A geologist and Renaissance art historian Ann Pizzorusso has claimed to have solved the mystery about the landscape behind Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
The geologist has suggested that Leonardo painted several recognisable features of Lecco, on the shores of Lake Como in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, according to The Guardian.
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.”
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.”
This weekend Pizzorusso will present her evidence at a geology conference in Lecco, The Guardian said.
“I am actually euphoric about these findings – and there is a near-certain possibility that Leonardo painted [the landscape] from the exact spot where we are holding our conference,” she said.