A researcher has “identified her as Lisa Gherardini, a member of a minor noble family of rural origins. She later married a wealthy Florentine silk merchant, Francesco del Giocondo. Giuseppe Pallanti’s 25-year investigation supports a claim first made in 1550 by Giorgio Vasari. In his work, “Lives of the Artists,” the 16th-century painter and art historian named Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo as the subject of the portrait.”