Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered. by Dianne Hales co sponsored by Leonardo da Vinci Society and Humanities West
Intrigued by new findings identifying Leonardo's model for "The Mona Lisa" as Lisa Gherardini de Giocondo, award winning author, Dianne Hales, set out to reconstruct the enigmatic Lisa's life, embarking on a journey through Italy to archives, libraries, piazza and palazzo, and abandoned chapels, and interviewing descendants, on the path of scovery of the luminaries of the period, Leonardo da Vinci, painter of "The Mona Lisa", and his rival Michaelangelo, Machiavelli, and of course the Medici, and other nobility. Her former book, La Bella Lingua earned Hales an Italian "knighthood" which opened all doors for her research, including that of Lisa's living descendants. The extensive research yielded a blend of biography, history and memoir of Florence's Golden Age. Fascinating! I hear her tonight, at the Mechanics Institute Library, Post and Market. I read the book on Kindle. It concludes with notes on the chapters, an extensive appendix, and a description of all the sources for the research(50 pages). The book is published by Simon & Schuster.
Diane Hale was hosted by the Leonardo da vinci society in SF(an elegant lady is the president) and the Western Humanities Union, at the Mechanics Institute Library on Post and Market. I met her before her lecture and she was delighted to find someone in the audience who had read her book! It was about selling books...she gave a very fine power point presentation including the personalities and places in her book, as given the price of physical books, there were no photos in the book, itself. So, it was really worthwhile.
Diane Hales made it informative and interesting, and projected the tenets of her research and authored book. She started charmingly by telling us that aside from marrying her husband(a psychiatrist) and having their daughter, and her passion for swimming, learning Italian was one of the great pleasures of her life. I had concluded something similar in China; after struggling with the Chinese language and finding inadequate teachers of foreigners, I decided it would be far more fun to learn Italian! It is a beautiful mellifluous language!
I mentioned to Diane, that her book could be a dissertation, especially with 50 pages of notes, annotations and an appendix! She assented that this had been brought to her attention! She is however planning to return to Florence next summer and lead tours to put Lisa on the map, as Florence has never celebrated her, though there are claims(mostly false) to her birthright, etc. She showed us all the popular images that are perpetuated about, and from the Mona Lisa, including adaptations, commercialization and degradation of her image. I met Diane before her talk; she wanted to sign something and I did not have the heart to tell her I had read the Kindle edition, but she was still delighted I had read it and had enjoyed it, which I did, immensely! Just my kind of investigation, in counter to the "Da Vinci Code," which despite its popularity, I could not even begin to read...
It is a wonderful task we have in the 21st century to remember the humanity of those classical artists whom we have respected. Anyone who has gazed upon The Mona Lisa in the Louvre, as well as the plethora of ways and means in which this image is perpetuated, in our culture, by other artists adapting the image and by commercializing the image, will be interested in this book a journey of discovery. It also takes one back to Florence and Venice and Rome, a welcome excursion, as the images from my trip there, have remained vivid all my life. A friend's son is now spending his architectural semester (Syracuse University) in Rome, and that awakens old memories as well. I once taught a thesis writing course to architectural students students at Temple University, Philadelphia, Department of Architecture and never forgot the pleasures, one being a student who "finished a Michaelangelo unfinished drawing for an architectural structure'! The course became a model, at other universities, as I presented the syllabus and course summary at a conference and one of the participants published it.
Diane Hale was hosted by the Leonardo da vinci society in SF(an elegant lady is the president) and the Western Humanities Union, at the Mechanics Institute Library on Post and Market. I met her before her lecture and she was delighted to find someone in the audience who had read her book! It was about selling books...she gave a very fine power point presentation including the personalities and places in her book, as given the price of physical books, there were no photos in the book, itself. So, it was really worthwhile.
Diane Hales made it informative and interesting, and projected the tenets of her research and authored book. She started charmingly by telling us that aside from marrying her husband(a psychiatrist) and having their daughter, and her passion for swimming, learning Italian was one of the great pleasures of her life. I had concluded something similar in China; after struggling with the Chinese language and finding inadequate teachers of foreigners, I decided it would be far more fun to learn Italian! It is a beautiful mellifluous language!
I mentioned to Diane, that her book could be a dissertation, especially with 50 pages of notes, annotations and an appendix! She assented that this had been brought to her attention! She is however planning to return to Florence next summer and lead tours to put Lisa on the map, as Florence has never celebrated her, though there are claims(mostly false) to her birthright, etc. She showed us all the popular images that are perpetuated about, and from the Mona Lisa, including adaptations, commercialization and degradation of her image. I met Diane before her talk; she wanted to sign something and I did not have the heart to tell her I had read the Kindle edition, but she was still delighted I had read it and had enjoyed it, which I did, immensely! Just my kind of investigation, in counter to the "Da Vinci Code," which despite its popularity, I could not even begin to read...
It is a wonderful task we have in the 21st century to remember the humanity of those classical artists whom we have respected. Anyone who has gazed upon The Mona Lisa in the Louvre, as well as the plethora of ways and means in which this image is perpetuated, in our culture, by other artists adapting the image and by commercializing the image, will be interested in this book a journey of discovery. It also takes one back to Florence and Venice and Rome, a welcome excursion, as the images from my trip there, have remained vivid all my life. A friend's son is now spending his architectural semester (Syracuse University) in Rome, and that awakens old memories as well. I once taught a thesis writing course to architectural students students at Temple University, Philadelphia, Department of Architecture and never forgot the pleasures, one being a student who "finished a Michaelangelo unfinished drawing for an architectural structure'! The course became a model, at other universities, as I presented the syllabus and course summary at a conference and one of the participants published it.
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| Diane Hales and the host, at the Mechanics Institute. |
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