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In the opening scene of [
68 Scorpion, Part One], which presents the Holoscenario of Leonardo's workshop as it was in 1502, a preliminary drawing of the Mona Lisa ("Mona" is the common Renaissance word being short for "Madonna") is seen on the bench. The Mona Lisa (a.k.a. La Gioconda) has become Leonardo's most famous painting. The actual painting of the Mona Lisa is seen in [74 The Raven], though not finished as Leonardo never completed it although as seen today it gives the impression of being finished. It is a blooper in [74 The Raven] that the painting seen does not have the original two sides to it, which were cut off later - information about that is given below.
 [ 68 Scorpion, Part One] |
 [ 74 The Raven] |
[68 Scorpion, Part One]
[74 The Raven]
| In [74 The Raven] scene, for instance in the screenshot above, located to the left of the Mona Lisa is another famous painting by Leonardo called "The Virgin And Child With St Anne". |
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According to Vasari, it is a portrait of Mona (or Monna, short for Madonna) Lisa, who was born in Florence in 1479 and in 1495 married the Marquese del Giocondo, a Florentine citizen of great standing (whose full name was Francesco di Bartolommeo di Zanobi del Giocondo). She was his third wife. Her full name was Lisa di Antonio Maria di Noldo Gherardini. That accounts for the painting's other name, "La Gioconda". This identification, however, has sometimes been questioned (see below). The portrait was commissioned by Mona Lisa's husband to commemorate the birth of their second son as well as their move to a new home.
Originally the painting was larger than today, because two columns, one on the left the other one on the right side of Mona Lisa, have been cut. That is why it is not easy to recognise that Mona Lisa is sitting on a terrace. Many details are not visible today as they are partially damaged and some parts of Mona Lisa were painted over.
the painting is oil on wood panel (poplar wood), measures 77 x 53 cm, and is located at the Louvre Museum in Paris
Leonardo took the picture with him from Florence to Milan, and later to France. It must have been this portrait which was seen at Cloux, near Amboise, on 10th October 1517 by the Cardinal of Aragon and his secretary, Antonio de Beatis. Beatis claimed that the portrait had been painted at the wish of Giuliano de Medici. Historians, rather than disbelieve him, have attempted to solve this problem by suggesting that Monna del Giocondo had been Giuliano's mistress.
Vasari relates that Leonardo worked on it for four years without being able to finish it, although the picture gives the impression of being completely realised. Suggested dates vary between 1503 and 1513 but 1503-05 are the most commonly accepted. Leonardo did not hand over the painting to the Marquese, perhaps because it was unfinished or because he was too fond of it (see below). After the four years of particular work on the painting, he continued to work sporadically on it well after that.
The painting's fame began in its own time. From the beginning, the painting was greatly admired and much copied, and it came to be considered the prototype of the Renaissance portrait. The "Mona Lisa" demonstrates Leonardo's style of painting which he termed "sfumato" (a smoky effect giving rise to soft, heavily-shaded modelling) transcended convention of the time, as did the sitter's angle which is termed contrapposto, and the bird's-eye view of the background. The woman is dressed in the Florentine fashion of her day, and is seated in a mountainous landscape. The Mona Lisa's enigmatic expression, which seems both alluring and aloof, and her hypnotic smile, have, along with the inordinate amount of media attention the painting has received, given the portrait universal fame - it is famous for being famous. The "Mona Lisa" was one of only three paintings which Leonardo took with him to his final residence at Clos Lucé in France toward the end of his life, and part of its original fame may have been that it could have been Leonardo's favourite work. It was assigned a large monetary valuation in the will of his apprentice Salai.
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The painting was acquired by the French King Francis I (also known as François I) from Leonardo himself. He had invited Leonardo to France and employed him on generous terms, and tradition has it that he was present at Leonardo's death with the dying Maestro's head cradled in his arms. Or it is possible that Francis I acquired the painting after Leonardo's death in 1519, from the will's executor Melzi. The King displayed the "Mona Lisa" at his castle in Amboise.
Left: Francis I, born 1494, ruled 1515 to his death in 1547, deemed France's first Renaissance monarch |
It is recorded as being at Fontainebleau by Vasari (1550), Lomazzo (1590), Peiresc, and Cassiano del Pozzo (1625). The latter relates that when the Duke of Buckingham came to the French court to seek the hand of Henrietta of France for Charles I the English King, he made it known that the King was most anxious to own this painting but that the courtiers of King Louis XIII prevented him from parting with the picture.
 Napoleon Bonaparte | From the collection of Ludwig XIV, after the French Revolution of 1793, the "Mona Lisa" eventually ended up in the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte who had the Mona Lisa in his room in the Tuileries. It was put on exhibition in the Musée Napoléon in 1804. After the English defeated France in the Napoleonic Wars and permanently exiled Napoleon to the island of Elba in 1815, the conquerors chose not to loot the country which meant that it was possible for the priceless and coveted painting to be put on public display at the Louvre Museum in Paris. |
The "Mona Lisa" was stolen on 21st August 1911 by an Italian workman named Vicenzo Perrugia. In 1913 it was found in Florence, exhibited at the Uffizi there, then in Rome and Milan, and eventually was returned to Paris on 31st December in the same year.
An attempt to vandalise the "Mona Lisa" in 1956 damaged the lower half of the painting, and restoration took several years. In the 1960s and 1970s, the "Mona Lisa" was exhibited in New York, Tokyo and Moscow. Nowadays the internationally famous painting (which has also been the subject of parody by Dada artists and on television in, say, "Monty Python's Flying Circus") attracts huge numbers of visitors to the Louvre where it is of necessity displayed behind bullet-proof glass. There are international restrictions which prohibit it from being taken travelling.
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