Mona Lisa

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The Mona Lisa (also called La Giocconda which in Italian means happy or joyful woman) is an early sixthteenth century portrait by Leonardo da Vinci. It is probably the most famous painting in the world. Vasari, who was Leonardo's first biographer (a person who writes about the life of another person), thought the painting was of a person named Lisa Gherardini and he was correct. Speculation over the painting's model was solved in 2008 by Dr Armin Schlechter, a manuscript expert. Notes discovered in Heidelberg University library by Agostino Vespucciin a Florentine city official reinforced Vasaril's earlier indentification of the model. Lisa was the wife of Francesco del Giocondo a wealthy silk merchant, who lived in Florence.

Scholars had been of many minds, identifying several people as the painting's subject. There are scholars who think that the Mona Lisa is Leonardo's mother Caterina in a distant memory.

Leonardo began to paint the Mona Lisa in 1503 and finished it about three or four years later. The painting was brought to France by Leonardo in 1516 and it was bought by Francis I of France.

The Mona Lisa used to hang in the Chateau Fontainebleau and was then moved to the Palace of Versailles. After the French Revolution, Napoleon I of France had it hanging in his bedroom in the Tuileries Palace, but it was later moved to the Louvre where it is still hanging today.