The real-life Da Vinci Code

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337976/Real-life-Da-Vinci-Code-Tiny-numbers-letters-discovered-Mona-Lisa.html

The real-life Da Vinci Code: Historians discover tiny numbers and letters in the eyes of the Mona Lisa
Nick Pisa and Luke Salkeld
13th December 2010

Intrigue is usually focused on her enigmatic smile.

But the Mona Lisa was at the centre of a new mystery yesterday after art detectives took a fresh look at the masterpiece – and noticed something in her eyes.

Hidden in the dark paint of her pupils are tiny letters and numbers, placed there by the artist Leonardo da Vinci and revealed only now thanks to high-­magnification techniques.

Experts say the barely distinguishable letters and numbers represent something of a real-life Da Vinci code.

The revelation could have come straight from the pages of Dan Brown’s best-seller The Da Vinci Code, in which the Mona Lisa is said to contain hidden clues about the Holy Grail.

Silvano Vinceti, president of Italy’s National Committee for Cultural Heritage, which spotted the symbols, said: ‘To the naked eye the symbols are not visible but with a magnifying glass they can clearly be seen

‘In the right eye appear to be the letters LV which could well stand for his name, Leonardo da Vinci, while in the left eye there are also symbols but they are not as defined.

‘It is very difficult to make them out clearly but they appear to be the letters CE, or it could be the letter B.

‘In the arch of the bridge in the background the number 72 can be seen or it could be an L and the number 2.

‘You have to remember the ­picture is almost 500 years old so it is not as sharp and clear as when first painted.

‘From the preliminary investigations we have carried out we are confident they are not a mistake and were put there by the artist.’

The search was initiated by another Dan Brown-style plot device after a fellow committee member discovered a musty book in an antique shop ­referring to symbols in the Mona Lisa’s eyes.

Mr Vinceti added: ‘Da Vinci put a special emphasis on the Mona Lisa and we know that in the last years of his life he took the painting with him everywhere.

'We also know that da Vinci was very esoteric and used symbols in his work to give out messages.

‘Who knows, they may even ­possibly be a love message to the ­figure in the painting.’

Mr Vinceti is a member of a group which is seeking permission to exhume da Vinci’s remains from his tomb at Amboise Castle in France’s Loire Valley.

They want to see if the artist’s skull is there so that they can try and recreate his face and establish if the Mona Lisa – owned by the French government and on display in The Louvre – is in fact a twist on a self-portrait of the artist as some believe.

Behind the smile

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article6976971.ece

The Times
January 6, 2010
Behind the smile Mona Lisa may have been suffering from high cholesterol
In Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa there is said to be clear evidence around the left eye socket of xanthelasma, a yellowish collection of fatty acids underneath the skin, suggesting high levels of cholesterol. There also evidence on the hands of subcutaneous lipomas, benign tumors composed of fatty tissue.
Richard Owen in Rome

Is she enjoying a private joke? Is she sneaking a sly glance at an unseen lover? Or is the glint in the Mona Lisa’s eye in fact the result of a build-up of fatty acids around her eye socket, a sure sign that she wasn’t watching her cholesterol?

An Italian medical expert says he has found evidence of a range of afflictions in some of the world’s greatest works of art. Vito Franco, Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Palermo, claims that there are clear signs of diseases, from bone malformations to kidney stones, that cast certain icons of perfection in a very different light.

Professor Franco, who presented his findings at a European congress on human pathology in Florence, told The Times that he had begun studying art masterpieces for evidence of disease and illness two years ago.

“I look at art with a different eye from an art expert, much as a mathematician listens to music in a different way from a music critic,” he said. He added that he had analysed about 100 art works, from Egyptian sculpture to contemporary paintings but his focus, he told La Stampa, was on Old Masters. He found that not only aristocrats but also Madonnas, angels and mythical heroes — or at least the sitters — revealed telltale signs of illness.

In Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour), at the Prado in Madrid, the five-year-old Infanta Margarita depicted with her attendants at the court of Philip IV appears to be a victim of Albright syndrome, “a genetic illness involving precocious puberty, low stature, bone disease and hormonal problems”.

The “almost feminine” elegance of the young nobleman in a red velvet hat and wearing a gold medal in Sandro Botticelli’s Portrait of a Young Man at the National Gallery in Washington was due to his unnaturally long, thin fingers — a sign of arachnodactyly, or “spider fingers”. This condition is linked to Marfan syndrome, a genetic defect apparently visible in Parmigianino’s long-necked Madonna, at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Sufferers from Marfan syndrome, first identified by the French physician Bernard Marfan in 1896, tend to be unusually tall and thin with disproportionately long limbs.

Another famous Virgin Mary, the Madonna del Parto by Piero della Francesca, has a goitre, or swelling of the thyroid gland, on her neck “typical of people who drank water from a well in certain areas” in medieval times. This produced a deficiency of iodine, which caused changes in the thyroid.

Michelangelo’s own ailment, which Professor Franco diagnoses as kidney stones — is shown in Raphael’s School of Athens where he appears with strangely swollen and knobbly knees. Michelangelo complained of kidney and bladder problems in his letters and may have suffered from gout.

25 Secrets of Mona Lisa Revealed

http://www.livescience.com/history/071018-mona-lisa.html

25 Secrets of Mona Lisa Revealed
By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer
18 October 2007

New images uncover 25 secrets about the Mona Lisa, including proof that Leonardo da Vinci gave her eyebrows, solving a long-held mystery.

The images are part of an exhibition, "Mona Lisa Secrets Revealed," which features new research by French engineer Pascal Cotte and debuts in the United States at the Metreon Center in San Francisco, where it will remain through the end of this year. The Mona Lisa showcase is part of a larger exhibition called "Da Vinci: An Exhibition of Genius."

Cotte, founder of Lumiere Technology, scanned the painting with a 240-megapixel Multi-spectral Imaging Camera he invented, which uses 13 wavelengths from ultraviolet light to infrared. The resulting images peel away centuries of varnish and other alterations, shedding light on how the artist brought the painted figure to life and how she appeared to da Vinci and his contemporaries.

"The face of Mona Lisa appears slightly wider and the smile is different and the eyes are different," Cotte said. "The smile is more accentuated I would say."

Mona Lisa mysteries

A zoomed-in image of Mona Lisa's left eye revealed a single brush stroke in the eyebrow region, Cotte said.

"I am an engineer and scientist, so for me all has to be logical. It was not logical that Mona Lisa does not have any eyebrows or eyelashes," Cotte told LiveScience. "I discovered one hair of the eyebrow."

Another conundrum had been the position of the subject's right arm, which lies across her stomach. This was the first time, Cotte said, that a painter had rendered a subject's arm and wrist in such a position. While other artists had never understood da Vinci's reasoning, they copied it nonetheless.

Cotte discovered the pigment just behind the right wrist matched up perfectly with that of the painted cover that drapes across Mona Lisa's knee. So it did make sense: The forearm and wrist held up one side of a blanket.

"The wrist of the right hand is up high on the stomach. But if you look deeply in the infrared you understand that she holds a cover with her wrist," Cotte said.

Behind a painting

The infrared images also revealed da Vinci's preparatory drawings that lie behind layers of varnish and paint, showing that the Renaissance man was also human.

"If you look at the left hand you see the first position of the finger, and he changed his mind for another position," Cotte said. "Even Leonardo da Vinci had hesitation."

Other revelations include:

Lace on Mona Lisa's dress

The transparency of the veil shows da Vinci first painted a landscape and then used transparency techniques to paint the veil atop it.

A change in the position of the left index and middle finger.

The elbow was repaired from damage due to a rock thrown at the painting in 1956.

The blanket covering Mona Lisa's knees also covers her stomach.

The left finger was not completely finished.

A blotch mark on the corner of the eye and chin are varnish accidents, countering claims that Mona Lisa was sick.

And the Mona Lisa was painted on uncut poplar board, contrary to speculations.

In the larger picture, Cotte said when he stands back and looks up at the enlarged infrared image of Mona Lisa, her beauty and mystique are apparent.

"If you are in front of this huge enlargement of Mona Lisa, you understand instantly why Mona Lisa is so famous," Cotte said. He added, it's something you have to see with your own eyes.