{"id":48915,"date":"2024-05-12T14:12:08","date_gmt":"2024-05-12T14:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/12\/mona-lisa-smile-youre-in-lecco-after-all\/"},"modified":"2024-05-12T14:12:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-12T14:12:08","slug":"mona-lisa-smile-youre-in-lecco-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/12\/mona-lisa-smile-youre-in-lecco-after-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Mona Lisa, Smile: You\u2019re in Lecco, After All"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/12\/multimedia\/12xp-MonaLisa2-qvzw\/12xp-MonaLisa2-qvzw-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Mona Lisa, Smile: You\u2019re in Lecco, After All\" title=\"Mona Lisa, Smile: You\u2019re in Lecco, After All\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She\u2019s been <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/05\/30\/world\/europe\/mona-lisa-pastry-louvre.html\" title=\"\">smeared with cake<\/a> and doused with acid. Vigilantes <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/10\/07\/arts\/design\/mona-lisa-vincenzo-peruggia.html\" title=\"\">have stolen her<\/a>, and protesters <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/01\/28\/world\/europe\/mona-lisa-louvre-protesters-soup.html\" title=\"\">have defaced her<\/a>. She\u2019s been lasered and prodded, displayed for the masses, and relegated to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/culture\/2024\/04\/24\/a-room-of-her-own-louvre-to-give-disappointing-mona-lisa-new-digs\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">her own basement gallery<\/a>. More recently, thousands urged billionaire Jeff Bezos <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/06\/18\/style\/bezos-mona-lisa-change-petition.html\" title=\"\">to buy her, and then eat her<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There is no bottom, it seems, to the mysteries of the Mona Lisa, the Leonardo da Vinci painting that has captivated art lovers, culture vultures and the rest of us for centuries. Who is she? (Most likely Lisa Gherardini, the wife of an Italian nobleman.) Is she smiling? (The short answer \u2014 <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2000\/11\/21\/science\/what-is-it-with-mona-lisa-s-smile-it-s-you.html\" title=\"\">kind of<\/a>.) Did da Vinci originally intend to paint her differently, with her hair clipped or in a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/09\/27\/arts\/design\/27mona.html\" title=\"\">nursing gown<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While much about the art world\u2019s most enigmatic subject has been relegated to the realm of the unknowable, now, in a strange crossover of art and geology, there may be one less mystery: where she was sitting when da Vinci painted her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">According to Ann Pizzorusso, a geologist and Renaissance-art scholar, da Vinci\u2019s subject is sitting in Lecco, Italy, an idyllic town near the banks of Lake Como. The conclusion, Ms. Pizzorusso said, is obvious \u2014 she figured it out years ago, but never realized its significance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI saw the topography near Lecco and realized this was the location,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The nondescript background has some important features; among them, a medieval bridge that most scholars have held as the key to da Vinci\u2019s setting. But Ms. Pizzorusso said it is rather the shape of the lake and the gray-white limestone that betrays Lecco as the painting\u2019s spiritual home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cA bridge is fungible,\u201d said Ms. Pizzorusso. \u201cYou have to combine a bridge with a place that Leonardo was at, and the geology.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Such features were so clear to Ms. Pizzorusso that she had concluded years ago on a trip to Lecco that the quaint, lakeside village was the setting for da Vinci\u2019s masterpiece. She assumed, she said, that such facts were self-evident. It was not until a colleague approached her, seeking information on the Mona Lisa\u2019s possible settings, that Ms. Pizzorusso realized her conclusions had scholarly merit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI would tell people, but I just never did anything,\u201d she said. Now though, mapping technology has made her thesis more palatable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cEverything has conspired to really make my idea much more provable and presentable,\u201d she said, speaking from Lecco, where she will formally present her conclusions at a geology event.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, such secrets have become inherent to the intrigue surrounding the holy canvas. For centuries, the Mona Lisa has confounded, delighted, disappointed and befuddled artists and art lovers. As her famously soft edges grow existentially sharper, perhaps we must ask: Is it the painting we love, or its mysteries?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIn Lecco they have been mentioning this for years,\u201d Donald Sassoon, a professor of comparative European history, said. He pointed to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lecconews.news\/news\/il-casolecco-e-il-suo-ponte-alle-spalle-della-gioconda-lesperto-ce-ben-altro-173773\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a 2016 article<\/a> in a local Italian news site by a scholar from Lecco who identified similar geographical features to those noted by Ms. Pizzorusso.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI would not bother,\u201d Professor Sassoon said when asked about reporting Ms. Pizzorusso\u2019s find. \u201cIdentifying the location would have no impact.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For Ms. Pizzorusso, though, the conclusion is less about the art than the man. In the discrete clues of the Mona Lisa, da Vinci reveals himself not only as a skilled painter, she said, but also as a tediously careful student of science and geology.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cAny time he paints a rock,\u201d said Ms. Pizzorusso, \u201cit\u2019s accurate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/12\/arts\/mona-lisa-location-solved.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>She\u2019s been smeared with cake and doused with acid. Vigilantes have stolen her, and protesters have defaced her. She\u2019s been lasered and prodded, displayed for the masses, and relegated to her own basement gallery. More recently, thousands urged billionaire Jeff Bezos to buy her, and then eat her. There is no bottom, it seems, to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/12\/multimedia\/12xp-MonaLisa2-qvzw\/12xp-MonaLisa2-qvzw-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[49340,16259,49339,16356,1353],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48915"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48917,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48915\/revisions\/48917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}