NEWS: da Vinci Workshop Discovered in Florence Convent

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A forgotten workshop of Leonardo da Vinci, complete with 500-year-old frescos and a secret room to dissect human cadavers, has been discovered in Florence, Italy, researchers said last week. The find was made in part of the Santissima Annunziata convent, which let out rooms to artists centuries ago and where the likely muse of the Renaissance artist's masterwork, the Mona Lisa, may have worshipped.

''It's a bit absurd to think that, in 2005, we have found the studio of one of history's greatest artists. But that is what has happened," said Roberto Manescalchi, one of three researchers credited for this month's discovery. ''The proof is on the walls." Frescos adorning part of the workshop were left undisturbed over the centuries and gradually forgotten. Manescalchi speculated that da Vinci had assistants in his workshop and probably used a ''secret" corner room for his dissections of human corpses, aimed at improving his understanding of anatomy.

The find has sparked speculation that, while da Vinci was using the workshop, he might have met the probable model for the Mona Lisa, Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine merchant whose family had a chapel in the Santissima Annunziata.




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