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Attempt to return Mona Lisa to Italy dismissed

An attempt to have the Mona Lisa return from France for a temporary visit to Italy has been dismissed by gallery chiefs.  

The 500-year-old Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece was painted in Florence before he took it to France where it has lived ever since.

Art historian professor Silvano Vinceti, who is currently looking for the final resting place of the women believed to have posed for the painting, had launched a campaign to bring the painting back to Florence.

The aim was to raise a 100,000 signature petition to return the Mona Lisa to Florence in 2013, exactly 100 years after it was recovered following a theft from the Louvre in 1911....  

Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)