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Painting Mona Lisa
Painting Mona Lisa
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Painting Mona Lisa

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Painting Mona Lisa
Jeanne Kalogridis

Painting Mona Lisa offers an explanation behind the mysteries surrounding da Vinci's famous portrait – why did Leonardo keep the Mona Lisa with him until his death?An intricately woven tale of betrayal, love and loss, which unravels the mysteries surrounding da Vinci's most famous portrait.April 26, 1478. Giuliano de Medici, brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the head of the powerful Florentine Medici family, is assassinated.Ten years later, a young Lisa Gherardini listens to the story of Giuliano's death, unaware of the significance it holds for her future. Drawn into the Medici circle by her passion for the Arts, Lisa meets the Medici's most luminescent friend: da Vinci. Against the turbulent backdrop of Savonarola's Florence, the two become conspirators and eventually each other's saviours in this parallel love story of infinite twists.

JEANNE KALOGRIDIS

Painting Mona Lisa

For George, forever

Contents

Cover (#u7e4643b5-6017-5e81-a066-90e6e87d3a49)

Title Page (#u99b53461-46e3-5531-a75f-75d026569b27)

Prologue: Lisa June 1490

I

II

PART I April 26, 1478

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

December 28, 1478

IX

X

PART II LISA

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

XXX

XXXI

XXXII

XXXIII

XXXIV

XXXV

XXXVI

XXXVII

XXXVIII

XXXIX

XL

XLI

XLII

XLIII

XLIV

XLV

XLVI

XLVII

XLVIII

XLIX

L

LI

LII

LIII

LIV

LV

LVI

LVII

LVIII

LIX

LX

LXI

LXII

LXIII

LXIV

LXV

LXVI

LXVII

LXVIII

LXIX

LXX

Epilogue: Lisa July 1498

LXXI

Acknowledgements

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue: Lisa June 1490 (#u0eb3daf6-12f5-5027-8037-80ba45b51d56)

I (#u0eb3daf6-12f5-5027-8037-80ba45b51d56)

My name is Lisa di Antonio Gherardini Giocondo, though to acquaintances I am known simply as Madonna Lisa, and to those of the common class, Monna Lisa.

My likeness has been recorded on wood, with boiled linseed oil and pigments dug from the earth or crushed from semi-precious stones, and applied with brushes made from the feathers of birds and the silken fur of animals.

I have seen the painting. It does not look like me. I stare at it and see instead the faces of my mother and father. I listen and hear their voices. I feel their love and their sorrow, and I witness again and again, the crime that bound them together; the crime that bound them to me.

For my story began not with my birth but a murder, committed the year before I was born.

It was first revealed to me during an encounter with the astrologer, two weeks before my eleventh birthday, which was celebrated on the fifteenth of June. My mother announced that I would have my choice of a present. She assumed that I would request a new gown, for nowhere has sartorial ostentation been practised more avidly than my native Florence. My father was one of the city’s wealthiest wool merchants, and his business connections afforded me my pick of sumptuous silks, brocades, velvets and furs. I spent those days studying the dress of each noblewoman I passed, and at night, I lay awake contemplating the design.

All this changed the day of Uncle Lauro’s wedding.

I stood on the balcony of our house on the Via Maggiore between my mother and grandmother, staring in the direction of the Ponte Santa Trinita, the bridge which the young bride would cross on her ride to her groom.

My grandmother had come to live with us several months earlier. She was still a handsome woman, but the loss of her second husband had soured her and she was faded and frail; her hair had grown white at the temples, and her body bony. She would not live out the year. My mother was dark-haired, dark-eyed, with skin so flawless it provoked my jealousy; she, however, seemed unaware of her amazing appearance. She complained of the adamant straightness of her locks, and of the olive cast to her complexion. Never mind that she was fine-boned, with lovely hands, feet and teeth. I was mature for my years, already larger and taller than she, with coarse dull brown waves and troubled skin.

Downstairs, my father and Uncle Lauro, attended by his two sons, waited in the loggia that opened onto the street.

My mother suddenly pointed. ‘There she is!’