Lisa del Giocondo
Encyclopedia
Lisa del Giocondo also known as Lisa Gherardini, Lisa di Antonio Maria (or Antonmaria) Gherardini and Mona Lisa, was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence
and Tuscany
in Italy
. Her name was given to Mona Lisa
, her portrait
commissioned by her husband and painted by Leonardo da Vinci
during the Italian Renaissance
.
Little is known about Lisa's life. Born in Florence and married in her teens to a cloth and silk merchant who later became a local official, she was mother to five children and led what is thought to have been a comfortable and ordinary middle-class life. Lisa outlived her husband, who was considerably her senior.
Centuries after Lisa's death, Mona Lisa became the world's most famous painting and took on a life separate from Lisa, the woman. Speculation by scholars and hobbyists made the work of art a globally recognized icon and an object of commercialization. In 2005 Lisa was definitively identified as the model for the Mona Lisa.
family was old and aristocratic but over time had lost its influence. They were well off but not wealthy, and lived on farm income in a city that was among the largest in Europe and economically successful, while there were great disparities in wealth among its inhabitants.
Antonmaria di Noldo Gherardini, Lisa's father had lost two wives, Lisa di Giovanni Filippo de' Carducci, whom he married in 1465, and Caterina Rucellai, whom he married in 1473. Both died in childbirth. Lisa's mother was Lucrezia del Caccia, daughter of Piera Spinelli and Gherardini's wife by his third marriage in 1476. Gherardini at one time owned or rented six farms in Chianti
that produced wheat, wine and olive oil and where livestock was raised.
Lisa was born in Florence on 15 June 1479 on Via Maggio, although for many years it was thought she was born on one of the family's rural properties, Villa Vignamaggio just outside Greve. She is named for Lisa, a wife of her paternal grandfather. The eldest of seven children, Lisa had three sisters, one of whom was named Ginevra, and three brothers, Giovangualberto, Francesco, and Noldo.
The family lived in Florence, originally near Santa Trinita
and later in rented space near Santo Spirito, most likely because they were not able to afford repairs to their former house when it was damaged. Lisa's family moved to what today is called Via dei Pepi and then near Santa Croce, where they lived near Ser Piero da Vinci, Leonardo's father. They also owned a small country home in St. Donato in the village of Poggio about 32 kilometres (20 mi) south of the city. Noldo, Gherardini's father and Lisa's grandfather, had bequeathed a farm in Chianti to the Santa Maria Nuova hospital. Gherardini secured a lease for another of the hospital's farms and, so that he could oversee the wheat harvest, the family spent summers there at the house named Ca' di Pesa.
and silk
merchant, becoming his third wife at age 15. Lisa's dowry was 170 florins
and the San Silvestro farm near her family's country home, a sign that the Gherardini family was not wealthy at the time and reason to think she and her husband loved each other. The property lies between Castellina and San Donato in Poggio, near two farms later owned by Michelangelo
. Neither poor nor among the most well-to-do in Florence, the couple lived a middle-class life. Lisa's marriage may have increased her social status
because her husband's family may have been richer than her own. Francesco is thought to have benefited because Gherardini is an "old name". They lived in shared accommodation until 5 March 1503, when Francesco was able to buy a house next door to his family's old home in the Via della Stufa. Leonardo is thought to have begun painting Lisa's portrait the same year.
Lisa and Francesco had five children: Piero, Camilla, Andrea, Giocondo, and Marietta, four of them between 1496 and 1507. Lisa also raised Bartolomeo, the son of Francesco and his second wife, Camilla di Mariotto Rucellai, who was about a year old when his mother died. Lisa's stepmother, Caterina di Mariotto Rucellai, and Francesco's first wife were sisters, members of the prominent Rucellai family.
Camilla and Marietta became Catholic nuns. Camilla took the name Suor Beatrice and entered the convent of San Domenico di Cafaggio, where she was entrusted to the care of Antonmaria's sister, Suor Albiera and Lisa's sisters, Suor Camilla (who was acquitted in a scandalous visitation by four men at the convent) and Suor Alessandra. Beatrice died at age 18 and was buried in the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella. Lisa developed a relationship with Sant'Orsola, a convent held in high regard in Florence, where she was able to place Marietta in 1521. Marietta took the name Suor Ludovica and became a respected member of the convent in a position of some responsibility.
Francesco became an official in Florence. He was elected to the Dodici Buonomini
in 1499 and to the Signoria
in 1512, where he was confirmed as a Priori in 1524. He may have had ties to Medici
family political or business interests. In 1512 when the government of Florence feared the return of the Medici from exile, Francesco was imprisoned and fined 1,000 florins. He was released in September when the Medici returned.
In one account, Francesco died in the plague of 1538. Lisa fell ill and was taken by her daughter Ludovica to the convent of Sant'Orsola, where she died about four years later at the age of 63. In a scholarly account of their lives, Francesco lived to be 80 years old. He died in 1539, and Lisa may have lived until at least 1551, when she would have been 71 or 72.
In June 1537 in his will among many provisions, Francesco returned Lisa's dowry to her, gave her her personal clothing and jewelry and provided for her future. Upon entrusting her care to their daughter Ludovica and, should she be incapable, his son Bartolomeo, Francesco wrote, "Given the affection and love of the testator towards Mona Lisa, his beloved wife; in consideration of the fact that Lisa has always acted with a noble spirit and as a faithful wife; wishing that she shall have all she needs...".
painted a Madonna
for another member of his family. Francesco gave commissions to Leonardo for a portrait of his wife and to Domenico Puligo
for a painting of Saint Francis of Assisi
. He is thought to have commissioned Lisa's portrait to celebrate both Andrea's birth and the purchase of the family's home.
Mona Lisa fulfilled 15th- and early 16th century requirements for portraying a woman of virtue. Lisa is portrayed as a faithful wife through gesture—her right hand rests over her left. Leonardo also presented Lisa as fashionable and successful, perhaps more well-off than she was. Her dark garments and black veil were Spanish-influenced high fashion; they are not a depiction of mourning for her first daughter, as some scholars have proposed. The portrait is strikingly large; its size is equal to that of commissions acquired by wealthier art patrons of the time. This extravagance has been explained as a sign of Francesco and Lisa's social aspiration.
Leonardo had no income during the spring of 1503, which may in part explain his interest in a private portrait. But later that year, he most likely had to delay his work on Mona Lisa when he received payment for starting The Battle of Anghiari
, which was a more valuable commission and one he was contracted to complete by February 1505. In 1506 Leonardo considered the portrait unfinished. He was not paid for the work and did not deliver it to his client. The artist's paintings traveled with him throughout his life, and he may have completed Mona Lisa many years later in France, in one estimation by 1516.
The painting's title dates to 1550. An acquaintance of at least some of Francesco's family, Giorgio Vasari
wrote, "Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife" . The portrait's Italian (La Gioconda) and French (La Joconde) titles are Lisa's married name as well as nickname—in English, "jocund" or "the happy one".
Speculation assigned Lisa's name to at least four different paintings and her identity to at least ten different people. By the end of the 20th century, the painting was a global icon that had been used in more than 300 other paintings and in 2,000 advertisements, appearing at an average of one new advertisement each week. In 2005, an expert at the University Library of Heidelberg
discovered a margin note in the library's collection that established with certainty the traditional view that the sitter was Lisa. The note, written by Agostino Vespucci
in 1503, states that Leonardo was working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. The Mona Lisa has been in custody of France since the 16th century, when it was acquired by King Francis I
; however, after the French Revolution
it came into the possession of the people. Today about 6 million people visit one of the most famous paintings in the world each year at the Louvre
in Paris
, where it is part of a French national collection.
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
and Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. Her name was given to Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...
, her portrait
Portrait painting
Portrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. Beside human beings, animals, pets and even inanimate objects can be chosen as the subject for a portrait...
commissioned by her husband and painted by Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
during the Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
.
Little is known about Lisa's life. Born in Florence and married in her teens to a cloth and silk merchant who later became a local official, she was mother to five children and led what is thought to have been a comfortable and ordinary middle-class life. Lisa outlived her husband, who was considerably her senior.
Centuries after Lisa's death, Mona Lisa became the world's most famous painting and took on a life separate from Lisa, the woman. Speculation by scholars and hobbyists made the work of art a globally recognized icon and an object of commercialization. In 2005 Lisa was definitively identified as the model for the Mona Lisa.
Early life and family
Lisa's FlorentineFlorence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
family was old and aristocratic but over time had lost its influence. They were well off but not wealthy, and lived on farm income in a city that was among the largest in Europe and economically successful, while there were great disparities in wealth among its inhabitants.
Antonmaria di Noldo Gherardini, Lisa's father had lost two wives, Lisa di Giovanni Filippo de' Carducci, whom he married in 1465, and Caterina Rucellai, whom he married in 1473. Both died in childbirth. Lisa's mother was Lucrezia del Caccia, daughter of Piera Spinelli and Gherardini's wife by his third marriage in 1476. Gherardini at one time owned or rented six farms in Chianti
Chianti
Chianti is a red Italian wine produced in Tuscany. It was historically associated with a squat bottle enclosed in a straw basket, called a fiasco ; however, the fiasco is only used by a few makers of the wine now; most Chianti is now bottled in more standard shaped wine bottles...
that produced wheat, wine and olive oil and where livestock was raised.
Lisa was born in Florence on 15 June 1479 on Via Maggio, although for many years it was thought she was born on one of the family's rural properties, Villa Vignamaggio just outside Greve. She is named for Lisa, a wife of her paternal grandfather. The eldest of seven children, Lisa had three sisters, one of whom was named Ginevra, and three brothers, Giovangualberto, Francesco, and Noldo.
The family lived in Florence, originally near Santa Trinita
Santa Trinita
Santa Trinita is a church in central Florence, Italy. It is the mother church of the Vallumbrosan Order of monks, founded in 1092 by a Florentine nobleman...
and later in rented space near Santo Spirito, most likely because they were not able to afford repairs to their former house when it was damaged. Lisa's family moved to what today is called Via dei Pepi and then near Santa Croce, where they lived near Ser Piero da Vinci, Leonardo's father. They also owned a small country home in St. Donato in the village of Poggio about 32 kilometres (20 mi) south of the city. Noldo, Gherardini's father and Lisa's grandfather, had bequeathed a farm in Chianti to the Santa Maria Nuova hospital. Gherardini secured a lease for another of the hospital's farms and, so that he could oversee the wheat harvest, the family spent summers there at the house named Ca' di Pesa.
Marriage and later life
On 5 March 1495, Lisa married Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo, a modestly successful clothTextile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
and silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
merchant, becoming his third wife at age 15. Lisa's dowry was 170 florins
Italian coin florin
The Italian florin was a coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard. It had 54 grains of nominally pure gold worth approximately 200 modern US Dollars...
and the San Silvestro farm near her family's country home, a sign that the Gherardini family was not wealthy at the time and reason to think she and her husband loved each other. The property lies between Castellina and San Donato in Poggio, near two farms later owned by Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
. Neither poor nor among the most well-to-do in Florence, the couple lived a middle-class life. Lisa's marriage may have increased her social status
Social status
In sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc....
because her husband's family may have been richer than her own. Francesco is thought to have benefited because Gherardini is an "old name". They lived in shared accommodation until 5 March 1503, when Francesco was able to buy a house next door to his family's old home in the Via della Stufa. Leonardo is thought to have begun painting Lisa's portrait the same year.
Lisa and Francesco had five children: Piero, Camilla, Andrea, Giocondo, and Marietta, four of them between 1496 and 1507. Lisa also raised Bartolomeo, the son of Francesco and his second wife, Camilla di Mariotto Rucellai, who was about a year old when his mother died. Lisa's stepmother, Caterina di Mariotto Rucellai, and Francesco's first wife were sisters, members of the prominent Rucellai family.
Camilla and Marietta became Catholic nuns. Camilla took the name Suor Beatrice and entered the convent of San Domenico di Cafaggio, where she was entrusted to the care of Antonmaria's sister, Suor Albiera and Lisa's sisters, Suor Camilla (who was acquitted in a scandalous visitation by four men at the convent) and Suor Alessandra. Beatrice died at age 18 and was buried in the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella. Lisa developed a relationship with Sant'Orsola, a convent held in high regard in Florence, where she was able to place Marietta in 1521. Marietta took the name Suor Ludovica and became a respected member of the convent in a position of some responsibility.
Francesco became an official in Florence. He was elected to the Dodici Buonomini
Signoria of Florence
The Signoria was the government of medieval and renaissance Florence. Its nine members, the Priori, were chosen from the ranks of the guilds of the city: six of them from the major guilds, and two from the minor guilds...
in 1499 and to the Signoria
Signoria of Florence
The Signoria was the government of medieval and renaissance Florence. Its nine members, the Priori, were chosen from the ranks of the guilds of the city: six of them from the major guilds, and two from the minor guilds...
in 1512, where he was confirmed as a Priori in 1524. He may have had ties to Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
family political or business interests. In 1512 when the government of Florence feared the return of the Medici from exile, Francesco was imprisoned and fined 1,000 florins. He was released in September when the Medici returned.
In one account, Francesco died in the plague of 1538. Lisa fell ill and was taken by her daughter Ludovica to the convent of Sant'Orsola, where she died about four years later at the age of 63. In a scholarly account of their lives, Francesco lived to be 80 years old. He died in 1539, and Lisa may have lived until at least 1551, when she would have been 71 or 72.
In June 1537 in his will among many provisions, Francesco returned Lisa's dowry to her, gave her her personal clothing and jewelry and provided for her future. Upon entrusting her care to their daughter Ludovica and, should she be incapable, his son Bartolomeo, Francesco wrote, "Given the affection and love of the testator towards Mona Lisa, his beloved wife; in consideration of the fact that Lisa has always acted with a noble spirit and as a faithful wife; wishing that she shall have all she needs...".
Mona Lisa
Like other Florentines of their financial means, Francesco's family were art lovers and patrons. His son Bartolommeo asked Antonio di Donnino Mazzieri to paint a fresco at the family's burial site in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata di Firenze. Andrea del SartoAndrea del Sarto
Andrea del Sarto was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. Though highly regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori , his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his contemporaries, Leonardo da Vinci,...
painted a Madonna
Madonna (art)
Images of the Madonna and the Madonna and Child or Virgin and Child are pictorial or sculptured representations of Mary, Mother of Jesus, either alone, or more frequently, with the infant Jesus. These images are central icons of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity where Mary remains...
for another member of his family. Francesco gave commissions to Leonardo for a portrait of his wife and to Domenico Puligo
Domenico Puligo
Domenico Puligo was an Italian painter of the Renaissance, active in Florence. His real name was Domenico di Bartolommeo Ubaldini....
for a painting of Saint Francis of Assisi
Francis of Assisi
Saint Francis of Assisi was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the lay Third Order of Saint Francis. St...
. He is thought to have commissioned Lisa's portrait to celebrate both Andrea's birth and the purchase of the family's home.
Mona Lisa fulfilled 15th- and early 16th century requirements for portraying a woman of virtue. Lisa is portrayed as a faithful wife through gesture—her right hand rests over her left. Leonardo also presented Lisa as fashionable and successful, perhaps more well-off than she was. Her dark garments and black veil were Spanish-influenced high fashion; they are not a depiction of mourning for her first daughter, as some scholars have proposed. The portrait is strikingly large; its size is equal to that of commissions acquired by wealthier art patrons of the time. This extravagance has been explained as a sign of Francesco and Lisa's social aspiration.
The Battle of Anghiari (painting)
The Battle of Anghiari is a lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci at times referred to as "The Lost Leonardo", which some commentators believe to be still hidden beneath later frescoes in the Hall of Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence...
, which was a more valuable commission and one he was contracted to complete by February 1505. In 1506 Leonardo considered the portrait unfinished. He was not paid for the work and did not deliver it to his client. The artist's paintings traveled with him throughout his life, and he may have completed Mona Lisa many years later in France, in one estimation by 1516.
Giorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, writer, historian, and architect, who is famous today for his biographies of Italian artists, considered the ideological foundation of art-historical writing.-Biography:...
wrote, "Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife" . The portrait's Italian (La Gioconda) and French (La Joconde) titles are Lisa's married name as well as nickname—in English, "jocund" or "the happy one".
Speculation assigned Lisa's name to at least four different paintings and her identity to at least ten different people. By the end of the 20th century, the painting was a global icon that had been used in more than 300 other paintings and in 2,000 advertisements, appearing at an average of one new advertisement each week. In 2005, an expert at the University Library of Heidelberg
Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg
The Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg is a public research university located in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386, it is the oldest university in Germany and was the third university established in the Holy Roman Empire. Heidelberg has been a coeducational institution...
discovered a margin note in the library's collection that established with certainty the traditional view that the sitter was Lisa. The note, written by Agostino Vespucci
Agostino Vespucci
Agostino Vespucci was a Florentine chancellery official, clerk, and assistant to Niccolò Machiavelli and others. He is most well known for identifying the model of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa as Lisa del Giocondo, but is also the author of a number of surviving letters and manuscripts.-Mona...
in 1503, states that Leonardo was working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. The Mona Lisa has been in custody of France since the 16th century, when it was acquired by King Francis I
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
; however, after the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
it came into the possession of the people. Today about 6 million people visit one of the most famous paintings in the world each year at the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where it is part of a French national collection.