Gioconda descodificada

There are at least five real historical references that certify the existence of a female portrait by Leonardo da Vinci. A commission that, apparently, he never delivered. However, when it came to identifying the model for La Gioconda, the words of Agostino Vespucci, Antonio de Beatis, Giorgio Vasari, Cassiano dal Pozzo and the Anonymous Gaddiano do not coincide.

To which portrait do each of them refer? To the painting exhibited in the Louvre Museum in Paris and which is universally recognized as Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, or on the contrary to the portrait that now hangs on the walls of Madrid's Museo del Prado? Are both portraits compatible? Do these images coincide the rest of the imaginary of the Mona Lisa, such as The Mona Lisa of Isleworth or La Monna Vanna? Is Leonardo the creator of each of these feminine representations? What are the enigmas that the Mona Lisa hides and how did its meteoric rise to fame develop?

Throughout these pages we will examine the global situation of the feminine role in the Renaissance, we will come across brilliant women that history eclipsed, we will showcase the role of women in the evolution of portraiture in the History of Art and we will analyze all the theories that scholars, historians and art experts have elaborated around the feminine representation in the work of Leonardo da Vinci, with the purpose of finding the true identity of the best-known portrait in the history of humanity: La Gioconda.