Mona Lisa Uncovered

I didn't get a chance to see the Mona Lisa on my last visit to Paris but if Pascal Cotte is correct, the next time I see Da Vinci's most famous painting I'll be looking at it in a slightly different way.

From The Daily Galaxy...

Parisian engineer Pascal Cotte used an ultra-detailed digital scanning device he invented to delve into the layers of paint, allowing him to "look" into the past of Leonardo Da Vinci's 16th-century portrait.

Using sensors to detect light from both the visible spectrum and the infrared and ultraviolet ranges invisible to the human eye, Cotte said, his camera allowed him to make these and other findings:

• One puzzle for art buffs is why the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows or lashes. But Cotte found that the world's most famous painting actually did originally included both brows and lashes.
• Da Vinci changed his mind about the position of two fingers on the subject's left hand.
• Her face was originally wider and the smile more expressive than Da Vinci ultimately painted them.
• She holds a blanket that has now almost completely faded from view.

And in case you ever wondered who Mona Lisa was here's another one from The Daily Galaxy...

Born Lisa Gherardini in May 1479, later to become known through the ages as Da Vinci's symbol of feminine mystique, she is thought to have been the second wife of Del Giocondo, a wealthy silk merchant, with whom she had five children.

Author Giuseppe Pallanti found a death notice in the archives of a church in Florence that referred to "the wife of Francesco del Giocondo," the famed Mona Lisa of Leonardo Da Vinci, "deceased July 15, 1542, and buried at Sant'Orsola," the Italian press reported Friday.

While we're at it, how about a tune from Nat King Cole...