Can’t say if bones in Florence are Mona Lisa model

However there are still a number of questions to be answered, because even if the bones do belong to Gherardini, scholars are still unsure whether she was in fact the model for the world famous painting.

Most historians now agree that Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, a noblewoman who was the third wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, was the sitter for the Renaissance masterpiece.

Italian archaeologists trying to solve the mystery behind the identity of one of the world’s most famous models said on Wednesday that they had found shards of bone which could have belonged to Mona Lisa.

Head researcher Silvano Vinceti said unfortunately there are few remains, and no skull, which might have helped determine if the woman could have been Leonardo’s model for the portrait, which is in the Louvre in Paris. “We can’t provide absolute certainty that some of the remains examined are Lisa’s, but the likelihood is very high”.

The other four were found in a common tomb used until 1545, and carbon dating proved that one of those buried there – of which only fragments of the femur, shinbone and ankle remain – lived in the same period as Gherardini.

The hope was that DNA from the bones could be tested against the remains of Gherardini’s husband and sons, but when researchers opened the vault where her relatives’ bodies were laid to rest, they found an area so humid that the skeletons had deteriorated over the centuries, crumbling to dust.

At the same time Vincenti said he can not be absolutely sure. Bones found by archaeologists in a Florence church might belong to the infamous Mona Lisa, according to the AFP.

Critics also advised that a number of people have been buried at the site and the remains could still belong to another woman who passed at a similar date.

Vinceti said that in several years the technology could exist to definitely confirm the find as the Mona Lisa using “new sources of DNA we will have managed to scrape together”.

“There are converging elements, above and beyond the results of the carbon-14 tests, that say we may well have found Lisa’s grave”, Vinceti told reporters at an announcement of the results.

But some experts said there was not enough evidence to show definitively that the remains were those of Caravaggio and that the “discovery” had been concocted on the 400th anniversary of the artist’s death in order to boost tourism.