Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, the world's most famous portrait, 500 years ago. But only now are we getting a chemical analysis of the paint he used, which he himself created. Scientists obtained a tiny sample of the paint used in the base layer of the Mona Lisa, as small as a cross-section of a human hair, and had it analyzed with "high-angular resolution synchrotron X-ray diffraction and micro Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy." Whew. What that did was identify the chemical makeup of the paint. It revealed that da Vinci, in addition to his inventions and his art, was quite the chemist.
The sample showed the presence of the rare compound plumbonacrite, which indicates a high level of lead oxide. He was apparently wanting a thick paint with a fast drying time for a the Mona Lisa's base coat. Lead paint became common among artists following da Vinci, but it's possible he was the originator of this paintmaking technique. Read more details of the findings at Popular Mechanics. -via Strange Company