Mona Lisa
There are many hypotheses and no certainty about who would have been the real owner of that famous and enigmatic half smile – if she really existed. The most widespread version holds that a wealthy citizen of Florence, Francesco Del Giocondo, would have commissioned Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) to paint a portrait of his wife, Lisa di Antonio Maria Gherardini, in 1503. It is possible that the face of Mona Lisa be the same as that of Del Giocondo’s wife, which would explain the other name given to the painting: Gioconda. A slightly different story is also told: “Mrs. Gherardini would have been the great love of Giuliano de Medici (1479-1516), brother of Pope Leo X. The fact that she was married made such love impossible, but, according to this legend, the painting would have been commissioned by Giuliano and not by her husband”, says art historian Daisy Peccinini, from USP. There is also a third theory, according to which the Mona Lisa is actually a self-portrait of the painter as a young man.
A detail that makes this whole story even more intriguing is the similarity between Gioconda and Our Lady portrayed in Sant’Ana, the Virgin and Child (1508-1510), a later work, which was Da Vinci’s favorite. Which leads us to believe that he could have been inspired by Madame Gherardini to later create his own image of beauty from his most famous muse.