500年前达芬奇·里奥纳多画了这幅当今西方艺术上最富盛名的画作，目前真迹被放在巴黎卢浮宫博物馆，也成为了卢浮宫博物馆的三大镇馆之宝之一，而蒙娜· 丽莎那神秘的微笑更是几百年来许多专家学者的研究对象。最新研究显示这幅画作中的模特可能是一位怀孕女性——而这也恰恰是达芬奇创作这幅画作的原因。

Five hundred years after Leonardo painted the most famous picture in Western art, new research suggests that his model may have been an expectant mother - and that he painted her for precisely that reason.
500年前达芬奇·里奥纳多画了这幅当今西方艺术上最富盛名的画作，最新研究显示这幅画作中的模特可能是位怀孕女性——而这也恰恰是达芬奇创作这幅画作的原因。
Mona Lisa is a puzzle and quite unlike any other picture of the time. In the materialistic culture of early-16th-century Florence, portraits weren't an expression of individuality and character, they were an advert for wealth and social status. But far from being the height of fashion, Mona Lisa's dress is utterly plain and timeless and, despite the fact that she is a married woman, she wears no jewellery, not even a wedding ring.
《蒙娜丽莎》这一幅作品和当时的其他作品不太一样。在16世纪早期的佛罗伦萨，一切都处在唯物主义的指导下，肖像画作不是用来展示个画中人物的性格而是一种财富和社会地位的象征。这幅画作里的蒙娜丽莎却没有显现出当时的潮流，她穿着的服装朴实无华，完全看不出来她是个已婚的女性，既没有佩戴珠宝也没有戴戒指。
The mystery deepens when we learn that Leonardo never delivered the portrait. Instead, he continued to work on it for many years and kept the Mona Lisa by his side until his death on May 2, 1519.
当我们了解到达芬奇·里奥纳多不仅没有把这幅画卖出，还在之后的很多年里继续创作这幅画，并最终将这幅画珍藏到死。这一切更加加深了这幅画的神秘感。
Rona Goffen, professor of art history at Ruttgers University, argues that although Mona Lisa began as a portrait, at some point its purpose changed: "It was intensely personal to Leonardo, something that he would develop over the years entirely for himself."
罗格斯大学艺术史教授Rona Goffen认为《蒙娜丽莎》起初是一幅肖像画，但是在某种意义上却有了不同的目的：“里奥纳多倾注了强烈的个人情感，让他在之后几年里都在继续创作这幅画作。”
If Mona Lisa is not a portrait, then what is it? Perhaps more than any other painter, Leonardo's art is imbued with his scientific observations. His ambition was to discover the very source of life itself.
如果《蒙娜丽莎》不是一幅肖像画，那又会是什么呢？与其他画家不一样，里奥纳多的艺术中充满了他对科学的观察。他急切的想探索生命的奥秘。
Professor Martin Kemp, widely regarded as the world's leading authority on Leonardo, describes: "If you think that Leonardo, in a sense, saw this inside her body, then you suddenly realise, wow, that is how Leonardo looked at it. He thinks he's really getting to the mystery of life, the cyclical nature of birth, maturity and death."
被认为是里奥纳多研究领军人物的Martin Kemp教授说：“如果你认为里奥纳多在某种程度上看出了她已经怀孕了，你就会猛然发现里奥纳多的视角原来是这样的。他认为自己对神奇的生命了解越来越多，了解了人类从出生到成熟最终死亡的生命周期循环。”
The life cycle and the female role in creation is still only half the story of the Mona Lisa. The other half, often overlooked, is the primeval landscape in front of which she is sitting. Most people assume that this was a product of Leonardo's fertile imagination, but there's increasing evidence it was inspired by the landscape of his childhood, the Arno Valley.
生命的循环和女性角色还只是《蒙娜丽莎》这个故事的一半。常常被忽视的另外一半则是画中蒙娜丽莎背后的背景。大多数人觉得那是里奥纳多想象出来的，但是越来越多的证据表示蒙娜丽莎背后的背景其实是达芬奇根据自己儿时的记忆创作出来的自己曾经生活过的地方——亚诺河河谷。
The two great lakes continuous, hydrological cycle all match Leonardo's observations about how the landscape we see today was shaped by the power of water. Many regard him as the father of geology as a modern science.
两条大河持续不断的冲刷循环造就了我们今天所看到的风景。很多人将他视为现代科学中的地理学之父。
It is a distillation of all that he had discovered through a lifetime's observation into the secrets of nature.
因此《蒙娜丽莎》也是达芬奇对生命和自然观察留下的精华所在。