Mystery of Where Mona Lisa Was Painted Has Been Solved, Geologist Claims

By Dalya Alberge

The landscape behind Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa has sparked endless debate, with some art historians suggesting the view was imaginary and idealised, and others claiming various links to specific Italian locations.

Now a geologist and Renaissance art historian believes she has finally solved the mystery in one of the world’s most famous paintings. Ann Pizzorusso has combined her two fields of expertise to suggest that Leonardo painted several recognisable features of Lecco, on the shores of Lake Como in the Lombardy region of northern Italy.

Pizzorusso has matched Leonardo’s bridge, the mountain range and the lake in the Mona Lisa to Lecco’s 14th-century Azzone Visconti bridge, the south-western Alps overlooking the area and Lake Garlate, which Leonardo is known to have visited 500 years ago.

The similarities are undeniable, she said. “I’m so excited about this. I really feel it’s a home run.”

Previous theories have included a 2011 claim that a bridge and a road in the Mona Lisa belong to Bobbio, a small town in northern Italy, and a 2023 finding that Leonardo had painted a bridge in the province of Arezzo.

But focusing on the bridge, she said, wasn’t enough. “The arched bridge was ubiquitous throughout Italy and Europe and many looked very similar. It is impossible to identify an exact location from a bridge alone. They all talk about the bridge and nobody talks about the geology.

She noted that the rocks in Lecco are limestone and that Leonardo depicted his rocks in a grey-white colour – “which is perfect, because that’s the type of rock that’s there”. She added that, unlike Lecco, neither Bobbio nor Arezzo has a lake: “So we have really perfect evidence at Lecco.”

Her previous Leonardo research has involved studying both versions of the Virgin of the Rocks – the one in the Louvre in Paris, and the replica in the National Gallery in London. Until 2010, the National Gallery believed the one it had was mainly the work of assistants but, after restoring it, declared it possible that Leonardo painted all the picture himself.

Pizzorusso’s analysis of the vegetation and geology in the landscape around the central figures revived the debate. She concluded: “The botany in the Louvre version is perfect, showing plants that would have thrived in a moist, dark grotto. But the plants in the London version are inaccurate. Some don’t exist in nature.”

The Guardian

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Más de 500 años después de que Leonardo da Vinci pintó la Gioconda, una académica cree haber desvelado el misterio sobre el fondo de una de las obras de arte más famosas del mundo.

Los historiadores del arte llevan mucho tiempo debatiendo sobre el paisaje y especulando sobre los lugares que podrían haber inspirado a Leonardo, pero la geóloga y especialista en el Renacimiento italiano Ann Pizzorusso cree haber identificado Lecco, en el norte de Italia.

“Cuando llegué a Lecco, me di cuenta de que había pintado la Gioconda aquí”, dijo Pizzorusso, refiriéndose a la pequeña ciudad a orillas del lago de Como, hasta ahora más conocida como el escenario de “Los novios”, la obra maestra de Alessandro Manzoni

Según la estudiosa, el puente arqueado representado en el cuadro correspondería al Ponte Azzone Visconti, del siglo XIV, aunque teorías anteriores lo habían relacionado con estructuras similares de otras ciudades italianas, como Arezzo y Bobbio.

Pizzorusso no es la primera persona que afirma haber resuelto el misterio, pero cita sus conocimientos de geología para respaldar sus afirmaciones.

“Para mí, el puente no era el aspecto importante de la pintura”, afirma Pizzorusso. “En las otras hipótesis la geología era simplemente incorrecta”.

La geóloga descubrió que las formaciones rocosas de Lecco eran de piedra caliza, que coincidía con lo que se representa detrás de la noble mujer, a la que se ha llamado Mona Lisa.

“Cuando se mira la Gioconda, se ve esta parte del río Adda, y se ve otro lago detrás de ella, que se muestra perfectamente debajo de estas montañas de dientes de sierra”, dijo desde el lugar donde podría haberse pintado la escena.

La investigación de Pizzorusso sobre Leonardo “muestra perfectamente hasta qué punto se unieron el artista y el científico”, dijo Michael Daley, director ejecutivo de ArtWatch UK, una organización sin ánimo de lucro que supervisa la conservación de obras de arte.

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Photo: Reuters