最も有名な肖像画のモデル、1479年6月15日生まれのリサ・ゲラルディーニの生涯（英文）

The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

On this day 544 years ago one of the most famous people in history was born. Though you don't know her name, you definitely know her face. Here is the story of the woman with the world's most famous smile, Lisa Gherardini, who never even saw her own portrait... pic.twitter.com/prJ2FvQX1n

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Lisa Gherardini was born in the Republic of Florence on 15th June, 1479. She came from an old and aristocratic Florentine family which, though well off, wasn't quite as wealthy or influential as it used to be. The Gherardinis made money from farms they owned around the city. pic.twitter.com/LrlLap9IDz

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

She was the eldest of seven children, and the family moved around Florence several times, eventually settling near the famous Santa Croce (seen here before its 19th century restoration). Here the family may have befriended Piero da Vinci, the father of Leonardo. pic.twitter.com/gg9hGTF13N

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

In 1495 Lisa married a cloth merchant called Francesco del Giocondo. So she became Lisa del Giocondo — hence the Mona Lisa is known as La Gioconda in Italy and La Joconde in France. He had money, she had a noble name, and together they lived a comfortable middle class life.

The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Lisa had five children with Francesco, and she also raised his son from a previous marriage. In 1503 they moved out of an apartment and into their own house on the Via della Stufa; Francesco had become part of Florence's government and was making more money. pic.twitter.com/r0NEzMLVfg

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

It was in this year, 1503, that Francesco commissioned a portrait of his wife, perhaps to celebrate moving into their new home. And he commissioned none other than Leonardo da Vinci, who had just returned to Florence from Milan (via Venice) after nearly twenty years away. pic.twitter.com/bOgH0ANLEF

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

The 16th century biographer Giorgio Vasari said Leonardo "lingered over it for four years" before leaving the painting unfinished. He had been commissioned to create a large painting in Florence's town hall, the Palazzo del Vecchio, and so his attention turned to that. pic.twitter.com/MHE9vXPq8H

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

But Leonardo never completed that project either. And when he returned to Milan in 1508, and thereafter went to France to work for King Francis I, he took the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo with him. He probably continued working on it until his death in France in 1519. pic.twitter.com/sZbITqJdj1

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

So the subject of the most famous portrait in history never even saw it. The Mona Lisa was kept at the Palace of Fontainebleau and then at Versailles by the French monarchy. Until 1797, after the Revolution, when it was moved to the Louvre — where it has remained ever since. pic.twitter.com/fMswuhxJtL

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

But back to Florence, where Francesco was in trouble. He was a supporter of the Medici family (who had been exiled in 1494) and was imprisoned in 1512 amid political tensions. Only to be released later that year when the Medicis returned and took control of the city again. pic.twitter.com/UpvXi2djPf

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

In 1537 Francesco died, and though Lisa received enough from his will to support herself she entered the (now abandoned) Convent of Sant'Orsola, where one of her daughters was already a nun. And that is where she died in 1542, at the age of 63. pic.twitter.com/Na3Ji5hsqy

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

So that's a very brief biography of Lisa del Giocondo, born on this day 544 years ago. Little could she or Francesco have known that her face (and smile) would become perhaps the most famous face in history, known all around the world nearly five centuries after her death. pic.twitter.com/6EFl6peoV3

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

But this is another, often forgotten side of art history: not the artist or the movement, but the people in the paintings. Their faces, like that of Lisa del Giocondo, are known by millions and have been reproduced millions of times on everything from postcards to pillows. pic.twitter.com/ma36dK6WDu

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

What about another famous Florentine artist, Sandro Botticelli, and his beloved Birth of Venus? There is some debate, but the model for Venus was probably a woman called Simonetta Vespucci, even though she had died a decade earlier at the age of just twenty two. pic.twitter.com/3U92z7tBPB

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Simonetta Vespucci (the cousin of Amerigo Vespucci, after whom America was named) was apparently the most beautiful woman of her age. Scholars dispute whether she really was Botticelli's main model, but we do know he asked to buried by her grave when he died. pic.twitter.com/Pa6XC0vtdT

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Then there's The Girl with the Pearl Earring, painted by Johannes Vermeer in 1665. But... this isn't actually a portrait. It's a "tronie", a genre of 17th century Dutch art in which particular moods, ideas, or places were allegorised as faces, often with unusual expressions. pic.twitter.com/NrpuJLov7b

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Still, scholars have speculated that Vermeer's daughter, Maria, may have been the model for this non-portrait. If so, then she is another example of somebody whose face has been reproduced millions of times and is known all around the world with few people ever knowing her name. pic.twitter.com/uLuOP81Bv3

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

What about Vincent van Gogh? One of his favourite models wasn't a noblewoman but a poverty-stricken war veteran called Adrianus Jacobus Zuyderland. The most famous example is At Eternity's Gate, but van Gogh drew or painted him many times. pic.twitter.com/KARGk8qw7M

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

One of Caravaggio's models was the courtesan Fillide Melandroni, of Judith and Holofernes fame. But he also found models on the streets of Rome, and though we won't ever know their names, Caravaggio immortalised these anonymous beggars by reframing them as saints and apostles. pic.twitter.com/8Po59mgPLA

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

American Gothic brought Grant Wood overnight fame in 1930. Who were his models? Grant Wood painted his sister, Nan Wood Graham, and their dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby. Pictured here looking no less solemn than in their famous likeness. pic.twitter.com/NDDIVSDHVo

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

The Raft of the Medusa, painted by Théodore Géricault in 1819, depicts a real maritime disaster from 1816. Géricault interviewed survivors, including Henri Savigny and Alexandre Corréard, to learn about the catastrophe — and to get precise details about the raft itself. pic.twitter.com/tk0TK9ubmB

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

As for The Kiss by Gustav Klimt, another one of those paintings that has firmly entered the realms of popular culture, there is some dispute about who the models were. Most likely they were Klimt himself and the fashion designer Emilie Louise Flöge, his lifelong companion. pic.twitter.com/ocGhbsgO1f

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

In Michelangelo's monumental Last Judgment, painted on the walls of the Sistine Chapel in the 1540s, he used a Vatican official called Biagio da Cesena as a model for Minos, judge of the Underworld. Why? Biagio had criticised Michelangelo's work... pic.twitter.com/YoWE4NYmBa

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Alas, these are but a few examples of people the fame of whose faces has far outstripped their names. But they, too, are just as much a part of artistic and cultural history as the artists who painted them or the paintings themselves. So... Happy Birthday Lisa Gherardini! pic.twitter.com/xIMs8JFF9H

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