The Mystery of 'Mona Lisa'

Did Leonardo da Vinci paint himself as 'Mona Lisa'?

Experts believe that Leonardo da Vinci's tomb holds the answer to one of art's greatest questions. The legend of Leonardo da Vinci is shrouded in mystery, how did he die? Are the remains buried in a French chateau really those of the Renaissance master? Was the "Mona Lisa" a self-portrait in disguise?

A group of Italian scientists believes the key to solving those puzzles lies with the remains — and they say they are seeking permission from French authorities to dig up the body to conduct carbon and DNA testing. If the skull is intact, the scientists can go to the heart of a question that has fascinated scholars and the public for centuries: the identity of the "Mona Lisa." Recreating a virtual and then physical reconstruction of Leonardo's face, they can compare it with the smiling face in the painting, experts involved in the project told The Associated Press.

"We don't know what we'll find if the tomb is opened, we could even just find grains and dust," says Giorgio Gruppioni, an anthropologist who is participating in the project. "But if the remains are well kept, they are a biological archive that registers events in a person's life, and sometimes in their death."

The leader of the group, Silvano Vinceti, told the AP that he plans to press his case with the French officials in charge of the purported burial site at Amboise Castle early next week.

But the Italian enthusiasm may be premature.

In France, exhumation requires a long legal procedure, and precedent suggests it's likely to take even longer when it involves a person of great note such as Leonardo.

Jean-Louis Sureau, director of the medieval-era castle located in France's Loire Valley, said that once a formal request is made, a commission of experts would be set up. Any such request would then be discussed with the French Ministry of Culture, Sureau said.

Leonardo moved to France at the invitation of King Francis I, who named him "first painter to the king." He spent the last three years of his life there, and died in Cloux, near the monarch's summer retreat of Amboise, in 1519 at age 67.

The artist's original burial place, the palace church of Saint Florentine, was destroyed during the French Revolution and remains that are believed to be his were eventually reburied in the Saint-Hubert Chapel near the castle.

The tombstone says simply, "Leonardo da Vinci;" a notice at the site informs visitors they are the presumed remains of the artist, as do guidebooks.

"The Amboise tomb is a symbolic tomb; it's a big question mark," said Alessandro Vezzosi, the director of a museum dedicated to Leonardo in his Tuscan hometown of Vinci.

Vezzosi, who is not involved in the project, said that investigating the tomb could help identify the artist's bones with certainty and solve other questions, such as the cause of his death. He said he asked to open the tomb in 2004 to study the remains, but the Amboise Castle turned him down.

As for the latest Italian proposal, Vinceti says preliminary conversations took place several years ago and he plans to follow up with a request next week to set up a meeting to explain the project in detail. This would pave the way for a formal request, he said.

The group of 100 experts involved in the project, called the National Committee for Historical and Artistic Heritage, was created in 2003 with the aim of "solving the great enigmas of the past," said Vinceti, who has written books on art and literature.

Arguably the world's most famous painting, the "Mona Lisa" hangs in the Louvre in Paris, where it drew some 8.5 million visitors last year. Mystery has surrounded the identity of the painting's subject for centuries, with speculation ranging from the wife of a Florentine merchant to Leonardo's own mother.

That Leonardo intended the "Mona Lisa" as a self-portrait in disguise is a possibility that has intrigued and divided scholars. Theories have abounded: Some think that Leonardo's taste for pranks and riddles might have led him to conceal his own identity behind that baffling smile; others have speculated that, given Leonardo's presumed homosexuality, the painting hid an androgynous lover.

Some have used digital analysis to superimpose Leonardo's bearded self-portrait over the "Mona Lisa" to show how the facial features perfectly aligned.

If granted access to the grave site, the Italian experts plan to use a miniature camera and ground-penetrating radar — which produces images of an underground space using radar waves_ to confirm the presence of bones. The scientists would then exhume the remains and attempt to date the bones with carbon testing.

At the heart of the proposed study is the effort to ascertain whether the remains are actually Leonardo's, including with DNA testing.

Vezzosi questions the feasibility of a DNA comparison, saying he is unaware of any direct descendants of Leonardo or of tombs that could be attributed with certainty to the artist's close relatives.

Gruppioni said DNA extracted from the bones could also eventually be compared to DNA found elsewhere. For example, Leonardo is thought to have smudged colors on the canvas with his thumb, possibly using saliva, meaning DNA might be found on his paintings, though Gruppioni conceded this was a long shot.

Even in the absence of DNA testing, other tests could provide useful information, including whether the bones belonged to a man or woman, and whether the person died young or old.

"We can have various levels of probability in the attribution of the bones," Gruppioni said. "To have a very high probability, DNA testing is necessary."

The experts would also look for any pathology or other evidence of the cause of death. Tuberculosis orsyphilis, for example, would leave significant traces in the bone structure, said Vinceti.

In the best-case scenario — that of a well-preserved skull — the group would take a CAT scan and reconstruct the face, said Francesco Mallegni, an anthropology professor who specializes in reconstructions and has recreated the faces ofFamous italians, including Dante.

Even within the committee, experts are divided over the identity of the "Mona Lisa."

Vinceti believes that a tradition of considering the self-portrait to be not just a faithful imitation of one's features but a representation of one's spiritual identity may have resonated with Leonardo.

Vezzosi, the museum director, dismissed as "baseless and senseless" the idea that the "Mona Lisa" could be a self-portrait of Leonardo.

The painting is "like a mirror: Everybody starts from his own hypothesis or obsession and tries to find it there," Vezzosi said in a telephone interview.

He said most researchers believe the woman may have been either a concubine of the artist's sponsor, the Florentine nobleman Giuliano de Medici, or Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a rich silk merchant, Francesco del Giocondo. The traditional view is that the name "Mona Lisa" comes from the silk merchant's wife, as well as its Italian name: "La Gioconda."

Associated Press writer Deborah Seward in Paris and Ariel David in Rome contributed to this report.

How using the web can hurt your finances

3 Financial dangers of social media

Anyone who doubts the power of social media to affect finances need look no further than the example of Kansas City Chiefs football player Larry Johnson. The all-pro running back cost himself $213,000, and ultimately a job, by posting anti-gay slurs on the micro-blogging service Twitter -- in 140 characters or less, of course. Career trouble is just one way a badly managed social media presence can hit your pocketbook. Following are three areas where social media could damage your financial life, and how to avoid such pitfalls.

Debt Collection

Social media has become a key tool for collection agencies trying to track down debtors, says Michelle Dunn, CEO of the American Credit and Collections Association and author of "Do's and Don'ts of Online Collections Techniques."

"If they don't have a good phone number or the mail's being returned, a lot of them use Facebook to find out if they have a different address or their employment information," Dunn says.

Many bill collectors who think they've found a debtor on a social media site will keep an eye on that individual's online presence, Dunn says.

"They don't necessarily have to post anything to them; they just watch what that person is posting," she says.

Setting a social media profile to allow anyone -- not just friends -- to look at postings can make your profile a particularly rich source of information, she says.

"People post things about if they've gotten a new home or a new vehicle," Dunn says. "People just post such private things about their lives, and the whole world is watching."

Privacy laws should preclude a collections professional from contacting and humiliating you on your social media page, Dunn says. However, some debt collectors violate those legal and ethical boundaries and assume false identities as a means of getting information, she says.

Scams

Social media sites ask for, and often get, a large amount of personal information from users. Unfortunately, identity thieves may use that information to perpetuate scams, especially if you use personal information when creating security passwords, McCarthy says.

"If you have a public Facebook profile that gives your birth date and your parents' names and that kind of thing, they can provide the answers to security questions that your bank might have on its Web site," she says.

Even if your profile is private, identity thieves may find other ways to get your information, Beal says.

"We see spammers, we see hackers, we see people trying to sell products using fictitious profiles," he says. "There was a study done a few years ago where one group created a specific fictitious profile and the number of people that accepted their friend request ... was pretty high."

For this reason, be careful about adding social networking "friends" you don't know in real life, says Beal.

"Social networking is not a popularity contest," says Beal. "I don't add anyone to Facebook or LinkedIn unless I know them."

And remember, just because a social media site asks for information doesn't mean you have to give it, Beal says.

Finally, McCarthy recommends never sending money to someone who asks for it over a social media service. Smith says that there have been reports of scammers hijacking accounts and posing as friends.

Employment

Andy Beal, CEO of the social media monitoring platform Trackur.com, says jobseekers should assume potential employers will do a Google search of candidates' names. Social media profiles typically appear near the top of the search page.

If you have questionable pictures or posts on a public profile, take them down or make the profile private to avoid trouble.

Also, steer clear of negative talk about a prospective employer on any social media platform, Beal says. Many companies monitor mentions of their brand throughout the Web, he says.

He cites the case of a Twitter user who posted about a new job offer from Cisco, but expressed doubt about "the daily commute" and "hating the work." A Cisco employee noticed the tweet and demanded to know the name of the user's hiring manager.

Even employees who think their jobs are safe can sabotage themselves by being too honest online about their personal lives, or by posting feelings regarding a boss, client, co-worker or company for whom they work.

"We've seen a lot of cases of people publishing status updates that have gotten them in trouble," says Justin Smith, founder and editor in chief of Inside Facebook. "People have said things that have caused problems with their boss because of what they said about their work or because they've shared some other kind of private information about work online."Caroline McCarthy, a staff writer at CNET News, says the best defense against such mistakes is to use plain old common sense. Remember, anything that appears on the Web is just a screenshot away from spreading quickly, despite the best efforts of social media users to keep it private.

Copyrighted, Bankrate.com. All rights reserved.

Modern Vampirism

If you’ve seen Twilight, you’ll remember the scene where Bella searches Google for information about the Quileute legend of the “cold ones”. As she quickly clicks through links, her computer screen fills with images of vampires of different names and cultures. This may lead people like me who have never given much thought to vampires to wonder about the truth of vampire legends.

While there is some debate over whether or not the websites Bella surfs are real, what is true is that the Quileute legend of the "cold ones" is something Stephenie Meyer, the author of the Twilight series, invented. However the story of the Quileute people descending from wolves is an actual part of their native folklore.

Although vampires may not be part of the Quileute’s folk heritage, they are a part of many other cultures. The traits of these undead revenants vary widely from culture to culture as do the methods for identifying and protecting oneself from them.

Legends of blood sucking demons and spirits date back to ancient times but the word vampire did not come into use in the English language until the 1730s. The image of the modern vampire, pale, gaunt, and fanged, was born in Bram Stoker’s Dracula published in 1897. With that novel came the stereotypical image of vampires (sleeping shrouded in coffins by day, turning into bats, bursting into flames when exposed to sunlight, being warded off with garlic, succumbing to death from a stake through the heart) that has endured for over a hundred years.

Now Meyer has created a new vampire image for modern times. Edward Cullen and his family have psychic powers, superhero strength and speed, don’t ever sleep, glitter in the sun, and can be killed not by a stake but by fire. Some of the attributes in Meyer’s version of vampires contradict the stereotypes we’ve known. In a way, she’s written a modern legend of vampirism.

it's not over for a fat lady to swing

I heard a quote in a movie 'Raising Helen' and I really like it. It said that "it's not over for a fat lady to swing'. So guys, no matter how old are you or where you are, you can live your life happily just like this story.

It was Harriet Richardson Ames' dream to earn her bachelor's degree in education. She finally reached that milestone, nearly three weeks after achieving another, her 100th birthday. On Saturday, the day after receiving her diploma at her bedside, the retired schoolteacher died, pleased that she had accomplished her goal, her daughter said. Ames had been in hospice care. She had what I call a 'bucket list,' and that was the last thing on it.

Ames, who turned 100 on Jan. 2, had earned a two-year teaching certificate in 1931 at Keene Normal School, now Keene State College. She taught in a one-room schoolhouse in South Newbury, and later spent 20 years as a teaching principal at Memorial School in Pittsfield, where she taught first-graders.

Through the years, she had taken classes at the University of New Hampshire, Plymouth Teachers College and Keene State to earn credits for her degree. With her eyesight failing, she stopped after retiring in 1971 and was never sure if she had enough credits.

Her wish for a degree became known when a Keene State film professor interviewed her a couple of years ago for a piece on the college's own centennial, which the school celebrated last year. The school decided to research her coursework and see if it could award Ames her long-sought diploma. The offices of the provost, registrar and other departments worked quickly in the last month to determine, that indeed, it could.

She wanted to be the best that she could be, that's what she said. When the college was working on the degree, Ames started to cry and said, "'If I die tomorrow, I'll know I'll die happy, because my degree's in the works.'"

College officials, drove the document to Ames' bedside on Friday. She's the kind of person that every parent would want their first-graders to have as a teacher, very loving and caring.