Quanto mystery can it be created around a simple portrait? The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is undoubtedly the most iconic work of the world painting. According to a recent study the paintingpreserved in the Louvre Museum in Paris, could represent (in its background) the landscape of Bobbioseen from the Malaspina-Dal Verme Castle.
The studio: the Mona Lisa could be located in Bobbio
The Mona Lisa continues to be talked about. This time, however, not because of theft or attempts at vandalism, but for its detailed and mysterious background. Leonardo’s work was historically considered to be one of the first portraits of a subject placed in front of an imaginary landscape. But some recent studies have confirmed the presence of the artist a Pierfrancesco di Gropparello, near Bobbio (Piacenza). And this has already opened new questions.
The discovery of a group of scientists (led by the paleontologist Andrea Baucon of the University of Genoa and from Gerolamo Lo Russo of the Natural History Museum of Piacenza) tends to confirm one of the hypotheses that circulated with respect to the background of the painting: it could be Bobbio. Is exactly in Pierfrancesco di Gropparello Leonardo would have started his studies on fossils.
photo BlueRed / REDA & CO
The “scientific evidence”
The news brings it back Carla Gloriauthor of the scientific theory that locates Da Vinci’s landscape in Bobbio’s: according to the researcher the view should be from a window on the upper floor of the Malaspina-Dal Verme Castle And behind the Mona Lisa there would be the Ponte Gobbo and the landscape of the Val Trebbia.
The author explained: “Studies conducted on icnofossils (fossil traces of footprints of ancient living beings) which Ansa reported last month they proved that the same forms in stone were studied and reproduced by Leonardo in the Leicester Codex. I have received confirmation from paleontologists that the typical ichnofossils of Pierfrancesco are found in Bobbio, easily reachable from Leonardo on a humpback ». In recent months, in fact, Carla Glori had published an article on her own mural drawings of the Malaspina-Dal Verme castle dedicated to the jouster Galeazzo Sanseverino, patron and friend of Leonardo.
And he concluded: «I had written in 2011 that that territory was of great geological interest to Leonardo, but the recent discovery published by Rips, a world-class journal specializing in geology, has absolute scientific value. Scientific evidence converges in locating Leonardo in the Mona Lisa landscape. For the rest I trust in Leonardo’s sentence: The truth alone was the child of time“.
If so, the Mona Lisa might not be Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo, but rather Bianca Giovanna Sforzalegitimate eldest daughter of Ludovico il Moro, mistress of Bobbio and Voghera.
The Mona Lisa (Mona Lisa). (Handle)
A work, an icon
The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1503/1504. The studies conducted in recent years consider that the subject of the work is Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo (hence the name “la Gioconda”). A confirmation of this theory also came from the writings of the Italian art historian Giorgio Vasari: «He took Lionardo to do for Francesco del Giocondo the portrait of Mona Lisa his wifeand four years before he left it imperfect, which work today is under the control of King Francis of France in Fontainebleau ».
There each other of the opera was undoubtedly troubled. Leonardo Da Vinci took it with him to France in 1516. A little more than a century later, in fact, the painting was among the works of the French royal collections. Louis XIV transferred it to Versailles and, after the French Revolution, he arrived at the Louvre where he remained, except for a few exceptions: Napoleon Bonaparte wanted it for a while in his bedroom and, during the Franco-Prussian War, it was hidden in a secret place.
The theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911
But the Mona Lisa’s hardest moment came in night between 20 and 21 August 1911when the painting was stolen from a former employee of the Louvre, Vincenzo Peruggia: convinced that the painting belonged to Italy, he decided to steal it and keep it for twenty-eight months in a small hotel in Paris. And then, he took it with him to his country of originin Luino (in the province of Varese), e he tried to resell it in Florence in 1913. There, a famous antiquarian and the then director of the Uffizi immediately realized that it was the original and contacted the police. Peruggia was arrested and tried.
The painting was then exhibited around Italy: come on Uffizi in Florence at the French embassy of Palazzo Farnese in Rome. From Borghese Gallery at the Brera ‘s picture gallery, in Milan. After these exhibitions, the Mona Lisa returned – complete with national celebrations – to the Louvre. Waiting for her were the French government and the President of the Republic Raymond Poincaré.
iO Donna © REPRODUCTION RESERVED