The Library of Congress has discovered a few new photos from Lincoln’s second inauguration. High resolution images are available at their site.
And Spiegel Online reveals that the true identity of the Mona Lisa has been discovered:
The enigmatic smiling woman painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the sixteenth century has for long been known simply as the “Mona Lisa.” But her true identity was a mystery, providing fodder for countless theories. Now a manuscript hidden away in a German library may have unlocked the key to her real name.
Heidelberg University library confirmed last Friday a German radio report that its researchers had discovered the true identity of the model in the famous 16th century portrait. She was Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Franceso del Giocondo.
The director of the university library, Veit Probst, said the mystery was unravelled after a book was found in the library archive that once belonged to a friend of da Vinci. In October of 1503 the Florentine official Agostino Vespuccui wrote a note in the margins of one page, saying that his friend was working on three paintings, one of them a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. The note, scribbled into a collection of letters by the Roman orator Cicero, compares the Florentine painter and sculptor to the ancient Greek artist Apelles.