Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa is one of the most famous painting in the world and currently hangs in the Louvre in Paris. This is a painting that Sophie and Langdon were guided to during their search for another clue on the Plexiglas protecting.

Mona Lisa is world renowned but yet we have no idea who the sitter was for this painting. The painting was made for a Florentine silk merchant called Francesco del Giocondo. So, most art historians think that the painting is of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Giocondo.

An anomaly on the painting is that figure has no eyebrows. This possibly could be because of too much cleaning of the piece or maybe the sitter was obsessed with plucking her eyebrows, because it was in fashion then. Some researchers claim that it is a self-portrait of Leonardo, as a female or maybe a hermaphroditic form. If one were to remove the hair in the painting, it could be an asexual figure. There is a startling resemblance when using modern computer technology to compare the two images.

So, who knows, possibly we are looking at a portrait of Leonardo himself. Or, we could just be looking at a very masculine woman with no eyebrows. But, why is the figure smiling?

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