Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo
June 15, 1479 -- July 15, 1542
On a mid-June day in Florence in 1479, a midwife—called a levatrice for her “lifting” (levare) of a baby into the light -- gently washed the newborn daughter of Antonmaria and Lucrezia Gherardini with warm white wine and swaddled her tightly in linen. Only her pink rosebud face peeked out from her wrappings when her father took the priceless bundle in his arms.
Thirty-five-year-old Antonmaria Gherardini had great reason to exult in his daughter's birth: His first two wives had died in childbirth, a grim fate that befell one in four Florentine mothers. The new father led a high-spirited crowd of amici, parenti e vicini (friends, relatives and neighbors) from the humble converted wool shop he rented on fetid Via Sguazza across the Ponte Vecchio to the Battisero di San Giovanni (Baptistry of St. John). His exhausted wife remained at home in the care of an aptly named guardadonna (literally, lady-watcher).
Florentine Catholics baptized all newborns at the Baptistery by law until well into the twentieth century. Its octagonal shape represented eight days: the six during which God created heaven and earth and all that inhabits them, the seventh when He rested, and the eighth, the eternal day that never ends.
Antonmaria Gherardini’s newborn daughter could not enter the Baptistery’s hallowed interior with an uncleansed soul. On the entrance steps a priest exhorted any unclean spirits to flee and the Holy Spirit to come in their stead. Her godparents, bound to her almost as closely as blood relatives, pronounced the infant’s second or middle name: Camilla.
The Gherardini party entered the vast open hall, its celestial ceiling, a huge Italo-Byzantine image of Christ the King and Judge, shimmering above them. At the octagonal marble font, the priest sprinkled holy water on the infant. When asked how the child would be called, her godparents intoned her first name, “Lisa,” a tribute to Antonmaria’s mother, who had died a few years before.
In a tradition that started six years ago, Lisa's hometown celebrates her birthday with a festival. This week Via Sguazza will be decorated in art honoring "la musa rinascimentale-icona pop" (the Renaissance muse-pop icon). Everyone is invited to attend. Click here for more information on the Monnalisa Day Facebook page.
I will certainly be toasting the timeless beauty who continues to enchant us half a millenium after her birth.
Buon compleanno, Lisa!
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.
Monnalisa Day from Trattoria4Leoni on Vimeo.
Comments