Will the Louvre Loan out the Mona Lisa?
The painting is often described as the most famous in the world. Official statistics show that in 2010 8.5 million people visited the Louvre, where the Mona Lisa is on display. Of these 7 million had gone there only to see the Mona Lisa. (In 2009 7.8 million people had visited the Louvre which has 180 guards and they go on strike ever so often – for more pay and better working conditions.)
Earlier this year the painting was in the news because Signor Silvano Vincenti, who heads of a team of scientists and historians of Italy’s National Committee for Culture and Heritage, claimed that the woman who sat for Leonardo da Vinci was not Lisa Gherandini. It was not even a woman. It was Leonardo’s lover: Salai (Little Devil) as Leonardo called him. The young cross-dresser’s real name was Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Orena (right). (I wrote about it here.) Signor Silvano Vincenti upset the the Louvre with that allegation, and the signor has done so yet again–now he wants the Louvre to loan him the Mona Lisa (he calls it La Gioconda) to be exhibited in Florence in 2013.
>more