Likely Da Vinci Studio Is Found

A forgotten workshop of Leonardo da Vinci, complete with 500-year-old frescoes and a secret room for dissecting human cadavers, has been discovered in Florence, Italy, researchers said Tuesday.

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 worshiped.

“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 who has been credited for this month’s discovery. “The proof is on the walls.”

Frescoes adorning part of the workshop were left undisturbed over the centuries and gradually forgotten. The wing of the convent was eventually split by a wall and is partially claimed today by the Institute of Military Geography.

The walls of the workshop were adorned with paintings of birds, one of which strongly resembled a sketch from Da Vinci’s “Atlantic Codex,” a 1,286-page collection of drawings and writings by the painter, sculptor, inventor and scientist. Another painting was similar to a drawing in Da Vinci’s codex on the flight of birds.

Manescalchi speculated that Da Vinci had assistants in his workshop and probably used a secret corner room for his dissections of human corpses -- part of his endeavor to improve his understanding of the human 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.

Da Vinci is thought to have painted the Mona Lisa after he presumably left the convent, but Manescalchi said he was reviewing documents for evidence that the two met during his stay there from 1501 to 1502.