Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile has won many admirers and aroused much mystery about the beautiful subject of the painting. The painting is owned by the French government, set in the Musee du Louvre in Paris. Italian historian Giuseppe Pallanti had found the origins of her identity.
Never tired of looking at her!
The woman who would be known as Mona Lisa, Lisa Gherardini, was born in 1479. She was infact s a member of a minor noble family of rural origins. Born in an old Florentine house, originally used as a workshop by wool artisans, the house stood a few hundred feet from the Medieval bridge Ponte Vecchio, in a dark alley known as Via Sguazza.
Via Sguazza home. Mona Liza’s birthplace?
She later married a wealthy Florentine silk merchant, Francesco del Giocondo. Lisa gave birth to five children: Piero, Andrea, Giocondo, Camilla and Marietta. Pallanti’s 25-year investigation supports a claim first made in 1550 by Giorgio Vasari. One among many theories is that Francesco Del Giocondo commissioned Leonardo for the painting to mark his wife’s second pregnancy when she was about 24.
The Convent of Sant’Orsola, Lisa Gherardini’s resting place
Leonardo’s father, local notary, Ser Piero da Vinci and Lisa’s family were neighbors. Lisa died four years after her husband’s death, at age 63, and was buried in Sant’Orsola.
Leonardo da Vinci, self potrait
Italian historian Giuseppe Pallanti is quoted to have said:
My research confirms that Lisa Gherardini and the Mona Lisa were one and the same. We might never solve the mystery behind her smile, but now we know that she had a modest childhood and a rather ordinardy life,
Source: Discovery
