Over 500 age after it was paint , psychoanalysis of Leonardo da Vinci ’s picture of Italian noblewoman Lisa del Giocondo is still reveal its secrets .

Earlier this twelvemonth , one Italian researcher lay claim to have identifiedwhere theMona Lisawas paintedafter identify the span as the Romito Etruscan - Roman bridge in the municipality of Laterina , in the province of Arezzo , Italy . Now , a team of investigator has discovered a little more about how da Vinci paint it , break that the polymath was using a technique a century ahead of its time .

The team of scientists from France and the UK examined sample of da Vinci ’s study ; a small piece take from a out of sight corner of theMona Lisaand 17 microsamples taken fromThe Last Supper . Many house painting from the early 1500s used wooden panels with a fatheaded radical layer of paint as a canvass , including theMona Lisa . Most usedgessoas the primer , made from blanched paint , chalk , andglue from animals , to help oil paints adhere to it . Analyzing the sampling , however , the team found that da Vinci used a dissimilar proficiency that had n’t been seen in Italian Renaissance paintings .

Analyzing the spell using X - ray diffraction and infrared spectroscopy , they found plumbonacrite , a chemical compound created in a reaction between oil and lead . This advise to the team that da Vinci used lead white paint , and infused his oil paints with lead oxide , a proficiency not seen untilRembrandtused it in the 1600s . While we would discourage adding lead to paints hand the effectlead exposurehas on wellness and IQ , the technique would aid the key to dry .

“ Everything which come from Leonardo is veryinteresting , because he was an artist , of class , but he was also a chemist , a physicist — he had lots of ideas , and he was an experimenter … attempting to improve the knowledge of his time , ” Professor Gilles Wallez of Sorbonne University in Paris and an author on the paper toldCNN . “ Each time you discover something on his process , you discovered that he was clearly out front of his time . "

Do n’t trust him ? hold in out how da Vinci wascenturies aheadof his coevals in his agreement of gravity .

The study is publish in theJournal of the American Chemical Society .