Who is Mona Lisa?

Everybody knows about the painting “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci but the question is who is Mona Lisa?

Some say that the lady in the painting is Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine cloth merchant, Francesco del Giocondo. Therefore, the alternative title of the painting is La Giocanda. There were even others that said, that it was his mother. However, according to the structure of the Mona Lisa’s face, some say that it was a structure of man that Mona Lisa was probably his assistant and probably lover, Salai.

Then according to Jeanna Bryner, the transparency of the veil shows da Vinci’s first painted a landscape and then used transparency techniques to paint the veil atop it. Then she noticed a change in the position of the left index and middle finger. At the elbow there was repair around at that part from damage due to a rock thrown at the painting in 1956. Also the left finder was not completely finished.

            Then in the year 2015, a group of archaeologists discovered the remains of Lisa Gherardini, one of the rumored models of Leonardo Da Vinci. Her remains were found in the Sant' Orsola convent in Florence. 

“I’m convinced it is her,” Silvano Vinceti, an art historian who led the research team, told The Telegraph.

“There is a strong compatibility between the results from our archaeological and historical research and the results from the carbon dating. It is highly probable that the remains belong to Lisa Gherardini.”

After finding the remains, they are compare DNA samples from the remains and the DNA that extracted from two of the five children that Gherardini had with her husband. However, when the children's remains were discovered in the tomb Basilica of Santissima Annunziata in Florence, their bone fragments have been badly damaged due to flooding of the Arno River. Because of this they cannot provide enough DNA samples to make a comparison, according to  Prof Giorgio Gruppioni, the head of the forensic anthropology laboratory at Bologna University. Although they haven't given up, they are finding solutions and techniques in order to solve the mystery. 

However there were some critics that pointed out that the remains belonged to another woman. Well, we wouldn't know unless further study is conducted. For now, Mona Lisa still remains a mystery. Who is the woman behind that famous smile?