(ANSA) - Florence, September 24 - It is "very likely" that bone fragments found in a Florence convent and carbon-dated to the time of the death of the Mona Lisa are in fact those of the woman whose real name was Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, lead researcher Silvano Vinventi said Thursday.

"There are converging elements, above and beyond the results of the carbon-14 tests, that say we may well have found Lisa's grave," he said.

"I'm speaking of historical, anthropological and archeological analyses that have been carried out very rigorously," Vincenti said.

"We can't provide absolute certainty that some of the remains examined are Lisa's but the likelihood is very high," he said.

"I have to say that many historians would have stated this was Lisa on the basis of written records, with many fewer elements and without scientific data," he went on.

But he said it might take "several years", and with technology that "does not currently exist" to definitively clinch the find as that of the Mona Lisa by using "new sources of DNA we will have managed to scrape together".

"In particular, the remains of the children that were found in the church of the Santissima Annunziata have been degraded too much by the floodings of the Arno and are not able to provide sufficient DNA for possible comparison tests" with the bone fragments found in Sant'Orsola, Vinceti said.

