Who is the mona lisa?

Question

Who was she really and why did Da Vinci make it so his face matches up with her exactly? It doesn't seem like that would be something someone of his abilities would accidentally do.

Answer 1

So many theories and assumptions about the real Mona Lisa has been flying around for many years. I believe the Mona Lisa could have started as a portrait commision of some Dutchess or wife of weathy florentine businessman but eventually became a "self-project" which took Leaonado 4 years to finish. In the end, what started as a portrait of someone else evolved to be Da Vinci's portrait of Maria Magdalena. Leonardo have always wanted to paint a portrait of the most controversial woman in the Bible, and since Art in those days revolved around the depiction of scenes from the Bible, Leonardo set himself to paint Magdalena but because of his fear that such portrait would provoke controversy and put him in hot water, he called this painting "Mona Lisa" and not as she truly is:"Magdalena". Period.

Answer 2

Vasari identified the subject to be the wife of socially prominent Francesco del Giocondo. It is known that del Giocondo, a wealthy silk merchant of Florence and a prominent government figure, lived. Until recently, little was known about his wife, Lisa Gherardini, except that she was born in 1479 and raised at the family's Villa Vignamaggio in Tuscany, and that she married del Giocondo in 1495.

However in 2004 the Italian scholar Giuseppe Pallanti published Monna Lisa, Mulier Ingenua (literally '"Mona Lisa: Real Woman", published in English under the title Mona Lisa Revealed: The True Identity of Leonardo's Model[3]). The book gathered archival evidence in support of the traditional identification of the model as Lisa Gherardini. According to Pallanti the evidence suggests that Leonardo's father was a friend of Lisa's husband. "The portrait of Mona Lisa, done when Lisa Gherardini was aged about 24, was probably commissioned by Leonardo's father himself for his friends as he is known to have done on at least one other occasion."[4] Pallanti discovered that Lisa and Francesco had five children and that she outlived her husband. She lived at least into her 60s, though no record of her death was located. Most scholars now agree that she was indeed the model

Answer 3

The title Mona Lisa stems from the Giorgio Vasari biography of Leonardo da Vinci, published 31 years after Leonardo's death. In it, he identified the sitter as Lisa, the wife of wealthy Florentine businessman Francesco del Giocondo. "Mona" is a common Italian contraction of "madonna," meaning "my lady," the equivalent of the English "Madam," so the title means "Madam Lisa."

Answer 4

No one is sure of who exactly she is. There are many theories. it was possible that she could have been one of the following; Mona Lisa del Giocondo, Duchess Costanza d'Avalos, Marchessa Isabella d'Este, Pacifica Brandano or Signora Gualanda. Even the Mona Lisa's keepers at The Lovre are uncertain. Vasari said that it was Mona Lisa del Giocondo but it is unlikely that he ever actually saw the painting. As for her looking like Leonardo, well she does a little but so do other works of his. The Vitruvian man looks a little like him as does St John. She could be a self portrait of him in the sense that she represents a portrayal of his idea of painting. She can be thought of as a mirror image to the artist as the viewer looks at her face as Leonardo himself once did. Leonardo himself said, 'That face which in painting gazed at the master who paints it, is always looking back at all those who gaze at it'. It is the unspoken conversation between her and her creator and later her and us as the viewers.

Answer 5

You should read Vasari's "Life's".He identified Mona Lisa,but the rest of the story is a pure mythology.

Answer 6

No one knowas for sure who she was. There are many theoerys around there. And yeah they do have similarites-how knows may be he did do it on purpose.

Answer 7

That's why there is a smirk on her face. It's him in drag.