Listen to Mona Lisa and Leonardo Da Vinci

Dr Matsumi Suzuki, a Japanese acoustics expert has created the voices of Mona Lisa and Leonardo Da Vinci as part of a promotion for the Da Vinci Code movie. From Reuters:

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 at 168 cm 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.

The voices of both Leornardo Da Vinci and Mona Lisa in Italian can be heard at this website by MSN Japan. Oh, I need to add that only Internet Explorer users can listen to the voices. Bloody hell MSN!

(Thanks Sato)