A Mona Lisa similar to that of Leonardo preserved in the Louvre was found in recent days in deposit at Montecitorio, granted in 1925 by the National Gallery of Ancient Art of Palazzo Barberini. The work was hung in the fireplace room when it was in the palace of the heirs of Cassiano dal Pozzo, while it ended up above the radiator in the room of the commissioner of the Chamber when it was occupied by Federico D’Inca, now Minister of Relations with Parliament. The Mona Lisa found in Montecitorio
Originally on wood, like the work exhibited in Paris, the Roman Mona Lisa belonged to the noble Torlonia family and arrived in Palazzo Montecitorio in 1925 from the Palazzo Barberini Museum of Ancient Art. Subjected over the years to the analysis of scholars, making use of the work of master restorers who also arrived from the Louvre, the painting is traced back to the first half of the sixteenth century, as confirmed by the latest checks carried out during a recent restoration of the canvas.
Art historians Antonio and Maria Forcellino, in a contribution to the catalog of a Roman exhibition on Leonardo that was held in 2019, argue that certain features of the landscape and the veiling of the flesh tones of this painting “are of a transparency that echoes in Leonardo’s executive technique carried out in the Louvre painting in a precise manner “, indeed,” the pictorial technique … and so refined as to suggest that Leonardo himself had handled the chiaroscuro definition of the face “. The reconstruction
Stefano Candiani of the Lega told Repubblica that in 2019, when he was Undersecretary of the Interior of the first Conte government, he worked hard to take the painting out of D’Inca’s room in view of the 2019 exhibition at the Farnesina. “I signed the acceptance and we transported it, in agreement with the direction of the National Gallery, to an office of the Viminale where it was entrusted to the care of Cinzia Pasquali, the talented restorer of the Louvre”.
“This is a copy of the painting in the Louvre made by Leonardo’s workshop, perhaps even with his own collaboration”, said the commissioner of the Chamber Francesco D’Uva who deprived himself of the canvas to exhibit it in the yellow room (now Aldo Moro ) of Montecitorio, a more suitable arrangement for the copy (one of the 61 notes) of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa in the Louvre. Meanwhile, Montecitorio is preparing to rearrange the Sala della Mona Lisa in the workshop with other paintings and to show the copy of the ‘500 as part of the appointments of the “Open door room”, scheduled for next March. Origin and author of the work
But to whom this painting belonged
Who is the author of this reproduction of the Mona Lisa
According to the reconstruction made by Antonio and Maria Forcellino who dedicated nine pages to the Gioconda Torlonia in the catalog of the 2019 Roman exhibition on “Leonardo in Rome, influence and inherit”, this Gioconda belonged to the noble Roman family, as attested by an edition of the Lives of Vasari of 1852, and would later become part of the artistic heritage of the Italian state. As for the attribution, Maria Focellino wanted to put aside the discussion by stating that the correct attribution is “Leonardo’s workshop”, and that’s it.
