Mona Lisa's True Identity Revealed

Until very recently, there was very little historical documentation to verify the true identity of the lady portrayed in Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. There was speculation that she was a mistress of Leonardo or his mother, or that da Vinci's assistant, Andrea Salai, had posed for the sitting. Some asserted that Leonardo had used himself as a model.

Based on the writings of Georgio Vasari some fifty years after Leonardo, it was generally believed that the sitter was most likely the wife of a wealthy merchant of Florence, Franchesco del Giocondo. Her name was Lisa Gherardini. However, there was no additional corroborating evidence to back up Vasari's claim, and many thought Vasari to be an unreliable or at best, amateur art historian.

Research, cited in 2004, into land titles and marriage records by Guiseppe Pallanti of Florence has established that Leonardo's father, who was a legal notary, had Franchesco del Giocondo as a client which shows that the families were well acquainted.

And now a discovery at the Heidleberg University Library in Germany by Dr. Armin Schlechter has definitively settled the question of Mona Lisa's identity. Closely examining manuscripts once owned by a city official of Florence who knew da Vinci, Dr. Schlechter found notes written in the margins. The manuscripts were copies of the Roman era writings of Cicero, in which he describes the works of the classic Greek artist, Apelles.

The Florentine official's remarks compare Leonardo to Apelles, and make mention of the fact that Leonardo was at that time working on three paintings, one of which was a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. These notes, written by Agostino Vespucci, at approximately the same time (dated October of 1503 ) that Leonardo was working on the portrait, are the earliest mention of the painting and the person of it's subject.

German scholars and art historians who have examined the evidence first-hand have concluded that the Vespucci notes have definitively revealed the Mona
Lisa's true identity as indeed being Lisa Gherardini, also known as Lisa del Giocondo. It is interesting to note that the painting is referred to in continental
Europe as "la Gioconda", which in Italian means the "happy" or "joyful" woman, perhaps suggesting a reference to her actual name. The title of "Mona Lisa", common in English-speaking countries, derives from a contraction of "Madonna" to "Mona".

Lisa Gherardini is described by Vasari and others as having been a beautiful young lady of rosy countenance, which, from the current dark and yellowed state of the original, seems somewhat dubious. Despite the renowned enigmatic smile, the image in the painting today seems somewhat sallow and austere. The image posted with this article is a digital restoration by the author to the original "rosy and pearly hues" as the Mona Lisa was originally painted by da Vinci. For a more comprehensive article on the digital restoration, please click on this link.

Resources

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/09/27/mona.lisa/index.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080115-AP-monalisa.html
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/mona-lisas-identity-solved-for-good/?hp