It’s a mystery that has lasted for centuries, the one that the Gioconda out Leonardo da Vinci. The painting, created in the early 16th century on a small panel of poplar wood, is probably the most famous portrait in world art history.
That secret that wraps around them mona lisa is an integral part of the work’s priceless charm and has for centuries attracted the attention of experts and scholars in search of new clues that will finally reveal where and under what circumstances, but most importantly, the masterpiece was painted Who was the woman portrayed by Leonardo da Vinci?.
Who is Leonardo’s Mona Lisa?
Thousands of pages have been written about the identity of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The woman was quickly identified as Lisa GherardiniNoble wife of Francesco del Giocondo, thanks to the authoritative notes of Vasariwhich identifies the wife of the Florentine nobleman in the Mona Lisa in a document from the 16th century.
However, the same notes also speak of eyebrows beautifully painted and dimpled on the cheeks that are not on the face of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. Experts agree on one thing: Leonardo da Vinci worked on the painting for years and made several changes over time, so Vasari could have seen one “First version” of the Mona Lisadifferent than what is known to the public.
Actually in 2014 the scientist Pascal Cott He announced that thanks to investigations with a high-resolution multispectral camera, he had identified the portrait of another woman hidden under the face of the Mona Lisa.
The discovery appears to confirm both the scholar’s theory Silvano Vinceti for which there would be a first version of the Mona Lisa, “younger and with a melancholy smile”, both the researcher’s hypothesis Karl Goriwho has formulated a complex and well-documented theory for the Mona Lisa, which proceeds precisely from the identification of the woman portrayed by Leonardo.
Was the Gioconda a Sforza?
According to the scholar who has published dozens of essays on the work of Leonardo da Vinci, the Mona Lisa is Bianca Giovanna Sforza, beloved daughter of Ludovico the Moro died very young a few months after the marriage that connected her to Galeazzo Sanseverino, patron and dear friend of Leonardo da Vinci.
The portrait, according to the researcher, would be a wedding gift for Ludovico il Moro – never delivered to the customer due to the sudden death of the young woman who disappeared under mysterious circumstances when she was not yet fifteen years old.
When then the Sforza expelled from Milan, Leonardo was forced to alter the painting to hide the identity of the young woman, heiress to a duchy now excluded from French rule. The “youngest and most beautiful” woman identified among the Mona Lisa would be Bianca Giovanna Sforza.
According to Carla Gori’s theory, the Mona Lisa is Milanese, and the hills and bridge that form the background of the portrait are those of Mona Lisa Bobbio: Not only because the young Sforza, after her marriage to Sanseverino, was the mistress of Bobbio, Voghera and Castel San Giovanni, but also because there are important clues in the painting itself, recently confirmed by a Paleontological Research which highlights the presence of Leonardo in these places at the time of the portraiture.
Another research that supports the theory is that of the scholar Teodoro Brescia, who is already known for revealing several unpublished details in Leonardo’s Last Supper. According to Brescia, Leonardo inserted one of his famous rebuses into the Mona Lisa: from the (mirrored) initials that are shown in the eyes of the Mona Lisait can be concluded that the woman is Bianca Giovanna Sforza.
Milan, the embroidery and the fate of the Mona Lisa
The connection between Leonardo da Vinci and the patron Galeazzo Sanseverino is well documented, as is the fact that Leonardo knew the daughter of Ludovico il Moro, Lady of Voghera.
In the essay “Identikit of a Sforza: The Vincentian knots in the embroidery of the Mona Lisa”, Gori explores the question Milanese origins of the Mona Lisa starting with the embroidery at the neckline of the Mona Lisa dress.
“The design of the Embroidery at the neckline della Gioconda”, according to the essay, is inspired by the fashion of “win”, created by Beatrice d’Este in 1493 and closely linked to the cultural-artistic climate Sforza court in the period 1493/99during Leonardo’s first stay in Milan”.
Moreover, as Gori explains in another research paper – “La Gioconda: the localization of the landscape, the Milanese fashion of the Vinci, the parallel to the Belle Ferronnière” – the processing at the edge of the parapet is very similar to the Mona Lisa he sees exactly on the Leonardesque portrait of Belle Ferronnierethe last lover of the Moor, as well as the kind of nuance Leonardo created in the two portraits painted a few years apart.
“Leonardo kept this portrait with him until his death, making it fully and profoundly his work,” we read in another essay by Gori, “and in the course of this revision it will become so intervened over a long period of time to the first project “.
The Mona Lisa, who was never handed over to the Moors because of the tragic death of young Bianca, came Subsequently “aged” by Leonardo.to the point where she lost the appearance of a woman and became the enigmatic and immortal testimony of Renaissance genius.