Mona Lisa's direct descendant.
Mystery has always surrounded Leonardo’s La Gioconda and until
recently, little was known about the woman in the picture. Although we
now know more about her unique smile (See my September 26, 2006 post “That (slightly less) Enigmatic Smile), gaps still remain in the story.
However, recent work by scholars such as professor Giuseppe
Pallanti is helping to fill those gaps. We now know that Leonardo’s
model for the Mona Lisa was Lisa Gherardini, wife of Florentine
merchant Francesco Bartolomeo Del Giocondo. Records show that the
Gherardinis lived in a house across the street from Leonardo’s family
on via Ghibellina in Florence. Leonardo’s father, Piero Da Vinci was a
notary and there is evidence that Francesco Bartolomeo del Giocondo
sometimes hired his services in the course of his business. Finally, we
now know that Lisa Gherardini died at 63 years of age on July 15, 1542
and that she was buried in the center of Florence in what was then the
convent of St. Orsola.
On
another front, genealogist Domenico Savini yesterday claims to have
found Lisa Gherardini’s closest living descendants. They are the
princesses Natalia and Irina (pictured left) Strozzi, aged 29 and 24
respectively, whose ancestry can be traced back to the del Giocondo
family on their maternal
side. Interesting when you think of it and only a matter of time till someone does a portrait of them in that Mona Lisa pose.
Joseph Froncioni
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