"Mona Lisa unmasked..." Topic

Interesting article. Mystery solved at last, or until someone else comes along to dispute the margin notes' authenticity!

Yes, thanks for that link.

Of course, then there's the view that the Mona Lisa is in fact a self portrait …

unmuseum.org/leocode.htm

A self portrait??????

Leonardo da Vinci was a drag queen?

I hadn't heard that before.

What mystery? La Gioconda was in fact Signora del Giocondo--who would have suspected.

That's like talking about the "mystery" of who wrote Shakespeare--all the evidence points to Shakespeare, and conspiracy theorists argue circularly from lack of evidence for their own preferred candidates.

Mulopwepaul, as the article noted, until now there were no references to the work until a generation later, when Vesari said it was a portrait of Signora del Giocondo. Likewise, there was no evidence (and for that matter, still isn't) that the picture was ever referred to as "La Gioconda" by da Vinci or anyone else when it was first painted. Thus, the reference to the painting as "La Gioconda" could have come from Vasari's assertion that she was the subject for the portrait.

I think most people have long accepted the Signora del Giocondo theory – but it is nice to have stronger contemporary evidence.

Now, about the theory that Signora del Giocondo wrote Shakespeare's plays…

"A self portrait??????

Leonardo da Vinci was a drag queen?

I hadn't heard that before."

About 20 years ago another bunch of techs used some sort of digital/x-ray/unveling thingee to digitally remove the layers of paint on the canvass. When they got it down to the bare canvas, what they found underneath was a pencil drawing of the artist himself.
Along with all the rumours about the artist never spending his spare time in the company of women, and always being around men, it led people to believe that the Mona Lisa was in fact a self portrait, of a type.

We will never know the truth.

Exactly.

It also often happened with parchment.

Shakespeare's plays weren't written by Shakespeare, but by another dramatist of the same name.