Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what will? What's that? Mango? So I'm
Speaker 1: trying to write a poem for the Mona Lisa and
Speaker 1: I need little help. Rhyme Zone says there's no perfect
Speaker 1: rhyme for Mona Lisa. So what do you think rhyme's best?
Speaker 1: Like amnesia anesthesia or moesha? Wait, Mango? First of all,
Speaker 1: why are you writing Mona Lisa poem? Because even though
Speaker 1: there are over a million pieces of art in the Louver,
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa is the only one who actually receives
Speaker 1: her own mail, and people have been writing to the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa since the nineteenth century. She even has her
Speaker 1: own mailbox because the painting is so enchanting. So I'm curious, So, like,
Speaker 1: what what do people actually write? Some of the letters
Speaker 1: express how moved people are by the artwork, and some
Speaker 1: ask the smirking Beauty for advice, and some of the
Speaker 1: letters actually include marriage proposals.
Speaker 2: It is pretty incredible. I love that people have a
Speaker 2: parasocial relationship with a piece of art. I think it's
Speaker 2: the first time I've heard about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it used to be. For years you actually
Speaker 1: have to make a trip to the Louver to pass
Speaker 1: along your fan mail tour. But these days you can
Speaker 1: actually post a letter to the museid Louver service de
Speaker 1: public attention dey Mona Lisa, which I've obviously said in
Speaker 1: a perfect franch accent. You nailed it, Mango, So I figure,
Speaker 1: why not add to the file.
Speaker 2: Well, in that case, maybe try rhyming Mona Lisa with
Speaker 2: milk of Magnesia, Mango.
Speaker 1: That's where you would have an answer for me. So
Speaker 1: why don't we put the poetry aside for a moment
Speaker 1: and dive into today's episode, which is all about the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa.
Speaker 2: Hey, their podcast listeners, I'm Will Pearson and as always
Speaker 2: I'm here with my good friend Mango and sitting behind
Speaker 2: that big booth that's our powd Dylan. Now, Mango, I
Speaker 2: know I got here a little bit before you did,
Speaker 2: but Dylan was already here. I think he had clocked
Speaker 2: in a good half hour before I even sat down,
Speaker 2: and he's been holding that weird smile Mona Lisa's style for.
Speaker 1: The last hour. Now. It's really impressive. Yeah, it's weird,
Speaker 1: but it's also really captivating. It's also crazy that he
Speaker 1: shaved his eyebrows. I mean, it's just spot on to
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa. But that's just the links to Dylan
Speaker 1: goes to for these bits. It's truly impressive. Anyway, mego,
Speaker 1: let's dive in here. So what is it about the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa that is so captivating? Like?
Speaker 2: Why do people stand in lines to get into the
Speaker 2: louver just so they can stand in this huge crowd
Speaker 2: and try to see this painting? Is it just her
Speaker 2: smile or like what is it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So obviously it's not just the smile. First of all,
Speaker 1: it's a super good painting, which I believe is a
Speaker 1: direct quote from our forum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, I think, I think I remember seeing
Speaker 2: that quote. But what makes the painting so unique? Well,
Speaker 2: to start with, most sixteenth.
Speaker 1: Century portraits of nobility showed off their social status and
Speaker 1: their wealth with a lot of like flamboyant clothing. So
Speaker 1: the painting's also played up hair styles and accessories. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you've seen the Mona Lisa, which is
Speaker 1: believed to be this Italian noble Lisa del Giacondo, it's
Speaker 1: unique because she's dressed really simply, all of which draws
Speaker 1: most of the attention straight to her face and that
Speaker 1: weird smile. Yeah, but there's also other stuff, right, So,
Speaker 1: typical Italian portraiture used full figure poses, but Mona Lisa
Speaker 1: is painted in this revolutionary three fourths length pose. Also,
Speaker 1: she's not stoic or demure, which would be typical of
Speaker 1: a female portrait. She's she's turning slightly toward the viewer
Speaker 1: and she meets our eyes directly like a man typically would,
Speaker 1: or a man at the time. And mod Lisa also
Speaker 1: showcases some very vinci techniques. What would those be? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What is this technique called sfumtu, which means vanished or evaporated. Basically,
Speaker 1: Leonardo would create these imperceptible transitions between light and dark
Speaker 1: by shading the colors really gradually so that the background
Speaker 1: fades into the distance. It's almost like adding a blur filter.
Speaker 1: And it's another deviation from traditional Italian portraiture of the time,
Speaker 1: which would paint the backgrounds in this same sharp focus
Speaker 1: as the central figure. Actually, is this fuma to also
Speaker 1: a drink. Yeah, it's in a marrow, which makes sense
Speaker 1: because if you drink enough smatu, things are going to
Speaker 1: get faded into the background.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just want to say it's Fu Matu over
Speaker 2: and over. But this is all cool. But I do
Speaker 2: think we should get back to the Mona Lisa's weird smile.
Speaker 2: I know I keep bringing it up, but I feel
Speaker 2: like we have to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the smile that launched a mediocre two thousand
Speaker 1: and three movie emego. It's sixty percent on Rotten Tomato,
Speaker 1: so I would say, I don't sleep on it. So
Speaker 1: I was up.
Speaker 2: I just, you know, I like to know what it
Speaker 2: gets on rotten tomatoes. But I also looked into Mona
Speaker 2: Lisa's smile and it's amazing. Like the preoccupation with the
Speaker 2: painting smile dates back to the Renaissance writer and historian
Speaker 2: Giorgio Vasari, and he actually said, in this work of Leonardo,
Speaker 2: there was a smile so pleasing that it was a
Speaker 2: thing more divine than human to behold, and it was
Speaker 2: held to be something marvelous in that it was alive.
Speaker 1: Which sounds spooky. Sounds spooky.
Speaker 2: But he also wasn't the only one that was so
Speaker 2: captivated here. So the treacherous attraction of Moasa's smile is
Speaker 2: said to have consumed French artist Luke Maspero too. According
Speaker 2: to popular myth, Maspero allegedly ended his life over it.
Speaker 2: We actually leapt from the I know it's crazy, actually
Speaker 2: leapt from the fourth story window of his Paris hotel room,
Speaker 2: and in the note he left behind, he wrote, for years,
Speaker 2: I have grappled desperately her smile. I prefer to die.
Speaker 1: That's so dramatic, you know, you know, why would a
Speaker 1: smile and a painting drive someone so crazy? It it
Speaker 1: feels ludicrous.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, there's actually some science here, like,
Speaker 2: there are explanations for it. Some people who look at
Speaker 2: the painting think she's not smiling at all, and that's
Speaker 2: because the human eye uses two types of vision. There's
Speaker 2: fobial and there's peripheral. Now, fobial or direct vision is
Speaker 2: excellent at picking up detail, but is less suited to
Speaker 2: picking up things like shadows, and so, according to Margaret Livingstone,
Speaker 2: a professor at Harvard Quote, the elusive quality of the
Speaker 2: Mona Lisa smile can be explained by the fact that
Speaker 2: her smile is almost entirely in low spatial frequencies and
Speaker 2: so is seen best by your peripheral vision. It's almost
Speaker 2: like an optical illusion, like the more a person stares
Speaker 2: straight ahead, the less their peripheral vision actually works.
Speaker 1: Oh that's really cool. So I'm at the I'm staring
Speaker 1: at the Mona Lisa because I want to take it
Speaker 1: all in and get my money's worth. But the harder
Speaker 1: I stare, the harder it is for my vision to
Speaker 1: register that smile. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: And it's only when you start looking at other parts
Speaker 2: of the painting, like the background or hands or the chair,
Speaker 2: that's when your eyes really pick up on the smile,
Speaker 2: which could sort of strike you as alive, right because
Speaker 2: it's not there, and it suddenly appears like Mona Lisa
Speaker 2: is finally deigned to smile at you, the sweaty jet
Speaker 2: lag tourists who's come all the way to friends to
Speaker 2: see her.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the theory, Mango. You know what's funny
Speaker 1: is that I'm really glad you mentioned the chair. Wait, chair,
Speaker 1: What did I say about the chair? I don't think
Speaker 1: I said anything about the chair, did I Just that
Speaker 1: it exists? It trikes out chair. The chair is one
Speaker 1: of the most interesting parts of the Mona Lisa, and
Speaker 1: one that art historians actually focus on specifically, it's a
Speaker 1: Pozetto chair, which means little well, which some historians believe
Speaker 1: is a reference to the amphibious nature of Mona Lisa.
Speaker 1: She's surrounded by water, She's wearing this green dress, and
Speaker 1: if you know she's sitting on a little well, you
Speaker 1: can imagine the rivers behind her are flowing into her.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. It's obviously a rich and surprising and ingeniously
Speaker 1: conceived work of art. But here's what I've always been
Speaker 1: stuck on with the Mona Lisa. Like the Renaissance had
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, but a lot
Speaker 1: of really super good paintings Mago, which also sounds like
Speaker 1: a quote from Art Forum.
Speaker 2: Straight from it. But seriously, I've always wondered what made
Speaker 2: the Mona Lisa stick out amongst all this amazing art,
Speaker 2: And through our research, I finally found the answer, Mango.
Speaker 2: It's the vibes. Vibes, yeah, yeah, well, the vibes and
Speaker 2: incredible marketing, like the Mona Lisa is like the Jeremy
Speaker 2: Allen White of Renaissance paintings.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means.
Speaker 2: All right, well, hear me out on this. So even
Speaker 2: before it was in the loop, the Mona Lisa started
Speaker 2: out hot like it had this great pedigree. It was
Speaker 2: in the royal collection of the literal King of France,
Speaker 2: Francis I, and who's court Leonardo spent the last years
Speaker 2: of his life. The painting was there for centuries until
Speaker 2: the French Revolution claimed the royal collection as the property
Speaker 2: of the people. Then Napoleon took it and placed it
Speaker 2: in his bedroom because he loved it that much, and
Speaker 2: then finally it landed in the Louver. Sure, so there's
Speaker 2: like a lot of history there of being owned by
Speaker 2: important people. But it was also the heat around Leonardo
Speaker 2: da Vinci that helped grow interest in the Mona Lisa,
Speaker 2: because something happened in the nineteenth century where Leonardo became
Speaker 2: more popular, you know, see, not only as a very
Speaker 2: good painter, but also as a great scientist and inventor
Speaker 2: of course, and many of his so called inventions were
Speaker 2: later debunked, and his contributions to science and architecture came
Speaker 2: to be seen as you know, less than they might
Speaker 2: have been at first. But this idea of Leonardo as
Speaker 2: a genius has continued well into the twenty first century,
Speaker 2: and that of course has contributed to the Mona Lisa's popularity.
Speaker 2: But then there was Marcel Duchamp's contribution to the painting.
Speaker 1: So you're talking about Deuchamp. The data is too, you know,
Speaker 1: made all that fun crazy art, like signed that urinal
Speaker 1: and entered it into an art exhibition.
Speaker 2: Back guy, Yeah, very same guy. So Duchamp took a
Speaker 2: postcard reproduction of the Mona Lisa. This was back in
Speaker 2: nineteen nineteen. He drew a beard and mustache on it.
Speaker 2: It was like this playful depiction. It was meant to
Speaker 2: be in irreverent commentary about the worship of art. But
Speaker 2: he also wrote lhoo q across the bottom of the postcard.
Speaker 1: Which sounds like, look right, is that us? What was
Speaker 1: I mean? Exactly? Well, it's a vulgar phrase for I
Speaker 1: guess you could say she's hot, But the polite translation
Speaker 1: is there is fire down below, got it? You've never
Speaker 1: written that on anything anyway.
Speaker 2: The depiction of the Mona Lisa became a huge thing
Speaker 2: to deface of this revered work of art as commentary,
Speaker 2: and before a long other artists followed suit and distorted disfigure.
Speaker 2: They played with rep reductions of the Mona Lisa, including
Speaker 2: Andy Warhol. Actually, over decades, as technology improved, the painting
Speaker 2: was endlessly reproduced, sometimes manipulated, sometimes not, and so her
Speaker 2: face became one of the most well known in the world,
Speaker 2: even to people who don't really care about art.
Speaker 1: Right, so, I may have never been to the Loof
Speaker 1: or never even heard of Leo da Vinci, But by
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, even if I hate art, it's hard
Speaker 1: to avoid the Mona Lisa's presence. That's exactly right. In fact,
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties and seventies, the Mona Lisa was
Speaker 1: so famous she went on tour. She traveled to the
Speaker 1: US and a first class cabin on an ocean liner
Speaker 1: threw about forty thousand people a day to the Metropolitan
Speaker 1: Museum in New York City and then in the National
Speaker 1: Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. And then after that
Speaker 1: she went on to Japan. And of course the popularity
Speaker 1: was only increased by that heist too, Right, wait, there
Speaker 1: was a heist. It is really really fun, But why
Speaker 1: don't we take a quick break before we get to that.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're discussing the
Speaker 2: Mona Lisa and Mango.
Speaker 1: You were just telling us about an art theft involving
Speaker 1: da Vinci's most famous painting. Is that right? That's right.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen eleven, the Mona Lisa had made it
Speaker 1: to the Louver, a huge museum in Paris, literally huge like.
Speaker 1: At the time, the Louver was the largest building in
Speaker 1: the world, with more than a thousand rooms spread out
Speaker 1: over forty five acres.
Speaker 2: Can you believe, Oh my gosh, that's ridiculous. So what
Speaker 2: is the heating bill on a place like that? Can
Speaker 2: you imagine?
Speaker 1: Nothing? Because it's France, so it's just cold, right, A
Speaker 1: good point, that's fair. Anyways, it was a quiet Monday
Speaker 1: morning in Paris on the twenty first of August nineteen eleven,
Speaker 1: and three men were hurrying out of the Louver, which
Speaker 1: is odd so that the museum was closed to visitors
Speaker 1: on Mondays. The men were Vincenzo Perusia and the brothers,
Speaker 1: Vincenzo and Michelle Lancelotti. They're these young Italian handymen. They
Speaker 1: had come to the Louver on Sunday afternoon, hidden overnight
Speaker 1: in a storeroom near the Salon care A gallery of
Speaker 1: Renaissance paintings, and then in the morning, wearing white workmen's smocks,
Speaker 1: they went into the salon and seized a small painting
Speaker 1: off the wall. They ripped off the glass, shadow box
Speaker 1: and frame, and then they went to a stairwell and
Speaker 1: Perusia hid the painting under his clothes, and then they
Speaker 1: slipped out of the gallery down a back stairwell, threw
Speaker 1: a side entrance and onto the streets of Paris. And
Speaker 1: so they stole the Mona Lisa. Yeah, they stole the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa. It took twenty six hours before the louver
Speaker 1: staff even noticed that it was missing. You have to
Speaker 1: remember how big the louver is, right, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: eleven there were fewer than one hundred and fifty guards
Speaker 1: looking out for all of that art.
Speaker 2: I'm curious, so, like, how did they plan it and
Speaker 2: why did they steal it? Like, give me the Ocean's
Speaker 2: ta plot here.
Speaker 1: Mango before in nineteen ten, a letter was mailed to
Speaker 1: the Louver from Vienna which threatened the Mona Lisa. So
Speaker 1: museum officials hired a firm named Kobie to put a
Speaker 1: dozen of its most prized paintings under glass, and the
Speaker 1: work took three months, and one of the men assigned
Speaker 1: to the project was Vincenzo Perusia who was one of
Speaker 1: the thieves, and Prusia was this Italian worker on a
Speaker 1: French construction crew, so they teased him a lot. Prusia
Speaker 1: later testified in court that they quote almost always called
Speaker 1: me Manja Macaroni or Macaroni eater, and very often they
Speaker 1: stole my personal property and salted my wine. So he
Speaker 1: was getting at this French crew. Yeah, and you took
Speaker 1: it personally. And some accounts say Prusa was motivated by
Speaker 1: national pride and he wanted to repatriate Mona Lisa to Italy. Anyway,
Speaker 1: there there was this media explosion when the Louver announced
Speaker 1: the theft. Newspaper headlines were all over the place, you know,
Speaker 1: wanted posters for the painting were hung on Parisian walls,
Speaker 1: and crowds masked at police headquarters. And when the Louver
Speaker 1: actually reopened after a week, thousands of spectators, including Franz Kafka,
Speaker 1: flooded into the salon to stare at the empty wall
Speaker 1: where the Mona Lisa had once been. An empty people
Speaker 1: are so weird, like why would people line up to
Speaker 1: stare at a blank wall? I mean the grief was remarkable, right,
Speaker 1: like the national outpouring. According to historians, mimicked the shock
Speaker 1: of Princess Diana's death and where was the actual painting
Speaker 1: being kept during all of this? So Prussia had squirreled
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa away in this false bottom of the
Speaker 1: wooden trunk in his room at a boardinghouse. And when
Speaker 1: the Parisian police interrogated him as part of all their interviews,
Speaker 1: because they basically interviewed everyone who was working at the
Speaker 1: louver at the time, he said he only learned about
Speaker 1: the theft from the newspapers and that the reason he
Speaker 1: was late to work that Monday in August was that
Speaker 1: he had drunk too much the night before and overslept.
Speaker 1: But Prusia ultimately wanted money for this world famous painting,
Speaker 1: so he twenty eight months and then in December nineteen thirteen,
Speaker 1: he left that boarding house with the trunk and he
Speaker 1: took a train to Florence, where he tried to offload
Speaker 1: the painting to an art dealer, who promptly called the police.
Speaker 1: He then had a brief trial in Florence, pleaded guilty,
Speaker 1: and ended up serving just eight months in prison. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it's a fairly happy ending of the story, then, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the painting actually went on tour in Italy briefly
Speaker 1: before it got sent back to France. But the theft
Speaker 1: made the Mona Lisa a global icon. In the first
Speaker 1: two days after it was rehung in the Louvers Salon,
Speaker 1: more than one hundred thousand people viewed it, and today
Speaker 1: eight million people see the Mona Lisa every single year.
Speaker 2: Wow, it does feel like Prusia should have gotten like
Speaker 2: this pr fee or something like that for boosting the
Speaker 2: Mona Lisa's profile.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but weirdly, you know, there are actually some conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: So some said that theft was the French government's way
Speaker 1: of trying to distract the public opinion from uprisings in
Speaker 1: colonial West Africa. A few months before the was found,
Speaker 1: the New York Times speculated that the Louver Restores had
Speaker 1: botched a restoration job and that the museum was just
Speaker 1: like concocting this story to cover that up. There was
Speaker 1: also a rumor that a gang of international art thieves
Speaker 1: had poached the painting and substituted a fake that was
Speaker 1: in Perusia's possession when he was caught, which is all
Speaker 1: kind of incredible. Whoa really. Yeah, And apparently this Argentinian
Speaker 1: also confessed to masterminding the crime. He did this to
Speaker 1: American reporter named Carl Decker. He basically said he paid
Speaker 1: Perusia and the other two men to steal the painting
Speaker 1: because the glass box that protected it weighed two hundred pounds,
Speaker 1: so you needed a few men on the job. And
Speaker 1: then he said he had six forgeries made and sold
Speaker 1: to private collectors. So for a while there was some
Speaker 1: question of whether the Mona Lisa and the Louver was
Speaker 1: the real deal. And then the other conspiracy theory around
Speaker 1: the theft was this whole you know Picasso thing. Wait
Speaker 1: what Picasso thing? Yeah, it's kind of incredible. So during
Speaker 1: that eighteen month period where the French police were not
Speaker 1: arrested the dudes who actually stole the Mona Lisa, they
Speaker 1: arrested Pablo Picasso and the poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire.
Speaker 1: It started when this guy, Joseph Gary Pierre went to
Speaker 1: the Paris Journal and told them that for the past
Speaker 1: several years he'd been stealing and then selling minor artwork
Speaker 1: from the Louver, and to prove it, Pire produced a
Speaker 1: small statue that the Louver curators confirmed with museums, and
Speaker 1: the police eventually connected Piree to Apollinaire, who was a
Speaker 1: member of Picasso's modernist entourage. They were called labond de Picasso,
Speaker 1: and there were this like group of artistic firebrands known
Speaker 1: around town as the wild Men of Paris. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't really that big a stretch for the police to
Speaker 1: assume this ring of art thieves were sophisticated enough to
Speaker 1: swipe the Mona Lisa. Of course, neither Apollinaire nor Picasso
Speaker 1: had played any part in that painting's disappearance.
Speaker 2: All right, So Picasso and his buddies didn't steal the
Speaker 2: Mona Lisa. They were they were innocent.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, the funny thing is they weren't exactly innocent.
Speaker 1: Pierre was telling the truth that Picasso had bought stolen
Speaker 1: statues from him and kept them buried in this cupboard
Speaker 1: in his Paris apartment. And you know, later the artist
Speaker 1: pretended ignorance, like he didn't know they were stolen. But
Speaker 1: at the bottom of every statue it was stamped in
Speaker 1: bold property of de Louver. That's not a good look. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it got weirder because when pire got put on trial,
Speaker 1: it kind of ended up being like this massive farce.
Speaker 1: Picasso and his friends confessed to putting their stolen statues
Speaker 1: in this old suitcase and almost throwing the bag into
Speaker 1: the sind before realizing they couldn't destroy this incredible art.
Speaker 1: So upon Air confesses to everything on the stand, but
Speaker 1: he also throws in a lot of lies, and Picasso,
Speaker 1: who normally liked to project, you know, a supermasho image,
Speaker 1: he breaks down and weeps and also says a lot
Speaker 1: of nonsense, and it all confuses the judge and he
Speaker 1: gets baffled by the whole thing and then ultimately just
Speaker 1: dismisses the men with a warning. But because's involvement obviously
Speaker 1: only brought the Mona Lisa more press, that is so funny,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, let's take a moment to talk about
Speaker 1: who the Mona Lisa actually is. Like, who is this
Speaker 1: woman whose portrait has been reproduced a ridiculous amount of
Speaker 1: times for five hundred plus years. Yeah, it's funny because
Speaker 1: I feel like there used to be a real mystery
Speaker 1: about who the Mona Lisa was.
Speaker 2: That's right, But back in two thousand and eight, a
Speaker 2: German university found conclusive evidence that it's Lisa Gerdini del
Speaker 2: Jacondo dated notes from October fifteen oh three, scribbled in
Speaker 2: the margins of a book at Heidelberg University's library. They
Speaker 2: confirmed that Lisa del Jacondo was indeed the model and
Speaker 2: her husband was most likely the man who commissioned the portrait.
Speaker 2: The comments comparati Leonardo to the ancient Greek artist at
Speaker 2: Pelis and said he was working on three paintings at
Speaker 2: the time, one of them a portrait of Lisa del Jacondo,
Speaker 2: which sounds pretty conclusive. Yeah, I will say at c
Speaker 2: Like for almost any given fact or assertion about the
Speaker 2: Mona Lisa, there is someone, often with the fancy Tyler
Speaker 2: degree who disputes it, of course, like anything. But probably
Speaker 2: the only thing everyone can agree on is that it's rectangular.
Speaker 2: But let's go with the Lisa del Jacondo theory for
Speaker 2: just a minute. Like, there's been this long standing theory
Speaker 2: that Lisa was or had recently been pregnant when she's
Speaker 2: set for this portrait, and in two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: a series of three D scans essentially confirmed this. The
Speaker 2: scans showed this fine gauzy veil around Mona Lisa's shoulders,
Speaker 2: this garment that women of the Italian and Renaissance were
Speaker 2: when they were expecting it's called a guamelo.
Speaker 1: Well, couldn't we just see the veil by looking at
Speaker 1: the painting? Like, why do we need three D scans
Speaker 1: of all of us? Actually the scans have been able
Speaker 1: to tell us a whole lot. Like for a while,
Speaker 1: there was this big question over whether the Mona Lisa
Speaker 1: didn't have eyelashes or eyebrows, and there was a debate
Speaker 1: over whether it was just the fashion at the time
Speaker 1: or whether maybe leonah Ardo never actually finished the painting.
Speaker 1: But an engineer named Pascal Cote used the scans to
Speaker 1: reveal traces of the Mona Lisa's left brow and basically
Speaker 1: that the lashes have been obliterated both by time and
Speaker 1: this long ago restoration. Also, the scans showed that da
Speaker 1: Vinci changed his mind about two fingers on Lisa's left
Speaker 1: hand and how they were going to be placed in
Speaker 1: the painting, and that her face was originally a little
Speaker 1: bit wider and the smile more prominent. So it's really
Speaker 1: actually a lot that they can tell from these scans.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. I had no idea you could like sort
Speaker 1: of see beneath the painting. Call those layers. That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really really cool. But you know your question
Speaker 2: about the veil. As the Mona Lisa aged, her veil
Speaker 2: darkened and it made it harder to see. But with
Speaker 2: the confirmation of the veil, historians were able to confirm
Speaker 2: that Francesco del ja Condo asked for the painting of
Speaker 2: his wife to celebrate the birth of his second.
Speaker 1: Son, which confirms that Mona Lisa is his wife, Lisa
Speaker 1: del Giaconda.
Speaker 2: That's right, actually his third wife to be exact. So
Speaker 2: in fourteen ninety five, at the age of fifteen, Lisa
Speaker 2: Garadini married prosperous silk and cloth merchant Francisco di Bartolomeo
Speaker 2: Diza Nobi del Jacondo. It's a mouthful there, but that's
Speaker 2: a pretty awesome name. Lisa and Francesco ended up having
Speaker 2: five children, Piero, Camilla, Andrea Jacondo and Marietta. So that's
Speaker 2: the Lisa in the Mona Lisa allegedly. Don't tell me
Speaker 2: you're getting into conspiracy talk, care mango, Well, I want.
Speaker 1: To end this episode on a crazy note. So did
Speaker 1: you know that some people believe there are two Mona Lisas. Oh, Basically,
Speaker 1: there's this painting that looks a lot like the Mona Lisa.
Speaker 1: It's a painting of a younger woman, kind of like
Speaker 1: a fresher, younger Mona Lisa, with dark hair and an
Speaker 1: enigmatic smile that sits at a slight angle in front
Speaker 1: of a panoramic landscape, which obviously sounds familiar. It's called
Speaker 1: the Aleworth Mona Lisa, and long story short, it got
Speaker 1: passed around different art collectors over the centuries, including American
Speaker 1: collector Henry F. Pulitzer. Pulitzer published a book arguing that
Speaker 1: the Aleworth picture was in fact Leonardo's only real portrait
Speaker 1: of Mona Lisa. The way did Leonardo actually paint this one?
Speaker 1: I mean, some people think so, namely the Mona Lisa Foundation,
Speaker 1: who have a vested interest in, you know, furthering this theory,
Speaker 1: but most art scholars don't believe. So it's painted on canvas,
Speaker 1: and Leonardo usually painted on wood, and they basically say
Speaker 1: that it's just not good enough to be by Leonardo
Speaker 1: da Vinci. It's just like a bad copy of the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa. But speaking of bad copy, what do you
Speaker 1: say we get into the fact of wow? I like
Speaker 1: what you did there, manga, Let's do it all right.
Speaker 2: So, one of the strangest things about the Mona Lisa
Speaker 2: is that it's been attacked. A bunch in nineteen fifty
Speaker 2: six threw a rock at it, which chipped the subject's
Speaker 2: left elbow. Over the years, people have thrown acid on it,
Speaker 2: They've tried to face it with spray paint, They've thrown
Speaker 2: a mug at it, and weirdest of all, it had
Speaker 2: a cake thrown in its face as recently as twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two.
Speaker 1: That is so weird and disheartening, you know. According to
Speaker 1: a book by Diane Hales, over the years, the Mona
Speaker 1: Lisa has launched a number of fashion trends, and this
Speaker 1: is what she writes. Quote Society women adopted the Mona
Speaker 1: Lisa's look by dusting yellow powder on their faces and
Speaker 1: necks to suggest her golden complexion, and immobilizing their facial
Speaker 1: muscles to mimic her smile, which sounds like an early
Speaker 1: imitation of botox. Also quote. In Parisian cabarets, dancers dressed
Speaker 1: as Laja Conde, the French name for Mona Lisa, and
Speaker 1: performed a saucy can can all right, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, did you know, in trying to figure
Speaker 2: out who the Mona Lisa was, scientists have actually dug
Speaker 2: up bones beneath a convent in Florence. Apparently one of
Speaker 2: Lisa's daughters became a nun and in her old age
Speaker 2: she moved into the convent with her daughter. So scientists
Speaker 2: went digging beneath this chapel. They found bones that do
Speaker 2: match up timeline wise with Lisa's death, but they were
Speaker 2: hoping to use digital imaging on the skeleton to compare
Speaker 2: it to the painting. But apparently there was no skull
Speaker 2: found with the bones, and that means her face couldn't
Speaker 2: actually be digitally reconstructed.
Speaker 1: So here's a fun one. To keep his subject smiling
Speaker 1: or half smiling, Da Vinci had a whole bag of tricks.
Speaker 1: He apparently employed six musicians to perform for her, had
Speaker 1: people reading stories out loud to her, and also had
Speaker 1: a fluffy white cat and a greyhound dog for her
Speaker 1: to play with on set. All right, will people often
Speaker 1: speculate how much the Mona Lisa is worse. Back in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, when the painting went on tour, the
Speaker 1: price was placed at about one hundred million dollars, which
Speaker 1: is around eight hundred and thirty four million dollars in
Speaker 1: today's currency, but others estimated it's actually worth more. One
Speaker 1: Entre Dour placed it in the billions of dollars because
Speaker 1: of its value to France and the amount of tourism
Speaker 1: the painting generates. Of course, all of that is actually
Speaker 1: mood because it's illegal to buy or sell the Mona
Speaker 1: Lisa in France. I love that they made it illegal
Speaker 1: to buy its. Yeah, don't try it. So one of
Speaker 1: the things I wanted to understand was why the Mona
Speaker 1: Lisa ended up in France. And apparently Leonardo had started
Speaker 1: painting Lisa in Italy, but when his patron, the Medici,
Speaker 1: the brother of Pope Leo the ten, died, he wasn't
Speaker 1: getting commissions in Italy. So you know, the French were
Speaker 1: very welcoming. They praised his genius, so he moves there.
Speaker 1: But some of the first damage to the Mona Lisa
Speaker 1: actually happened early on. It happened when King Francis the
Speaker 1: First owned the painting. He hung it in his bathing
Speaker 1: suite where the steam actually dulled the color, and when
Speaker 1: a restorer tried to preserve the color by putting the
Speaker 1: lacquer on it, he permanently dulled it. All right, Well
Speaker 1: here's one to close it out, mango. Did you know
Speaker 1: that there is a scientist who claims to have figured
Speaker 1: out what the Mona Lisa actually sounded like. This was
Speaker 1: part of a promotion for the Japanese version of The
Speaker 1: da Vinci Code. Montsumi Suzuki used the measurement from the
Speaker 1: painting's face and hands to figure out how big her
Speaker 1: skull would have been, also to determine her height about
Speaker 1: five foot six inches. Then they used data simulation to
Speaker 1: recreate the vocal cords to figure out her pitch and
Speaker 1: apparently the voice is somewhat deep. Now, we also figured
Speaker 1: out what Leonardo da Vinci's voice sounded like, and apparently
Speaker 1: it was super nasal. I love that. Yeah, I do
Speaker 1: wonder if knowing that da Vinci was nasal helps, you know,
Speaker 1: help sell tickets for the movie. But whatever the case,
Speaker 1: the fact is so good it makes me want to
Speaker 1: give you this week's trophy. And also I'm thinking we
Speaker 1: should stop the fact off just to get Dylan some
Speaker 1: rogaine for his eyebrows, because totally went above and beyond.
Speaker 2: I mean, he just tries so hard that Dylan. All right, Well,
Speaker 2: that's it for this week's Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: To remember.
Speaker 2: If you want to tell us anything about the show,
Speaker 2: If you want to ask us questions, send in your
Speaker 2: own poems about the Mona Lisa, just email our mothers
Speaker 2: at PT genius Moms at gmail dot com. That's the letter,
Speaker 2: p the letter T Genius Moms at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: They'll make sure we get the message.
Speaker 1: Meng.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you knew we created this email address,
Speaker 2: but it's it's pretty amazing, so send us notes here.
Speaker 2: That's right, Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongaechatikler
Speaker 1: and research by our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan, with
Speaker 1: a from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for
Speaker 1: iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social media
Speaker 1: support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viny Shorey.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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