Mona Lisa, men have named you

Probably 1 of the best known works of Leonardo da Vinci is the Mona Lisa aka La Gioconda. The portrait was painted from 1503 to 1507. It is believed to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini who was the wife of wealthy Florentine businessman Francesco del Giocondo, a silk merchant. Those facts explain the 2 different names for the portrait. Mona is a shortened version of madonna, my lady in Italiano. Giocanda is the feminine version of her husband's name Giocando. That name is also a play on words as giocando means light-hearted. So it is literally the light-hearted woman. Given her enigmatic smile in a sense you could say that da Vinci's painted a pun. She was born May 1479. She died 15 July 1542.

The date of her death was just recently discovered along with the record of her burial site. Friday the Italiano newspaper La Repubblica reported that Giuseppe Pallanti had found her death notice in a Firenze (Florence) church archive. He said that it mentioned "the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, deceased July 15, 1542, and buried at Sant'Orsola". Pallanti told the paper: "It was in this convent that Mona Lisa placed her youngest daughter Marietta, who later became a nun. And it was there that Lisa, as stipulated in the will of her husband who died four years before her, ended her life." The convent has fallen into disuse. It is located near the San Lorenzo basilica.

The painting is now at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, France. Or is it? If the Marlon Brando/Matthew Broderick/Bruno Kirby movie The Freshman is to be believed it is actually in the New York City home of Carmine "Jimmy the Toucan" Sabatini. That movie is just 1 example of how much a part of our culture the picture is. Nat King Cole had a hit song about the painting. & Elton John sung about Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters in 1972. Hher face has been replaced by many a person over the years in spoof versions of the picture. The list goes on & on.

The painting ended up in France when da Vinci went there to do a painting for the king who brought the portrait from him.

'Mona Lisa' died in 1542, was buried in convent

UPDATE: 27 January 2007 2:14 am CST Last nite on EWTN's The World Over Live, at the end of a report on this ,Raymond Arroyo made a tongue-in-cheek comment that had a strong bit of truth in it: "Watch for Hollywood to produce a sequel about this." Clearly a reference to the movie The DaVinci Code & all the BS that was in it. I'm sure they could use this to fuel more false stories.