyler and Leonid Kontsevich of the Smith-Kettlewell Institute in San Francisco believe that the changing nature of the smile is caused by variable levels of random noise in the human visual system.

Data from the scan and infrared were used by Bruno Mottin of the French Museums' "Center for Research and Restoration" to argue that the transparent gauze veil worn by the sitter is a guarnello, typically used by women while pregnant or just after giving birth.

A similar guarnello was painted by Sandro Botticelli in his Portrait of Smeralda Brandini (c. 1470/1475), depicting a pregnant woman, on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

[22][23] During 2006, the Mona Lisa underwent a major scientific observation that proved through infrared cameras she was originally wearing a bonnet and clutching her chair, something that da Vinci decided to change as an afterthought.

In October 2007, Pascal Cotte, a French engineer and inventor, says he discovered with a high-definition camera that Leonardo da Vinci originally did paint eyebrows and eyelashes.

In addition, Cotte says his work uncovered proof that her hands were originally painted in a slightly different position than in the final portrait.

Although the sitter has traditionally been identified as Lisa del Giocondo, a lack of definitive evidence has long fueled alternative theories.

No evidence has been found that indicates a link between Lisa del Giocondo and Giuliano de' Medici, but then the comment could instead refer to one of the two other portraits of women executed by Leonardo.

She supports this theory with the results of a digital analysis of the facial features of the woman in the painting and those of the famous Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk.

[34][35] In 2011, art historian Silvano Vinceti claimed longtime apprentice (and possible lover) to Leonardo, Salaì, was the inspiration and figure for the painting.

In 1504 Isabella d'Este announced more interest in another motif, which is consistent with the whereabouts of the painting called Mona Lisa with Leonardo.

Despite its circulation, this identification is disputed (outside the documentation of its own museum), as the head shows neither idealisation by beauty nor similarities with the two colour portraits mentioned above.

In January 2010, Dr Vito Franco, professor of pathological anatomy at Palermo University, published research in an article in La Stampa newspaper and at a medical conference in Florence which suggested that the subject showed clear signs of xanthelasma, small accumulations of cholesterol-rich material under the skin, perhaps caused by problems in her biliary tract, due to hyperlipidemia, an inherited metabolic disorder.