Italian art experts are investigating a real-life “Da Vinci Code” mystery after discovering tiny symbols in Mona Lisa’s eyes, Britain’s Sun newspaper reported today.
Italy’s National Committee for Cultural Heritage said that letters and numbers can be seen by magnifying high resolution images of Leonardo Da Vinci’s 500-year-old Renaissance masterpiece.
“In the right eye appears to be the letters LV, which could well stand for his name,” said art historian Silvano Vinceti.
“In the left eye there are also symbols. It is difficult to make them out, but they appear to be the letters C and E or B.”
Vinceti told another British paper, The Guardian, the symbols may be a clue to the identity of the mystery model for the painting.
She has often been named as Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant.
Vinceti disagrees, saying Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa in Milan.