Mona Lisa Was a Man, Maybe

Natalie Wolchover, Life's Little Mysteries Staff Writer

Date: 03 February 2011 Time: 03:02 PM ET

CREDIT: Musée du Louvre/A. Dequier - M. Bard

This pigment-person has more secrets than most. Who is she? What's she smiling about?

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa gets more intriguing all the time. Last year, Italy's National Committee for Cultural Heritage discovered inexplicable numbers and letters inscribed in her eyes - some sort of real-life da Vinci code.

Then, Feb. 2, Silvano Vinceti, the head of that same committee, made another surprising announcement: Mona Lisa is probably a man. Vinceti believes the model Leonard da Vinci used for the masterpiece was his male apprentice and supposed lover, Gian Giacomo Caprotti, known as Salai.

Caprotti worked with da Vinci for over two decades and served as the model for his portrait of St. John the Baptist. Similarities between the nose and mouth of St. John and Mona Lisa lend evidence in support of Vinceti's hypothesis.

Perhaps what Mona Lisa's smiling about, then, is that she's not a she.

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