Entirely based on archival documents, Mona Lisa Revealed introduces Mona Lisa’s life and reveals the true identity of Leonardo’s model for his famous painting at the Louvre Museum: Mona Lisa for the English, Joconde for the French and Gioconda for the Italian.
It is not a novel, as Dan Brown’s "The Da Vinci Code", rather the real story of a Renaissance woman who lived in Florence at the time of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, as Giorgio Vasari recounts. It is the story of two families, the Gherardini and the Del Giocondo, an exceptional model, a last will, and the world's most famous painting; all set against the backdrop of Renaissance Florence.
Giuseppe Pallanti, following Vasari's lead, bases his work on a meticulous and in-depth review of archival materials in attributing a name to the face of the Mona Lisa: Lisa Gherardini, married to Francesco del Giocondo. The author looks beyond the myth wrapping one of absolute masterpieces of Leonardo's genius, and gives us Mona Lisa as a woman with an authentic and living face. With his engaging and readable style, he reconstructs her personal and historical dimension.
The revelation of the mysterious identity of the model, unknown up to now and subject for the most disparate and far-fetched hypotheses, certainly takes nothing away from the enigmatic quality of that smile. Rather, it becomes even more fascinating to us after we have been immersed in the world of her affections and read her husband's last will, palpably imbued with a genuine love for his cherished wife. The beauty of her spirit now seems even more radiant than the outer beauty Leonardo had made eternal.
