Deliriously Normal: Giving a Voice to the Mona Lisa

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Giving a Voice to the Mona Lisa

I've always been fascinated by forensics. TV shows about forensic scientists, facial reconstruction and the like captured my imagination when I was still a kid, and the intrigue hasn't let up yet.

I've always wondered what historical figures really looked like and sounded like. I'm sure we've all had the conversation about who we would talk to if we had the chance; I just took it a step further and really tried to imagine it.

Now, a Japanese scientist has made that a very real possibility.

"The Mona Lisa's smile may always remain a mystery, but it is now possible to hear what her voice would have sounded like, thanks to a Japanese acoustics expert.
Dr Matsumi Suzuki, who generally uses his skills to help with criminal investigations, measured the face and hands of Leonardo da Vinci's famous 16th century portrait to estimate her height and create a model of her skull.
"Once we have that, we can create a voice very similar to that of the person concerned," Suzuki told Reuters in an interview at his Tokyo office last week. "We have recreated the voices of a lot of famous people that were very close to the real thing and have been used in film dubbing."

The chart of any individual's voice, known as a voice print, is unique to that person and Suzuki says he believes he has achieved 90 percent accuracy in recreating the quality of the enigmatic woman's speaking tone."