Mona Lisa's Identity Revealed?

[snopes]

The author of the book "Mona Lisa's Story," Giuseppe Pallanti has identified her as Lisa Gherardini, a member of a minor noble family of rural origins. She later married a wealthy Florentine silk merchant, Francesco del Giocondo.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/0...20070502143030

[Malruhn]

I dunno about that. I have seen enough other ideas to have at LEAST reasonable doubt about that claim.

And this includes the claim that it was a femininization of a self portrait that was painted in a mirror. The likeness was uncanny!

[ganzfeld]

Originally Posted by Malruhn

I dunno about that. I have seen enough other ideas to have at LEAST reasonable doubt about that claim.

Which of those ideas is anywhere near as reasonable? (I can only laugh about the the "feminized self-portrait" idea -- a "theory" born as much from an active imagination as an unfamiliarity with his drawings and paintings.) It's not a criminal trial so the fact that there are a dozen other (mostly extremely unlikely) theories bears little weight against the one with the best evidence. Why is it so hard to believe that the only theory with good evidence is the truth?

[RealityChuck]

Originally Posted by snopes

The author of the book "Mona Lisa's Story," Giuseppe Pallanti has identified her as Lisa Gherardini, a member of a minor noble family of rural origins. She later married a wealthy Florentine silk merchant, Francesco del Giocondo.

How is this news? One alternate name of the painting was "La Giocanda" -- feminine form of Giocondo.

[Joostik]

Has her identity ever been a secret?

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by Joostik

Has her identity ever been a secret?

This is the first time I've heard that it was known, so I don't think it's general knowledge at least. It surprises me that I've never heard it before, really.

On the other hand they say this woman has been claimed in writing as the subject since 1550, which would only have been 8 years after her death, so quite plausible that accurate information was available. And both "Lisa" and "Gioconda" feature in the usual names for the painting - although it doesn't say how long the painting has been known by those names or why. It seems completely plausible from the information given in the article.

Possibly the claim was known to art historians but nobody had bothered to check it for ages (and find all the information about the woman herself) and so it had just turned into one possibility among many.

[Floater]

I can only speak for myself, but I have never heard anything else.

[Joostik]

Pallanti's 25-year investigation supports a claim first made in 1550 by Giorgio Vasari. In his work, "Lives of the Artists," the 16th-century painter and art historian named Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo as the subject of the portrait.

Vasari is hardly an obscure source.

Maybe he's just the first who did some in-depth research about her, thus in a way "revealing more of her identity".