The Three Mona Lisas

In this study Rab Hatfield provides a thorough, no-nonsense analysis of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa or La Gioconda. The book begins with a consideration of the generally known sources and documents and a careful look at the painting as we know it now. There follow discussions of rarely examined laboratory photographs and of a recently discovered annotation by Ser Agostino Vespucci in a book he owned of letters by Cicero, from which we learn that Leonardo left a portrait of "Lisa del Giocondo" unfinished no later than October 1503.