According to Italian art historian Silvano Vinceti, the masterpiece Mona Lisa was painted by Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci as a “mixture” of the portrait of his homosexual lover Salai with Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy merchant in Tuscany.

Silvano Vinceti said that the Mona Lisa's face is an androgynous portrait, a blend of Lisa Gherardini and Gian Giacomo Caprotti, known by his nickname Salai.

Not convincing

Vinceti, who is now the head of a research team at the National Committee for Cultural Heritage, announced his discovery after examining the painting using infrared light.

Through this, Vinceti claims, the nose, forehead and smile ofMona LisaIt bears a striking resemblance to several other Da Vinci paintings with Salai as the model.

"The Mona Lisa is an androgynous portrait, half man and half woman. It was painted after two models, Lisa Gherardini and Salai, an apprentice of Leonardo. We are close to answering the question that has troubled scholars for years: who was the model for the Mona Lisa?" - Vinceti told the Telegraph from Florence, where four years ago he excavated beneath a monastery in the hope of finding the remains and skull of Lisa Gherardini.

Italian art historian Silvano Vinceti

Experts believe that Caprotti came to Da Vinci's home around 1490, when he was about 10 years old. He worked as Da Vinci's assistant for the next 20 years and was nicknamed Salai, or Little Devil, by the artist.

However, Vinceti's claim has been met with skepticism by many of the world's leading Da Vinci experts.

"This is pure fantasy. The infrared images do not support the idea that the Mona Lisa portrait is a blend of Lisa Gherardini's and Salai's facial features. No one knows what Salai looked like, so it is impossible to say that his features were transferred onto the Mona Lisa's face.

Giorgio Vasari, a contemporary painter and chronicler of Renaissance artists, described Salai as handsome and curly-haired, but that was a standard type of the time. Da Vinci had already portrayed him in many works long before Salai appeared on the artistic scene, argues Martin Kemp, emeritus professor of art history at Trinity College, who is writing a new book, Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting.

According to historical records, Lisa Gherardini was married to wealthy merchant Francesco del Giocondo, whose family owned a luxury villa on the outskirts of Florence. Last week, for the first time in more than 50 years, the villa was sold for 20 million euros.

MasterpieceMona Lisa is currently on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris (France)

Mona Lisa's masterpieceDa Vincihas puzzled art lovers for centuries. There are currently several theories that are considered the most convincing about the painting:

- Many columns were cut: It has long been believed that after Da Vinci died, the canvas was cut and the two columns that were the focal points of the painting were also cut. Art historians still debate this and believe that any image with columns depicted in the painting is a copy.

- Mona Lisa is not unique: Many believe that Da Vinci did not create just one portrait of Mona Lisa. There is another famous painting called the Isleworth Mona Lisa. This portrait was found before World War I, which also depicts a young woman with a mysterious smile.

- Nude versions: There are at least eight versions of the Mona Lisa that feature a nude model. Many speculate that these are copies of a lost original that depicts the nude Mona Lisa.

- Invisible eyebrows: In 2007, Pascal Cotte announced that he discovered traces of a left eyebrow on the Mona Lisa's face during the process of appraising the painting. Cotte said that the Mona Lisa once had both eyebrows and eyelashes, but they had faded over time.

According to Telegraph/Sports & Culture