The Strange Attraction Of The Mona Lisa The Secret of Mona Lisa

Paper was like gold in medieval times. I want tobacco, sugar. That everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong. It is the most famous, most expensive, and most mysterious painting in the world. Each year, millions of people visit the portrait in the Louvre. The Mona Lisa has remained a star among works of art for centuries. Because fanatics attempted to destroy the painting, it can now only be admired from behind armored glass. But what makes a Mona Lisa so special? The small painting shows nothing more than a portrait of a woman. Or does it reveal something more? It was painted by one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived, Leonardo da Vinci. And with Mona Lisa, he left behind more than just an image of a woman. Her gaze appears to wander off, yet always meets the viewer. She wears no jewelry. Her clothing is dark, as if she were in mourning. And yet she smiles mysteriously. Leonardo didn't leave behind any sketches of the portrait. No visible brushstrokes. Mona Lisa appears to be made out of flesh and blood. Yet her biggest secret remains. Who was she? Whose portrait is Leonardo showing us? To solve this puzzle, the Louvre placed its most famous painting under scientific scrutiny, using the most modern techniques. The painting was examined using x-rays, Raman spectroscopy, ultraviolet and infrared pictures, among other techniques to uncover its secrets. The master's painting technique was examined beyond the surface. Were corrections made to the painting? Was anything overpainted? Did Leonardo paint the piece in one session, or did he work on it for decades? These questions must be answered in order to resolve the most puzzling question of them all. Who is the woman behind the smiling, yet melancholy face? Who was Leonardo's Mona Lisa? Or is this not a portrait, but rather an imaginary image of an ideal beauty? Experts have been wondering this for centuries. There seems to be proof of only two explanations, but each cancels the other out. Documentation comes from two different chroniclers, but these written records are not compatible with one another. The most accepted theory is based on biographer Giorgio Vasari. According to him, the portrait depicts Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, who commissioned the piece in 1503. This contradicts a note by the chronicler Antonio de Beatis from 1517, in which Leonardo da Vinci claims to have been commissioned by Giuliano de' Medici. Just like the two chroniclers, contemporary Leonardo scholars also have divergent theories. Giuseppe Pallanti, an art historian from Florence, believes the officially recognized theory that the painting depicts Lisa del Giocondo. I believe that Leonardo actually painted Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, probably around 1503. Roman historian Roberto Zaperi considers a new and revolutionary theory in which the portrayed woman is an entirely different person. I think the painting is connected with Brandani. It has nothing to do with Mona Lisa. The first clue leads to Florence. The majority of the great Renaissance artists lived and worked here, as did Leonardo da Vinci. Giorgio Vasari also worked in Florence. He chronicled the biographies of many Italian artists. Vasari wasn't just anybody. Next to his occupation as a chronicler, he was also a painter and an architect. He planned Florence's largest and most important buildings, including the Uffizi. The building complex was originally designed to house ministries and public offices, but its original purpose soon changed. The Uffizi became the home to one of the most significant art collections in the world. Some of Leonardo's paintings are also exhibited here today, such as his early piece Annunciation, in which his love for detail is already discernible. Vasari also built something unique to Florence that remains concealed from many people, a connecting walkway underneath the city's roofs. It leads from the Palazzo Vecchio through the Uffizi and crosses the Ponte Vecchio. With it, Florence's elite could wander across the city without coming into contact with the commoners on the street. The path ends in the garden of Palazzo Pitti. Next to his work as an architect, Vasari documented the biographies of great Italian artists. Today, these make up one of the most important foundations of art history. was first published in 1550 and revised in 1568. Today, the original manuscripts are housed in the Uffizi library. Most of the artists whose lives Vasari chronicled were already dead at the time. But Vasari researched very carefully. So, too, with Leonardo da Vinci. On just a few pages, Vasari wrote down his whole life story. In it, he also mentions that Leonardo painted the portrait of Mona Lisa for Francesco del Giocondo, her husband. And it's in the possession of King Francis I of France. He labored on it for four years and ultimately left it unfinished. These words gave the painting its name, Mona Lisa. Who was this Mona Lisa of whom Vasari wrote? And who was her husband, Francesco del Giocondo? Francesco was a silk merchant who had acquired some wealth, but wasn't part of Florence's elite. He was a nouveau riche businessman. Was it really possible that a renowned painter like Leonardo accepted a commission by an ordinary businessman? Or did Francesco del Giocondo and his wife climb the ranks of society? Francesco del Giocondo was well known in the city. He wasn't just an ordinary merchant. He was also a public and charismatic figure. Lisa was very young. And Vasari defines her as very beautiful too. Her husband also spoke very highly of her. In his testament, Francesco refers to her as a bona fide woman. This is an unusual description for a woman. I have yet to find a similar description in other testaments. A bona fide woman can signify a noble woman with high principles, who works hard and has personality. Lisa del Giocondo was Francesco's third wife. The birth of their second child and move into a new home could have been the occasion for the commissioned portrait. And yet up until then, Leonardo only portrayed men and women of nobility. These people were interesting to him. A star such as himself could choose his own subjects. Why did he paint Lisa del Giocondo? At the time, the city of Florence was considered a metropolis. Yet a specific circumstance could have brought Leonardo and Francesco together. Piero da Vinci lived near Francesco. He was one of the most influential notaries in Florence and Leonardo's father. Francesco had a reputation as a usurer and he was often in court. For this and other business affairs, he needed a notary. Without question, there was no close connection between Giocondo's family and Leonardo's. A document from 1496 confirms the visits and personal connection between the notary and father of da Vinci, San Piero and Francesco del Giocondo. San Piero recorded an agreement between Francesco del Giocondo and the monks of the Santissima Annunziata Abbey inside the Florentine merchant's own store. This signifies that Francesco was most certainly a client of San Piero near the end of the 15th century. Leonardo returned to Florence around 1500 from Milan. He was 48 years old, restless, without family and didn't have any large commissions on the horizon. When Leonardo came to Florence, he didn't have any commissions or work. And we know that portraits are the bread and butter of painters. That is to say, they are the simplest commissions and also the best paid. So it is easily possible that Francesco del Giocondo commissioned Leonardo to portray his wife. It's possible that Leonardo's father introduced them to one another and that Giocondo used the opportunity to commission a portrait of his wife from the great master. But doubts arise. The Giocondo family trade register resides in the L'Archivio Storico dell'Instituto degli Innocenti and it is the basis of their tax report. Florence had a highly advanced tax system. The so-called Catasto. As part of this, its citizens had to claim all of their incomes and expenditures. In this trade register, all movement of money and assets were meticulously recorded. Vasari mentions that Leonardo received the commission in 1503. So a record of the expensive portrait must certainly have been made. But in 1503, there is no reference to the expense of a painting. There is no record of a commission to Leonardo in the entire trade register. There is also no mention of such a valuable painting in the inheritance. You can imagine how desperately I searched for clues of a commission or payment. Not even in the testament is there mention that this painting existed. I think Francesco would have certainly claimed it since it was a painting with a rising and secure value. The whole thing is incomprehensible. Francesco would have most likely shown the portrait by the famous painter publicly and would not have risked eventual tax evasion. In Leonardo's records, there is also no trace of a commission by Francesco. Money, apparently, didn't change hands. Francesco's testament is archived in Florence's Archivio di Stato. Therein, there is also no mention of the great master's valuable artwork. Leonardo apparently never delivered the painting to Francesco. Vasari writes about an incomplete portrait. The Mona Lisa in the Louvre, however, is completed down to the very last detail. Yes, surely, he accepted the commission at a time in which he had no work. He introduced himself to the merchant who wanted a painting of his wife and simply agreed. Then he painted only the head. He interrupted the work for other commissions and left it unfinished, never delivering the painting to the merchant, not even the head. There are no traces of this painting in Florence. Traces left by the merchant couple must be available in the archives, in documents or testaments. And yet this painting by Leonardo shows up nowhere. If he had finished the painting and delivered it, then a record within the family would exist. A painting by a famous artist like Leonardo was a very valuable commodity. It had disappeared. We know absolutely nothing about it. Has it really been lost? Was the Mona Lisa as described by Vasari lost? Is the painting in the Louvre a different one? Many of da Vinci's works have been lost. Mona Lisa wouldn't be an exception. Some, however, have re-emerged unexpectedly. In the art world, there are rigid, unwritten laws. One such law states that no new Leonados may surface. Ernst Lux is an art restorer in Vienna. He was commissioned to restore a small and worthless copy of the famous Leonardo painting, Virgin of the Rocks. The owner of the copy wasn't concerned with its value, since the painting was de facto not worth very much. The subject was clear. It is the Virgin of the Rocks, and the presumption that it was a small copy of the famous Virgin of the Rocks in the Louvre was completely valid. The painting had damage that I was to repair. Lux took a closer look at the small painting. First, he determined the type of colour pigments used with a Roman spectroscope. He determined that a special lead-tin yellow was used that hadn't been in use since 1720. During Leonardo's time, making colours was very complex. They weren't manufactured synthetically, but came from nature. They were either made up of organic material or of metals and minerals. These colours were especially expensive. They had to be ground into tiny granules and then bound with a binding agent. Today, these are immediately detectable and make it easy to identify counterfeits. After Lux discerned that the colours used matched up with Leonardo's time, he went on to more accurately determine the work's age. To do so, he used the radiocarbon dating method, and the result was sensational. The small painting actually stemmed from Leonardo's time, but he wasn't satisfied yet. With the help of infrared pictures, Lux penetrated the surface to the first layer of paint. Oftentimes, painters make sketches with charcoal before introducing oils. This painting also contained a charcoal sketch, and it had been modified and corrected. It appeared that first, someone had searched for the right composition. Only the artist himself would have done such a thing. In this case, Leonardo. My first reaction was disbelief. I thought, this must be a mistake. Infrared and X-rays are imaging methods that leave a lot of room for interpretation, and are often over-relied upon. But more and more preliminary sketches surfaced. Lux documented the variations, and his verdict gained substance. This artist drafted a preliminary sketch in search of the right composition, and this artist can only have been Leonardo himself. I slowly felt the adrenaline rush. I searched for an explanation. It can't be Leonardo. Because it is forbidden for it to be from him. What else could it be? If not by him, by whom else? What is the explanation for this phenomenon? It was the only possible interpretation left. It must have been by Leonardo. It's the only way that all the different pieces of evidence fit together. Much about Leonardo seems unexplainable today. Very few artists have captivated people's imaginations as he has. One reason for this is that he started so many paintings that he never finished. Like that of Saint Jerome in the Wilderness. Yet these works count among art history's most famous. As with the Adoration of the Magi, Leonardo often lost interest in his paintings after he solved challenges of figuration and composition. Finishing the pieces became too tedious. This was also the case with the fresco for the Council Hall of Palazzo Vecchio. It was to become his largest work. Commissioned by the city government, Leonardo chose the Battle of Anghiari as his motif. Leonardo received the commission in 1503, the same period during which he worked on Lisa del Giocondo's portrait. Restless as he was, Leonardo left even the biggest project that Florence commissioned incomplete. Is it plausible that he behaved similarly with Mona Lisa, abandoning it only to finish it later? The answer lies north of the Alps, at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. In its library are early printed works, so-called incunables from the 15th century. Sabine Gehrlein is an expert of these books. In one of these incunables, Leonardo's contemporary Agostino Vespucci left a remarkable note. In the process of a systematic and scientific survey of all the incunables at our university library, we came across Vespucci's notes in this Cicero incunable, and this was a small sensation. We found the name Leonardo da Vinci, the name Lisa del Giocondo, and this accidental discovery turned out to be significant for Leonardo and Mona Lisa scholarship. After Leonardo received the commission for the Battle of Anghiari, Vespucci visited him in his studio, and about this he wrote the following. The painter appellas. Leonardo da Vinci proceeds like him in all of his paintings. For example, the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo and Anna, the Virgin's mother. We will see what he will make of the Grand Council Hall that he's just agreed to do with the Gonfaloniera, October 1503. Vespucci assumes that Leonardo will do what Appellas, a famous painter of antiquity, did with his works. Leave the portrait of Lisa and the Battle of Anghiari incomplete. With this note, a contemporary of Leonardo's confirms the commission to paint the portrait of Mona Lisa. This discovery naturally supports Vasari's theory that the painting which we all admire as the Mona Lisa in the Louvre today is of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a Florentine merchant, and that the painting was not yet completed in October of 1503. It is very likely that Leonardo puts the painting aside. He didn't finish it and never delivered it. It was most likely completed at a later time. So I think that this theory, in which the painting was begun in 1503 and finished later, is the most plausible and it's also the one I personally believe in. When did Leonardo finish the painting? Let's assume in old age, long after he started it. Then Leonardo must have carried the painting with him throughout much of his life. If there was such a time span between the start and the completion of the painting, then we can determine that with today's modern methods. And again, modern technology has a go at the Mona Lisa. The results show that the color pigments were applied without significant interruption. Using infrared technology, historians searched for overpainted areas or corrections. The genius Leonardo made hardly a single correction from the first brushstroke to the finished piece. The only overpainting occurred on Mona Lisa's left hand. Here Leonardo corrected the gesture of her finger. Aside from that, the painting was made in one session. An unbelievable achievement by the master. According to art historian Alexander Perig, these discoveries further confound the Mona Lisa theory. The entire study confirms the absurdity of the identity of the Louvre painting or Louvre painting depicting Mona Lisa. It was determined that the painterly process was fairly continuous. He would have had to paint it in two completely separate stages, which would clearly be identified with today's methods and tools. The landscape would have had to have been new, since Vasari didn't mention one at all. The great biographer airs in another aspect as well. In describing the Mona Lisa, he talks about her eyelashes, which could be rendered only by the most delicate of brushes. On her brows, you witness them at their fullest and sparsest, and how they emerge from the pores of her skin and arch as naturally as one can only imagine. But the Mona Lisa that hangs in the Louvre today has neither eyelashes nor eyebrows. These are also not detectable using relief imaging. Vasari, one of the main attesters to the Mona Lisa theory, never saw the painting himself. Vasari didn't have any written sources. His biography is based on mere oral accounts that circulated in Florence. This means he wrote part of the history of Draconda's portrait, the Mona Lisa, based on such oral accounts that passed from person to person. He himself never saw the painting. He described what he invented. But from where does the painting in the Louvre stem? Are there two portraits, one of them lost? This new idea takes us to the amboise on the Loire, France. Leonardo died here in 1519, at the advanced age of 67. The chapel in which he was entombed is located directly next to the king's chateau. Leonardo came to Amboise by invitation of the French king Francis I. By then, the artistic genius had already achieved cult status. Leonardo lived in a manor next to the chateau called Clos Lucé. An incident occurred in this small French manor that steers the Mona Lisa investigation in an entirely new and revolutionary direction. Leonardo brought three paintings with him. The one that today is referred to as the Mona Lisa, the painting of Saint John the Baptist, and that of Saint Anne. He stayed in this manor in Clos Lucé, where he also had his studio. The chronicler Antonio de Beatis witnessed Cardinal Ludwig of Aragon's visit with Leonardo in Clos Lucé on October the 10th, 1517. He relates the three paintings he saw at the aging masters. One of the works is of a certain Florentine lady, painted from life that was made in honor of the passing of Giuliano de' Medici. Another one is of the young Saint Joan the Baptist. The third of Madonna with her child seated on Saint Anna's lap. The latter was the most perfect of them all. Today the painting of Saint Anna with Maria and baby Jesus on her lap is housed in the Louvre. So too is the painting that Beatis described of Saint John the Baptist. Is the painting that was made for Giuliano de' Medici also in the Louvre? Is it the Mona Lisa? The painting was commissioned in Rome by Giuliano de' Medici as a result of an affair he had with a woman from Urbino, Pacifica Brandani. A new name surfaces, Medici, the ruling family of Florence. This name is most associated with the Renaissance period. They were rich, scrupulous, obsessed with power and patrons of the arts. Giuliano de' Medici was one of the two brothers that lived during da Vinci's time. He was a womanizer and a squanderer. He was charismatic, had a powerful name and an influential brother. His brother lived in Rome. His name was Giovanni de' Medici and he had high aspirations. Later he became Cardinal and finally Pope. As Pope Leo X, he made history as a sensitive art patron as well as a scrupulous and powerful politician. He strengthened the clergy's power and influence over the battling Italian city-states and had a weakness for the beautiful things in life. Giuliano, his extravagant brother, arrived in Urbino where he was a guest at the Palazzo Ducale. Here he had several chambers known as the Magnificent's Quarter. Giuliano was a poet. He had been raised by his father Lorenzo who was a great writer. He wrote poetry and was interested in women. He hadn't the slightest interest in politics. Leone, his brother, was a great politician. The exact opposite. He was wrong about everything and yet his great passion was politics. He was an avid hunter. But then a politician. Giovanni de' Medici, Pope Leo X, took care of his brother Giuliano throughout his life. He also financed his extravagant lifestyle. Giuliano had countless affairs. But one of these flings had serious consequences. Urbino in the Marca region. The Palazzo Ducale looms over the town. Here the tragedy involving Giuliano de' Medici that would eventually lead to the Mona Lisa took place. The most important source is a document that is housed in the library of the University of Urbino. This document is a page in a book of foundlings. Records were found in the university library of Urbino regarding a certain Ippolito de' Medici. Ippolito would later become Cardinal but was poisoned at the age of 24. But he was born an orphan. How did he acquire the name Medici? Who were his parents? Further records document his birth, how he became an orphan and later a Medici. The name of his mother also appears. Pacifica Brandani, a young woman from Urbino. Not much is known about Pacifica Brandani. She was a guest at the Palazzo Ducale by invitation of Giuliano de' Medici. It is unclear if she offered him her labors of love, if he seduced her or as recorded by one of the documents was raped. In any case, she spent a night with Giuliano and this likely involuntarily. But how should she have opposed the rich ruler? She was plagued with severe remorse after her affair with Giuliano. Some sources state that she was married at the time. Brandani fell into a crisis that deepened when she found out that she was with child. A child out of wedlock from a brief encounter in the court of Urbino. Then she drew up a terrible plan. She confided in her friend and midwife that she didn't want the child. And that she could not take the disgrace. The midwife should kill the newborn in case Brandani dies in childbirth. Brandani did in fact die of puerperal fever. But the midwife didn't take the newborn's life. On April the 19th 1511, the night before Easter Sunday, she dropped the child off on the steps of the Santa Chiara church in Urbino. The baby wrapped in a white sheet was Giuliano's son. He had a coin on him as a token of his heritage. In the absence of a legitimate heir, Giuliano de' Medici recognized him as his son. He named him Ippolito. Giuliano left Urbino with his son Ippolito, a move to his brother the Pope in Rome. Leonardo da Vinci resided in the chambers of the Vatican, where he worked for the Medicis during this time. But commissions from the Pope were sparse. Here Giuliano must have given him the commission of which Leonardo writes in Claude Lucet. Leonardo was to paint a painting to comfort little Ippolito. He said to Leonardo, paint me a picture of a mother that I can gift to my son as an image of his mother. Paint it as you imagine it. How a portrait of a mother should look like. And Leonardo painted the painting that we call Mona Lisa today. It must have been a great challenge to paint an image of a mother for Ippolito, since he suffered a similar fate as Ippolito. He too was an illegitimate child who was recognized by his father. His mother didn't die in childbirth. She was his father's maid, and he probably used her dependency on him for labors of love, as had Giuliano with his mistress Brandani. Ippolito and Leonardo shared a similar fate, and this inspired Leonardo to paint a painting that upheld the memory of a mother. The painting should lend comfort to young Ippolito, who himself never saw his mother. He undoubtedly painted the image of a mother. He developed the portrait out of his imagination. Leonardo didn't need a model. He was an illegitimate child himself and could easily relate to the feelings of such a child. Giuliano de' Medici must have known this as Leonardo's friend. Leonardo took himself back to the time of his childhood. He was born in 1452 on a farm. His birth house still stands today. It's located in midst of an olive grove near the small Tuscan village of Vinci. The great master got his name from the small Italian village. A church with a side chapel and a baptistery stands in the center of town. Leonardo was baptized here. A memorial stone commemorates that illegitimate Leonardo was recognized as a son by his father, Piero da Vinci. It was always puzzling why Leonardo portrayed the wife of a silk merchant in dark clothing. A silk merchant is proud of his colorful fabrics. Her clothes, on the other hand, recall mourning and reverie. If Leonardo painted the image of a woman that had passed away, then the dark colors make sense. Her smile also becomes explainable, since it is directed at her own child. Giuliano de' Medici died before the painting was completed. Leonardo took it with him to France, where de Beatis saw it and took note of it in his travelogue. The painting in the Louvre is certainly not identical to the portrait that Leonardo painted of Mona Lisa, the real Mona Lisa, Lisa del Giocondo, the silk merchant's wife. But where is the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, as described by Vasari? A trace leads us to Gian Giacomo Caproti, called Salai, who is said to have had a relationship with the master. Salai was a rapscallion, but Leonardo liked him anyway. He accompanied the master through his life on many travels and was his studio assistant. Several months or weeks before Leonardo left for France in 1516, Salai returned to his hometown of Milan. On the occasion, he must have received several paintings from Leonardo, presumably incomplete works. A painting appears in his estate that is referred to as La Gioconda. Quadro dicto la Gioconda, a painting called Gioconda. This is how it appears in his estate. An incomplete work of the great Leonardo da Vinci was very valuable to Salai. Theoretically, Salai could have completed it, right? He was a painter trained by Leonardo. Many paintings are attributed to him. He could have also sold them under Leonardo's name for a lot of money. But that never happened. Salai died under mysterious circumstances just a few years after Leonardo's own death. The incomplete portrait of Lisa del Giocondo was in Salai's estate, along with Leonardo's painting, Leda and the Swan. Both of these paintings were lost. In all likelihood, it is the imaginary ideal image of a mother that hangs in the Louvre, commissioned by Giuliano de' Medici. We must say goodbye to the Mona Lisa. It is the most famous painting in the world. None other has been studied more thoroughly or more often. Now the Mona Lisa has revealed its true face. The same face was found over and over again beneath each of the coats of paint. The face with its loving gaze and its comforting smile. The image of a mother.