Monday, January 14, 2008

Who Is Mona Lisa? Now We Know For Sure...


The Mona Lisa.... The most famous painting in the world. For centuries, experts have guessed at the woman in the painting's identity. They've kinda had an idea, but until recently, they could not confirm it without a doubt. Now , that doubt has been taken away. It's a bit complicated, so i'll just give you the AP article...
BERLIN - German academics believe they have solved the centuries-old mystery behind the identity of the "Mona Lisa" in Leonardo da Vinci's famous portrait.
Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Francesco del Giocondo, has long been seen as the most likely model for the 16th-century painting.
But art historians have often wondered whether the smiling woman may actually have been da Vinci's lover, his mother or the artist himself.
Now experts at the Heidelberg University library say dated notes scribbled in the margins of a book by its owner in October 1503 confirm once and for all that Lisa del Giocondo was indeed the model for one of the most famous portraits in the world.
"All doubts about the identity of the Mona Lisa have been eliminated by a discovery by Dr. Armin Schlechter," a manuscript expert, the library said in a statement on Monday.
Until then, only "scant evidence" from 16th-century documents had been available. "This left lots of room for interpretation and there were many different identities put forward," the library said.
The notes were made by a Florentine city official Agostino Vespucci, an acquaintance of the artist, in a collection of letters by the Roman orator Cicero.
The comments compare Leonardo to the ancient Greek artist Apelles and say he was working on three paintings at the time, one of them a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo.
Art experts, who have already dated the painting to this time, say the Heidelberg discovery is a breakthrough and the earliest mention linking the merchant's wife to the portrait.
"There is no reason for any lingering doubts that this is another woman," Leipzig University art historian Frank Zoellner told German radio. "One could even say that books written about all this in the past few years were unnecessary, had we known."
The painting, which hangs in the Louvre in Paris, is also known as "La Gioconda" meaning the happy or joyful woman in Italian, a title which also suggests the woman's married name.
Another great mystery of life solved by your friends here at SC6.....
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

this really takes a lot off my mind

Thoroughbred 401k said...

I had an idea that this one was bothering you for awhile , Moye !

Anonymous said...

bothering me also