Italian Historian Reveals the Secret Behind the Bridge in Leonardo da Vinci’s Masterpiece, Mona Lisa.
Mona Lisa. (Photo: Wikipedia Commons).
Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings in the world, shrouded in numerous mysteries and hypotheses. Silvani Vinceti, an Italian art and history researcher, claims to have deciphered the secret of the bridge behind the woman.
Previously, the bridge behind Mona Lisa’s left shoulder was believed to be the Ponte Buriano, located near Laterina (Italy). Another hypothesis suggested that it was the Ponte Bobbio in the city of Piacenza, Northern Italy.
Vinceti utilized historical documents and drone imagery to compare the painting with actual photographs. He revealed that the bridge depicted by Leonardo da Vinci in his masterpiece Mona Lisa is the Romito Bridge in the province of Arezzo, Tuscany (Italy).
Romito Bridge today. (Photo: Google Earth).
A key detail that helped Vinceti identify the bridge was the number of arches. The bridge in the painting has 4 arches, and so does the Romito Bridge. However, today the Romito Bridge only has one remaining arch, while the Ponte Buriano has 6 arches, and the Ponte Bobbio has more than 6.
The bridge in the painting has 4 arches. (Photo: Wikipedia Commons).
At that time, the Romito Bridge served as a shortcut between Arezzo, Fiesole, and Florence, making it a bustling area. Vinceti also found documents proving that Leonardo was in Fiesole with his priest uncle at that time, which lends credibility to his assertion.
He also pinpointed the location where Leonardo painted the bridge as Punta Caianello hill and claimed to have found the steep cliffs that appear on the left side of the painting.
