Trivia Junction

A Compendium of trivia I find interesting
...for the curious

Mystery, Leonardo da Vincis' Mona Lisa

Of many mysteries left behind by Leonardo da Vinci, what, exactly, was the Mona Lisa smiling about.

There are various theories, among them that she was secretly pregnant, was expressing amusement at the musicians and clowns hired by Leonardo to entertain her and, according to Discover magazine, that the image is really a sneaky self-portrait of the painter himself.

While it's likely that nobody will ever truly decipher her smile, researchers at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Illinois have parsed it out.

Using face-recognition software, they have determined that the Mona Lisa's smile is 83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful and 2 percent angry.

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