Name: Mona Lisa
ISBN: 9781451658965

Dianne Hales

Blends biography, history and memoir to compile the story of da Vinci's famous masterpiece subject, detailing the political upheavals, family dramas and public scandals of Renaissance Florence that shaped her life and her relationships with kings and artists.

A Life Discovered

Mona Lisa

Everybody knows her smile, but no one knows her story: Meet the flesh-and-blood woman who became one of the most famous artistic subjects of all time—Mona Lisa. A genius immortalized her. A French king paid a fortune for her. An emperor coveted her. Every year more than nine million visitors trek to view her portrait in the Louvre. Yet while everyone recognizes her smile, hardly anyone knows her story. “Combining history, whimsical biography, personal travelogue, and love letter to Italy...Mona Lisa is an entertaining” (Publishers Weekly) book of discovery about the world’s most recognized face. Who was she? Why did the most renowned painter of her time choose her as his model? What became of her? And why does her smile enchant us still? Dianne Hales, author of La Bella Lingua, became obsessed with finding the real Mona Lisa on repeated trips to Florence. In Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered, she takes readers with her to meet Lisa’s descendants; uncover her family’s long and colorful history; and explore the neighborhoods where she lived as a girl, a wife, and a mother. In the process, we can participate in Lisa’s daily rituals; understand her personal relationships; and see, hear, smell, and taste “her” Florence. Hales brings to life a time poised between the medieval and the modern, a vibrant city bursting into fullest bloom, and a culture that redefined the possibilities of man—and of woman. Mona Lisa is “a readable and affectionate my-search-for-story for art lovers and anyone interested in glorious and gory Florence in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries, and in the divine Leonardo in particular…Hales’s assiduous research has made it possible for us to know Mona Lisa just a bit, enough to wonder if this otherwise ordinary Florentine housewife could ever have imagined her portrait enchanting millions for centuries” (USATODAY.com).

Daniel Santos

THE GOOD: Worth reading. It was impressive to find out about the “real” Mona Lisa, who, to me at least, was not to be considered a real person until then. Lisa Gherardini is everything an interesting woman is, and even more if you consider she was contemporary to the Renaissance.

THE BAD: This book, although interesting, sins for not having pictures, diagrams and illustrations, which all could have enriched the readers experience. The author cites many masterpieces, many places, many situations for which I needed to interrupt my reading in order to check Wikipedia or Google up and the author could have spared me that.

THE UGLY: Even if sometimes complementary to the story, relying solely on the author’s and her husband’s travel experiences is at times very tiresome, and makes me think that if it wasn’t for Lisa and my curiosity, I could have dropped the book, what I didn’t do, but felt like many times, while struggling to finish another chapter.

Mona Lisa A Life Discovered

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