{"id":6110,"date":"2018-07-15T18:19:30","date_gmt":"2018-07-15T16:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tornabuoni1.com\/?p=6110"},"modified":"2018-07-19T10:57:55","modified_gmt":"2018-07-19T08:57:55","slug":"meet_monalisa_walking_tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tornabuoni1.com\/en\/2018\/07\/15\/meet_monalisa_walking_tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the real Mona Lisa, born and raised in Florence"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Mona Lisa, La Gioconda<\/a><\/em> from Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s masterpiece, was a real person. And we’re not talking about a self-portrait of the artist, as you may think. Mona Lisa was a real Florentine woman, born and raised in Florence under the name of Lisa Gherardini. To learn all the details of this amazing story, we spoke to the author of the book Mona Lisa, A Life Discovered<\/a><\/em>, Dianne Hales, who gave us this exclusive interview \u2013 and also prepared a walking tour so you can follow Mona Lisa\u2019s steps in Florence.<\/p>\n

1- How did you become interested in Italy and, more specifically, Mona Lisa?
\n<\/strong>Years ago I came to Switzerland to give a talk and, on an impulse, decided to take a train to Italy. The only Italian I knew was, \u201cMi dispiace. Non parlo l\u2019italiano.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0I was enchanted by everything I saw, but I really wanted to communicate with the Italians who were chattering all around me. Back in the United States, I began studying Italian. My husband and I began coming to Italy every year on vacation, and as we made Italian friends, I kept working harder to become fluent.<\/p>\n

My linguistic infatuation eventually inspired a book: La Bella Lingua, My Love Affair with Italian, the World\u2019s Most Enchanting Language<\/em>. Through Italian friends and friends of friends, I became intrigued by the real woman immortalized by Leonardo in his Mona Lisa.<\/em> Over the course of several years I walked the streets in Florence where she lived, knelt in the chapel where she prayed, ventured into the long-abandoned convent where she died\u2014and wrote Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered. <\/em><\/p>\n

2- Almost nobody knows that Mona Lisa\u00a0<\/strong>really<\/strong>\u00a0existed and even less that she lived in Florence. For most people, Mona Lisa is a self-portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci. What led you to go in another direction?
\n<\/strong>When I was in Florence researching\u00a0La Bella Lingua<\/em>, I read newspaper reports about the discovery of archival documents from the family of Lisa Gherardini, the real woman in\u00a0La Gioconda<\/em>\u00a0(the\u00a0Mona Lisa<\/em>).\u00a0 Through a family friend, I met the researcher, Giuseppe Pallanti, who shared his findings and gave me a map of the city and marked with X\u2019s the places where Lisa had lived.\u00a0 \u00a0During extended stays in Florence, I traced Mona Lisa\u2019s life by visiting the palazzi<\/em> she lived in as a child, teenager, and merchant\u2019s wife, the churches where she worshipped, the convents where her daughters\u2014and Lisa herself, in her final years\u2014 lived.<\/p>\n

The consensus among art historians is that Lisa Gherardini was indeed Leonardo\u2019s muse and model. Art historian Giorgio Vasari identified her as Leonardo\u2019s subject in his \u201cLives of the Artists,\u201d published when Lisa\u2019s sons and some of Leonardo\u2019s contemporaries were still alive and could have challenged any misidentification. Speculation about other possible models has run rampant over the centuries, but in 2006 an archivist discovered a margin note in a book that commented on Leonardo\u2019s working on her portrait and was dated as \u201cOctober 1502.\u201d \u00a0Everything about this identification has held up to intense scrutiny.<\/p>\n

3- What were your main findings regarding Mona Lisa? What surprised you the most?<\/strong><\/p>\n

With a crinkled map in hand, I traced Mona Lisa\u2019s life literally step by step, beginning in the dark, dank alley where she was born in 1479. I followed the route she would have taken as a bride in 1495 to her husband\u2019s family home. I returned often to the street where she gave birth to six children and to the church where she worshipped. I sadly beheld the dilapidated former convent where Mona Lisa died and was buried at age 63 in 1542.<\/p>\n

But the most surprising revelations concerned the lives of Renaissance women\u2014from childhood to adolescence (when most entered arranged marriages) to their daily lives as wives and mothers. \u00a0Florentine women were not \u201cliberated\u201d in our sense of the word, but they were strong. They not only held up half the sky but served as the glue that held all aspects of Florentine society together. The woman whom Leonardo immortalized was no victim but a fully dimensional, confident, intelligent, intriguing, flesh-and-blood woman.<\/p>\n

It was also a complete delight to meet the Princesses Natalia and Irina Guicciardini Strozzi, the fifteenth generation of Mona Lisa\u2019s grandchildren (on their father\u2019s side), who also are descended from some of Florence\u2019s most prominent noble families. I saw some resemblance,\u00a0both around the eyes and in the curve of their jawline. However, what impressed me most were their spirit and personalities.
\nNatalia, a ballerina-turned-actress, is more extroverted and bubbly; her younger sister Irina, more reserved. But both exude such graciousness, warmth, and charm that I had to wonder \u2013\u00a0 although we can never know \u2013 Mona Lisa might have shared their ebullience. Both of the Strozzi princesses have huge, megawatt smiles\u2014the opposite of Mona Lisa\u2019s subtle grin. But their regal father, Principe Girolamo Guicciardini Strozzi, does indeed smile like\u00a0La Gioconda<\/em>. I know: I saw it when I presented him with a copy of my book on his renowned ancestress.<\/p>\n

4- And what news can we expect regarding your work? Is there a new book on the way?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve just completed the manuscript for LA PASSIONE<\/em>: How Italy Seduced the World<\/em>, which will be published in April, 2019, by Crown, a division of Penguin Random House. I see it as a\u00a0\u00a0 jubilant combination of history, travel reporting, memoir, and love letter to Italy \u2013 a culture, rather than a mere country, that has transformed art and architecture, language and music, food and fashion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now that you know a little bit more about who was the Mona Lisa, Diane Halles invites you to travel back in time to the city where Lisa Gherardini grew up, married, had children, inspired a genius and survived some of the most tumultuous decades in Florence\u2019s history. Enjoy experiencing Florence in an entirely new way: through Mona Lisa\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

MONA LISA Walking Tour<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"monalisa<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Via Sguazza
    \n<\/strong>Although the Gherardini once ranked among the most powerful of Tuscan clans, by the fifteenth century, Lisa\u2019s family had lost its wealth and prestige.\u00a0 The best house her father Antonmaria Gherardini could afford to rent was a converted wool shop on a narrow lane in the Oltrarno.\u00a0 A plaque and sculptural relief of Lisa Gherardini marks her birth place close to the lane\u2019s intersection with Via Maggio.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. Battistero di San Giovanni<\/a> (Baptistery of St. John)
      \n<\/strong>Antonmaria Gherardini, whose first two wives died in childbirth, welcomed his first daughter into the world on June 15, 1479. Carried through Ghiberti\u2019s gleaming doors, Lisa was baptized under the celestial gold-painted ceiling, covered with glass mosaics to form a huge image of Christ the King and Judge.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
      1. Via de\u2019 Pepi
        \n<\/strong>In 1494, Lisa\u2019s maternal grandparents arranged for her family to move into the palazzo of a rich widower who lived around the corner from their Via Ghibellina home on Via de\u2019 Buonfanti (now Via de\u2019 Pepi). Here, in March, 1495, in a strictly civil ceremony, 15-year-old Lisa exchanged wedding vows with 29-year-old Francesco del Giocondo.\u00a0 a wealthy merchant and widower.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
          \n
        1. Via della Stufa
          \n<\/strong>The newlyweds\u00a0\u00a0 took up residence in the del Giocondo family home on Via della Stufa, off the Piazza San Lorenzo.\u00a0\u00a0 Eventually Francesco bought a house (believed to be #23) adjacent to his childhood home for his growing family. Lisa gave birth to six children \u2013 three boys and three girls \u2013 but two did not survive childhood.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
            \n
          1. Palazzo Davanzati<\/a>
            \n<\/strong>To get a sense for the interior of a merchant\u2019s home, I recommend Palazzo Davanzati, now the Museo della Casa Fiorentina Antica (Museum of the Antique Florentine House), which provides a vivid sense of Firenze com\u2019era <\/em>(Florence as it was).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
              \n
            1. Santissima Annunziata<\/a>
              \n<\/strong>Leonardo took up residence in this compound in 1500 after fleeing a French invasion of Milan. Leonardo\u2019s father, who handled the church\u2019s commercial enterprises, may have introduced his acclaimed son to Francesco del Giocondo, who provided linens and occasional loans to the friars. Francesco later acquired a family crypt in the \u201cmartyrs\u2019 chapel,\u201d just right of center behind the main altar.\u00a0 During one visit, I knelt in the confessional where Mona Lisa may have prayed.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
                \n
              1. San Domenico di Cafaggio (now the Centro Militare di Medicina Legale<\/a>)
                \n<\/strong>As many as half of the daughters of Florentine families who could not afford dowries ended up in nunneries–including two of Lisa\u2019s younger sisters, who took vows\u00a0 in\u00a0 this convent.\u00a0\u00a0 Francesco and Lisa del Giocondo placed their ldest daughter in this cloister at age 12. She died, perhaps of plague or another infectious illness, at age 19.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
                  \n
                1. Officina Profuma-farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella<\/a>
                  \n<\/strong>A ledger documents that Mona Lisa once purchased a vial of distilled \u201csnail water\u201d (acqua di chiocciole),<\/em> used as both a cosmetic and a treatment for bronchial and digestive woes, from a convent apothecary much like this one. Established in the thirteenth century, this beautiful shop prepares a range of products according to formulas developed in Mona Lisa\u2019s time. The enticing scents are reason enough to visit!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
                    \n
                  1. Sant\u2019Orsola
                    \n<\/strong>Just a short block from the del Giocondo home on Via della Stufa, Sant\u2019Orsola was once an exclusive nunnery for daughters of Florence\u2019s elite. Mona Lisa\u2019s youngest daughter entered this convent as a teenager and took her final vows at age 22. After her husband\u2019s death in 1538, Mona Lisa moved to Sant\u2019Orsola, which provided room and board for widows, and chose to be buried there upon her death in 1542.
                    \nToday the bleak walls of the hulking urban ruin are blotched with graffiti, peeling posters and bricked-up windows.\u00a0 However, developers are promising to restore its fa\u00e7ade and resurrect the complex, perhaps as a music school, along with a restaurant, parking garage, bookstore \u2013 and a museum dedicated to Lisa Gherardini.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
                      \n
                    1. Uffizi Gallery<\/a>
                      \n<\/strong>Here you can find Leonardo\u2019s Annunciatio<\/em>n and the <\/span>Adoration of the Magi<\/em>, along with Verrocchio\u2019s <\/span>Baptism of Christ<\/em>, which includes an angel by Leonardo.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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                      [vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Mona Lisa, La Gioconda from Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s masterpiece, was a real person. And we’re not talking about a self-portrait of the artist, as you may think. Mona Lisa was a real Florentine woman, born and raised in Florence under the name of Lisa Gherardini. To learn all the details of this amazing story, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[290,292,142,154,291,293,289],"class_list":["post-6110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-a-life-discovered","tag-dianne-hales","tag-firenze","tag-florence","tag-la-gioconda","tag-leonardo-da-vinci","tag-monalisa"],"yoast_head":"\nMeet the real Mona Lisa, born and raised in Florence and follow her steps in a walking tour<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mona Lisa, La Gioconda from Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s masterpiece was a real person. 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