Hunt for Mona Lisa remains

ITALIAN researchers have begun looking for the remains of a Renaissance woman many believed posed for the Mona Lisa.

The researchers used a geo-radar device yesterday to search for underground tombs in a Florence convent where Lisa Gherardini is believed to be buried.

Tradition has long linked Gherardini, the wife of a rich silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo, to Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, which is known in Italian as La Gioconda, and in French as La Joconde.

Giorgio Vasari, a 16th-century artist and biographer of Leonardo, wrote that Leonardo painted a portrait of del Giocondo’s wife.

Gherardini is believed to have died in 1542.

Excavations will begin next month.