Almost five centuries after her death, Mona Lisa Gherardini continues to make news. The following article appeared in the New York Post on July 26:
by Larry Getlen
In 1516, when he was 64 years old, Leonardo da Vinci found himself at a crossroads. His patron, Giuliano de’ Medici, the brother of Pope Leo X, had just died and new commissions were not forthcoming in his home country. The French, however, couldn’t sing his praises loudly enough.
So he packed up all his possessions for the three-month journey to Amboise, France, and a train of mules hauled his “books, scientific instruments, clothes,” and his most cherished work-in-progress, the painting that would later be known as the “Mona Lisa.” That lengthy journey would be just the first for the iconic work, which would eventually see a life of travel and majesty far surpassing the life of its subject, Lisa Gherardini.
In her new history, MONA LISA, veteran journalist Dianne Hales shares with us the tumultuous lives of both Gherardini and the artist who immortalized her, and brings us along on the travels of a work of art for which love and esteem have increased markedly over the centuries.
The woman known to us as Mona Lisa was most likely a Florentine housewife and mother of six. (“Monna,” with two n’s, is a title of respect in Italian meaning “Madame.”) Born in 1479, she was married off at 15 to a silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo who was “just shy of 30, a fairly typical [age] difference for an upper-class union.” (In Italy, the painting is known as “La Gioconda,” after her married name.)
There is no information on how Leonardo came to paint the Florentine housewife, but we do know that the artist’s household was just “steps” away from the home of Gherardini’s grandparents, and that da Vinci’s father did business with her husband. We also know that the painting was underway by 1503, at which point Gherardini was a 24-year-old mother of five.
By then, Leonardo’s reputation as a genius was widespread, but he could also be seen as something of a flake. His head would be so entwined with mathematical and scientific concepts that the everyday world — including commissions he had already accepted — sometimes went by the wayside. But by immersing himself in these concepts, da Vinci was giving himself the ultimate artist’s education.
“Leonardo’s entire career had led him to this point — and this portrait,” writes Hales. “Through years of advanced mathematical calculations, he had worked out the perfect proportions for a human head. In experiments with optics, he had observed a pupil’s response to the play of light and shadow.”
Leonardo was so committed to artistic advancement through science that he even took to frequenting the local morgue, filled with “dead men, dismembered and flayed and terrible to behold,” so that he could sketch the corpses in order to learn the intricacies of human anatomy.
“By dissecting cadavers,” Hales writes, “he had isolated the muscles that curve a finger or draw the lips into a smile. All that 16th century science could offer would sharpen his eye and guide his hand.” (He would do this throughout his career, only stopping when Pope Leo X himself demanded he do so after learning that Leonardo had skinned three corpses.)
Hales makes clear that when Leonardo painted Gherardini, he was attempting something the art world had never seen before. Click here for the complete article.
Dianne Hales is the author of MONA LISA: A Life Discovered and LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.
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