quote:Mona Lisa had recently give birth to a baby, a team of Canadian and French scientists announced Tuesday, as they revealed a number of secrets hidden in one of the most famous paintings in the world.
Using infrared technology that allowed them to see more clearly beneath dark varnish, the scientists found that Leonardo da Vinci's model had a gauzy, nearly transparent layer over her dress that was typically worn by pregnant women of the time, or mothers who had recently given birth.
The model for Mona Lisa was Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a Florentine cloth merchant. The discovery of the filmy garment, sewn to her dress at the shoulders, means the painting was commissioned to celebrate the birth of her third child, said Bruno Mottin, a curator in the research department of the Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France.
The child was a boy, Mr. Mottin said.
-------------------- People need to stop appropriating Jesus as their reason for behaving badly. It's so irritating. (Avril) Posts: 8429 | From: New York run by the Swiss (Toronto) | Registered: Mar 2005
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nooooo...are you saying the Da Vinci Code was wrong?!?! I thought it was Leo painting himself as a woman. I'm going question the whole meaning of everything now. Posts: 122 | From: Minneapolis/London | Registered: Sep 2006
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I'd heard that the "enigmatic smile" was to cover for the fact that she was getting beaten and didn't want to show off her missing teeth.
Interesting the many ways that people will try to interpret these things.
-------------------- They just don't make crazed, beserk robots like they used to. --Sheen Estevez, Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius
If I manage to post something swipe-worthy that you would like to make your sig, you may do so with my blessing. Posts: 2486 | From: East Stroudsburg, PA | Registered: Oct 2005
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
posted
quote:Originally posted by Purple Iguana: I'd heard that the "enigmatic smile" was to cover for the fact that she was getting beaten and didn't want to show off her missing teeth.
Interesting the many ways that people will try to interpret these things.
Lots of people would have had missing teeth in 1503 without necessarily being beaten.
Oral hygiene then wasn't what it is today.
-------------------- This wrinkle in time, I can't give it no credit, I thought about my space and it really got me down. Got me so down, I got me a headache, My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound Posts: 2794 | From: London, UK | Registered: Aug 2003
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Interesting fact that the painting was commissioned to celebrate the birth of a child. I heard long ago that her sad smile was because she lost a child.
-------------------- "Destruction awaits the wicked on every side." Posts: 16 | From: Lilburn, Georgia | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by khadijah: nooooo...are you saying the Da Vinci Code was wrong?!?! I thought it was Leo painting himself as a woman. I'm going question the whole meaning of everything now.
No, they're just saying Leo was pregnant.
-------------------- Patrick Posts: 576 | From: Illinois | Registered: Dec 2002
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Dara & Troberg... please note that I was not asserting my own opinion, merely repeating one suggested by one "expert" of many. Personally, I don't give a hoot why she's smiling the way she is. I'm no good at drawing hands... maybe da Vinci was no good at painting smiles.
-------------------- They just don't make crazed, beserk robots like they used to. --Sheen Estevez, Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius
If I manage to post something swipe-worthy that you would like to make your sig, you may do so with my blessing. Posts: 2486 | From: East Stroudsburg, PA | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by khadijah: nooooo...are you saying the Da Vinci Code was wrong?!?! I thought it was Leo painting himself as a woman. I'm going question the whole meaning of everything now.
No, they're just saying Leo was pregnant.
YOMANK!!!
-------------------- "We've got a fifth member of the band round here, and he's DEFINITELY out of tune!" -- Keith Moon
"If I had a thousand quid for every time I've introduced this song --- oh, I do!" -- John Entwistle Posts: 584 | From: Ohio | Registered: Sep 2005
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This story was posted on a historic-costume list I'm on, and no one there knew anything about a universal sign-of-maternity garment. (Apparently there's something similar to the Mona Lisa gauze in a portrait of Queen Elisabeth I, and ain't no way she could have covered up a pregnancy.)
Posts: 244 | From: Omaha, NE | Registered: Oct 2001
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I remember that my biology teacher talked about the eyeliner they used back then. Something about that it was poisonous or something and that she was more than likely high whenever they painted that picture. Maybe that explains the smile.
-------------------- As heard on "Street Smarts": Q: Chicago has 2 professional baseball teams. The Cubs and....what is the other one? Hint: It's something you probably don't wear a lot.
posted
I'd heard the pregnancy/new mother thing quite a while back, something about the swelling in her hands and her "glow".
-------------------- "this could increase your brain power, or it could kill you..." "Increase my killing power, ehh???" Posts: 1153 | From: Houston, TX | Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
If this is true, I wonder if they would trace her ancestors to find modern day relatives. That would be neat.
Posts: 9 | From: Atlanta, GA | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by khadijah: nooooo...are you saying the Da Vinci Code was wrong?!?! I thought it was Leo painting himself as a woman. I'm going question the whole meaning of everything now.
Nope, you (and Dan Brown) have it all wrong - a few years ago, the fashionable theory was that Mona Lisa was in fact Leonardo's gay boyfriend in drag.
-------------------- Desperate, but not serious. Posts: 689 | From: Confoederatio Helvetica | Registered: Sep 2005
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