New theory on art masterpiece

THE Mona Lisa was based not just on a Florentine merchant’s wife but also on Leonardo da Vinci’s male apprentice and probable gay lover, an Italian art detective claims.

Silvano Vinceti said the portrait, which hangs in the Louvre in Paris, was an “androgynous” amalgam of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy merchant from Tuscany, and Gian Giacomo Caprotti, better known by his nickname, Salai. National Committee for Cultural Heritage researcher Vinceti based his findings on infra-red examination of the Mona Lisa, arguably the world’s most famous painting.

He claims the Mona Lisa’s nose, forehead and smile are strikingly similar to other paintings by Leonardo, who used Salai as a model.

“The Mona Lisa is androgynous – half man and half woman,” Vinceti said this week. “The painting was based on two models. The first was Lisa Gherardini and the second was Salai.”

Vinceti has closely compared the Mona Lisa’s face with the paintings based on Salai and claims there are close similarities.

“You see it particularly in Mona Lisa’s nose, her forehead and her smile.

“We’ve come up with an answer to a question that has divided scholars for years – who the Mona Lisa was based on,” Vinceti said.

But the claims were met with scepticism by one of the world’s leading experts on Leonardo.

“This is a mish-mash of known things, semi-known things and complete fantasy,” Oxford University’s Professor Martin Kemp said. “The infra-red images do nothing to support the idea.”