Free Leonardo's Lost Princess by Peter Silverman

light source used. That is, a photographer in New York did not have the same light as a photographer in Paris or Madrid, so their photographs could not be scientifically comparable.
    In April 2000, the European-financed CRISATEL project endorsed the use of Lumiere Technology’s multispectral camera and its lighting system for the archiving and digitalization of museum works. In 2004, armed with this endorsement, Cotte went to the Louvre with a bold request. He explained that his camera allowed him to photograph any painting, and he wanted permission to use the process on the Mona Lisa. The museum agreed!
    This was a particularly exciting venture for art historians, who had agonized over the question of how to properly separate the original from the protective varnish that had been applied in later restorations. Thanks to Cotte, there was a way to accomplish digitally what had been perilous physically.
    The session was scheduled to take place after hours. A nervous group of curators and security personnel gathered to supervise the delicate removal of the painting from its bulletproof case. With a full contingent of guards surrounding it, the Mona Lisa was carried to the photograph room in the basement of the Louvre while technicians constantly monitored the temperature, which was required to be 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit), with 50 percent humidity.
    Standing by as the frame and the glass were removed, Cotte felt his heart flutter. “I am not an artist or a curator,” he said later, his voice filled with awe. “But when you see Mona Lisa like that, naked, unadorned, you understand why the whole world says, ‘Wow!’” 6 He had no doubt that he was gazing on the object of a lifetime’s love. It was proof, he thought, that any dream can come true.
    Once the Mona Lisa was ready, Cotte set up his camera. It was large and ungainly, and the technology was entirely new.
    Here’s how it worked: The camera projected a ray of white light across the surface of the painting. The ray passed over the surface thirteen times before re-creating a computerized version of the image that was, in Cotte’s view, closer to the original than one could imagine possible. The thirteen photos resulting from the scan accurately split the light spectrum from ultraviolet to infrared at the limit of the optical laws—into 240 million pixels (as opposed to 20 million by the highest performance commercial camera), generating 22 gigabytes of data. The result ran the spectrum from objects visible to the human eye to those that were invisible.
    Cotte began with a digital photograph of Mona Lisa. By digitally “removing” layers of varnish, he was able to construct a virtual image of the picture, unveiling its true colors—before time and restorers had altered them. The light actually went inside the painting, in a manner that seemed almost magical, superimposing all thirteen images on top of one another to form an accurate whole.
    Eighteen hours after entering the Louvre, Cotte emerged, ebullient, quipping, “I spent the night with Mona Lisa. ” 7 He had reason to be thrilled.
    For the first time in centuries, the true colors of the painting could be viewed. Most copies of the Mona Lisa are very dark, but the original colors, Cotte found, were quite vivid. For example, the sky was revealed as brilliant blue, painted with lapis lazuli, a very expensive pigment. Cotte also detected a fur-lined coat resting on the woman’s knee that is invisible to the naked eye, which helped to explain the odd position of her hand.
    Cotte was able to give special attention to the woman’s luminous face by enlarging portions with his powerful camera to more than 4,000 pixels per square millimeter. In the process, he solved the mystery of the missing eyebrows and eyelashes. This was something that had always disturbed and fascinated him. He could not imagine that an artist such as Leonardo, who worked with impeccable anatomical accuracy, would forget to