The remains of the Italian woman who was the model for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa were dug up 30 years ago and now lie in a municipal rubbish tip, an Italian expert has claimed.
Lisa Gherardini died in Florence in 1542 and was buried in the grounds of Sant'Orsola convent.
Over the centuries the Franciscan convent was used as a tobacco factory and a university teaching facility but in the 1980s a redevelopment was launched to convert it into a barracks for Italy's tax police, the Guardia di Finanza.
The developers had no knowledge that it was the final resting place of da Vinci's famous model – that was only discovered in 2007 – and during work to build an underground car park, the convent's foundations were excavated, along with the crumbling remains of graves and tombs.
The rubble was then dumped in a municipal landfill site on the outskirts of Florence.
The prosaic end to the life of one of the best known figures in art history has only recently come to light through a fresh building project for the convent site.
Florence city council wants to turn the half-built police barracks, which has lain semi-derelict and bricked up for years, into a £23 million community arts centre.
Surveys of the site have shown that the site was excavated in the 1980s to such a depth that no tombs or other historical artefacts survived.
Gherardini is believed to have been born in Florence in 1479. At the age of 16 she became the second wife of a wealthy silk merchant, Francesco del Giocondo, with whom she had five children.
She moved into the convent after his death, staying there for the last four years of her life.
She is believed to have died in the convent at the age of 63 in 1542, according to a document unearthed three years ago by Mr Pallanti during his research.
意大利一位专家日前表示，早在30年前，列奥纳多•达•芬奇笔下的《蒙娜丽莎》的原型——一位意大利女子的遗骸就已被挖掘出来，如今被丢弃在市里的一个垃圾场。
丽莎•格拉尔迪尼于1542年在佛罗伦萨去世，安葬在圣奥索拉修道院。
在过去几百年间，圣方济会修道院旧址曾被用作卷烟厂和大学校舍。但在20世纪80年代，这里被改造成意大利财政局税务警察的驻地。
直到2007年，人们才发现这里是达•芬奇笔下最著名的原型人物的安葬地，开发商当年并不知情。在修建地下停车场时，修道院的地基、连同坟墓中破碎的遗骸都被挖开了。
这堆碎石后来被倾倒在佛罗伦萨市郊的一处垃圾填埋场。
这位艺术史上最著名的人物之一平淡地结束了一生，直到最近修道院旧址要建造一座新建筑时才为人所知。
这座未完工的警察驻地已废弃数年，遍布瓦砾，佛罗伦萨市议会想把它改造成一座价值2300万英镑的社区艺术中心。
对该地的调查显示，这里在20世纪80年代挖掘过深，古墓和其它历史文物都不复存在了。
据称，格拉尔迪尼于1479年出生于佛罗伦萨，16岁时成为丝绸富商弗朗西斯科•德尔•乔康多的第二任妻子，两人育有5名子女。
丈夫去世后，格拉尔迪尼搬到修道院居住，在那里度过了生命的最后四年时光。
根据三年前帕朗蒂先生在研究中发现的文档，格拉尔迪尼于1542年在修道院逝世，享年63岁。
Vocabulary:
barrack: any large, plain building in which many people are lodged（临时性的营房，一片简陋的大房子）
prosaic: commonplace or dull; matter-of-fact or unimaginative（平淡的）
