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Most scholars believe Leonardo’s most famous portrait depicts Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant....   >>>

Most scholars believe Leonardo’s most famous portrait depicts Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant.

But Silvano Vinceti, the head of a team of researchers, believes instead that the painting was inspired by Gian Giacomo Caprotti, who began working with the Renaissance master as a child and became one of his most trusted companions.

He said several of Leonardo’s works, including two paintings of St John the Baptist and a lesser-known drawing called “Angel Incarnate,” were based on Caprotti.

All of them portray a slim, rather effeminate youth with curly hair.

There were striking similarities between those works and that of the Mona Lisa, particularly in the depiction of mouths and noses, said Mr Vinceti, the head of the National Committee for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage.



** The excerpt above is taken from The Telegraph, "Mona Lisa 'was a boy,'" written by Nick Squires linked below. Do click through to see this new Italian art historian's new insight into that enigmatic smile.**