The centuries-old enigma of the location of the landscape behind the Mona Lisa may have been solved. Italian researchers say a hidden clue identifies the exact location of the background to the world’s most famous artwork.

If you look very closely at the most mysterious Da Vinci painting, you would see a bridge above the left shoulder of Mona Lisa. Italian art historian Carla Glori claims that it is that the three-arched bridge hints at a hillside village called Bobbio in Northern Italy, The Daily Telegraph reports.

This idea was prompted by another recent discovery made by Italian art historian Silvano Vinceti. He says the hidden numbers 7 and 2 are painted beneath the bridge. Glori alleges these numbers where deliberately painted in by the Great Renaissance master so that the background could be identified.

She claims the numbers in fact refer to year 1472, when the Bobbio bridge known as Ponte Gobbo or Ponte Vecchio collapsed after a flood of the Trebbia River.

"Leonardo added in the number 72 beneath the bridge to record the devastating flood of the River Trebbia and to allow it to be identified," The Daily Telegraph quotes Carla Glori as saying.

The Mona Lisa is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506 in Florence and still remains one of the most mysterious artwork of all times. Until recently most art historians agreed that the landscape in the painting was the fruit of the artist’s imagination.

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