The birthplace of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa has been located in her home town, Florence.
Leonardo scholar Giuseppe Pallanti says documents show she was born in a house that once stood on a side-street of Via Maggio, where Florence's antiques dealers do their trade.
Pallanti also says he has found the house where Lisa Gherardini lived after marrying wealthy merchant Francesco Del Giocondo, a patrician building in the famed San Lorenzo area.
Pallanti, who has been poring through the city's archives for decades, has now tracked down all three of the most significant places in the life of Lisa Gherardini.
In mid-January the researcher said he had tracked down her burial place to the former Convent of St Orsula, in the heart of the city.
Lisa Del Giocondo died in the convent after retiring there near the end of her life.
Unveiling his latest discovery, Pallanti said his research had wiped away all doubt about the identity of La Gioconda, as the Italians call the Mona Lisa because of the surname of her husband, Giocondo.
"It was her, Lisa, the wife of the merchant Francesco Del Giocondo - and she lived quite close to Leonardo in San Lorenzo, at the end of what is now Via della Stufa," Pallanti said.
Most modern scholars have agreed with Pallante that the Mona Lisa sitter was Lisa del Giocondo.
The couple were married in 1495 when the bride was 16 and the groom 35.
It has frequently been suggested that del Giocondo commissioned Leonardo to paint his Mona Lisa (mona is the standard Italian contraction for madonna, or "my lady,") to mark his wife's pregnancy or the recent birth of their second child in December 1502.
Although pregnancy or childbirth have frequently been put forward in the past as explanations for Mona Lisa's cryptic smile, other theories have not been lacking - some less plausible than others.
Some have argued that the painting is a self-portrait of the artist, or one of his favourite male lovers in disguise, citing the fact that Da Vinci never actually relinquished the painting and kept it with him up until his death in Amboise, France in 1519.
The most curious theories have been provided by medical experts-cum-art lovers.
One group of medical researchers has maintained that the sitter's mouth is so firmly shut because she was undergoing mercury treatment for syphilis which turned her teeth black.
An American dentist has claimed that the tight-lipped expression was typical of people who have lost their front teeth, while a Danish doctor was convinced she suffered from congenital palsy which affected the left side of her face and this is why her hands are overly large.
A French surgeon has also put forth his view that she was semi-paralysed, perhaps as the result of a stroke, and that this explained why one hand looks relaxed and the other tense.
Leading American feminist Camille Paglia simply concluded that the cool, appraising smile showed that "what Mona Lisa is ultimately saying is that males are unnecessary".
