(The Mona Lisa mystery) from Picasso’s problem to countless assassinations

The Mona Lisa’s smile has fascinated mankind for centuries. When jazz singer Nat King Cole sang about her as the “Lady with the Mysterious Smile” and brought her to the top of the US charts in 1950, she was already around 500 years old. Her creator, the universal genius Leonardo da Vinci, is said to have worked on her portrait for four years before it came into the possession of a powerful king. The secret of her smile has increased her value astronomically, to an incredible 600 million euros!

Mona Lisa has resided in the Louvre in Paris, once a royal palace on the Seine, for over 200 years. According to reports, Napoleon even took the painting into his bedroom. Her temporary disappearance triggered a political crisis between France and Italy. Mona Lisa was always an object of desire for the powerful, from dictator Adolf Hitler to US President John F. Kennedy. In the 20th century, she survived a two-year kidnapping, an acid attack and even a stoning, which contributed to her fame as a femme fatale.

The painting, only 77 centimetres high and 53 centimetres wide, is full of secrets and has fascinated many people, including the painting genius Pablo Picasso. Who was this mysterious woman, whom Leonardo da Vinci himself called “La Gioconda”, the Cheerful One? StorySculptress sheds light on the four greatest mysteries of the Mona Lisa.

Florence, around the year 1503: In a hidden monastery studio in the heart of the city, the Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) devotes four years to a painting. Allegedly, Lisa, the third wife of the silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, served as his model. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. Over the years, seven other plausible theories have emerged about the background of the Mona Lisa. Some historians even speculate: “When Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, he was possibly portraying a deceased woman.”

Together with the German historian Horst Bredekamp, Zapperi is convinced that the painting may depict Pacifica Brandani, the prematurely deceased lover of Giuliano II de’ Medici, a member of the powerful Florentine Medici dynasty and brother of the Pope. She died in childbirth during the birth of Giuliano’s illegitimate son Ippolito. Giuliano is said to have commissioned the portrait after Pacifica’s death in order to comfort his motherless son. Bredekamp explains: “Giuliano de’ Medici did not have a portrait of his deceased mistress, so her portrait was created from memory. That is why it appears like this.”

Another theory is that the portrait shows Leonardo da Vinci’s pupil and lover Andrea Salaino, known as “mon Salai”. One clue to this is a classic anagram: the nickname contains the same letters as “Mona Lisa”.

Although Leonardo da Vinci did not sign the painting, he is said to have hidden a code in the eyes: an “L” for Leonardo and an “S” for his pupil Salai.

Bild: Leonardo da Vinci

Why is the Mona Lisa an object of desire for kings, dictators and powerful people?
Leonardo da Vinci only parted with the Mona Lisa towards the end of his life. Before that, he repeatedly found excuses not to complete the commissioned work. The painting accompanied him on his travels to Rome, Milan and St. Cloud. Along the way, several rulers saw it and it aroused their greed. But Leonardo refused every offer to buy it, which only increased their desire. Shortly before his death, the French King Francis I purchased the precious portrait for 4,000 pieces of gold and is said to have hung it in the bathroom of his Amboise castle. Later, the Mona Lisa served as a piece of jewelry for the Sun King Louis XIV and Napoleon Bonaparte. Even Adolf Hitler is said to have been interested in the painting for a planned museum in Linz. However, when the Wehrmacht invaded Paris and confiscated many works of art, the Mona Lisa was already safely stowed away in the Loc-Dieu Abbey near Villefranche-de-Rouergue in the Midi. The German occupying forces allegedly knew the whereabouts of the famous painting, but did not seize it. It only returned to the Louvre after the liberation of Paris, but further attacks were to follow.

In 1961, American President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline visited Paris. To the astonishment of the Louvre staff, Jackie persuaded France’s head of state Charles de Gaulle to exhibit the Mona Lisa in the USA. A catastrophe almost occurred there in 1963: The sprinkler system in the painting’s storage room at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art was accidentally triggered, and water poured over the painting for an entire night. The next morning, museum director Thomas Hoving found employees frantically wiping the painting with towels. Fortunately, the painting was protected by a thick glass panel.

Why is the Mona Lisa repeatedly the victim of attacks?
Not only admirers are fascinated by the beauty with the enigmatic look. Some people also react to the painting with mysterious aggression. Psychologists believe that some people feel provoked by the Mona Lisa because they feel haunted by her eyes. The English essayist Walter Horatio Pater analyzed: “The Mona Lisa is a beauty into which the human soul has entered with all its maladies — the sensuality of Greece, the lust of Rome, the mysticism of the Middle Ages, the return of the pagan world and the sins of Borgia.

On December 30, 1956, Bolivian tourist Ugo Villegas looked at the Mona Lisa for hours. He was puzzled by the fact that the left side of her face appeared dark and gloomy, while the right side was smiling and bright. Confused, he finally threw a stone at the painting, which shattered the protective glass panel. In addition, the paint layer on the left elbow was destroyed down to the primer. Shortly before, in the same year, there had already been an acid attack on the Mona Lisa.

The most recent attack took place in Japan in 1973, during an exhibition of the Mona Lisa. Shortly after the opening of the exhibition, a 25-year-old woman sprayed red paint on the painting. Fortunately, the Mona Lisa was already safely inside a triple-glazed shrine at the time.

Who kidnapped the Mona Lisa and what role did the painter Pablo Picasso play?

Bild: Pablo Picasso

On August 21, 1911, the Mona Lisa disappeared from the Louvre. The thief, an Italian migrant worker named Vincenzo Peruggia, who was responsible for framing and unframing paintings, knew his way around the museum. The night before, he had hidden in a cupboard in the museum. Early in the morning at seven o’clock, he sneaked through the hidden corridors of the staff to the painting. It only took him a few seconds to remove the Mona Lisa from the gold frame with a chisel. He smuggled the famous painting out of the building under a smock and fled in a cab to his nearby accommodation on the Ile de la Cité. There, Peruggia deposited the painting in a hidden hole in the wall. When the theft was discovered, large commemorative ceremonies were held in the city’s churches. The manning of the guards was criticized and the museum director was dismissed. The scandal caused more of a stir than the sinking of the “Titanic” and the great earthquake in Messina in 1908. The poet and sculpture thief Guillaume Apollinaire was arrested and accused Pablo Picasso, who was then also interrogated. Large rewards were offered for the recovery of the painting, but Peruggia had no intention of returning the stolen property.

Instead, two years later, he tried to sell the Mona Lisa to the art trade in Italy. His asking price was 500,000 lire to cover his expenses. However, Peruggia was caught during the handover and spent seven months in prison as a result. But the scandal was not over yet. Nationalist Italians were now reluctant to return the painting to France, which led to a political crisis. Diplomats agreed on a compromise: the Mona Lisa was exhibited in Florence, Rome and Milan before finally returning to Paris with a grand state ceremony. After that, the work of art was more famous than ever. To this day, the rumor persists that Peruggia acted on behalf of an Argentinian businessman to sell six copies of the Mona Lisa to various wealthy Americans as alleged originals after the theft.

The Louvre is sure to have the original back in its possession. This unique smile only exists once in the world.