Mona Lisa theory no. 748

April 21 2016

Image of Mona Lisa theory no. 748

Picture: Louvre

The Italian 'art detective' Silvano Vinceti (past claims include finding Caravaggio's remains) has been in the news again - this time saying that the Mona Lisa is in fact Leonardo's gay lover, Salai. It's not actually a new idea, and in fact Vinceti has already tried this exact story before, in 2011. Such is the media's demand for any story connected to the Mona Lisa that nowadays you can just get away with recycling any old theory. This time around it's chiefly of note for producing one of the best art historical put downs I've yet seen, from the Leonardo scholar Prof. Martin Kemp, who told The Telegraph:

“This is a mish-mash of known things, semi-known things and complete fantasy”.

Notice to "Internet Explorer" Users

You are seeing this notice because you are using Internet Explorer 6.0 (or older version). IE6 is now a deprecated browser which this website no longer supports. To view the Art History News website, you can easily do so by downloading one of the following, freely available browsers:

Once you have upgraded your browser, you can return to this page using the new application, whereupon this notice will have been replaced by the full website and its content.