Why France owns the Mona Lisa and not Italy
Leonardo entering Amboise
In 1516, after a perilous, tiring journey from Italy over the Alps Leonardo arrived in Amboise.
The King said: Here Leonardo, you will be free to dream, to think and to work.
Leonardo brought with him three masterpieces, Mona Lisa, St. John the Baptist and Virgin and Child with St. Anne. All three are in the Louvre Paris.
Mussolini wanted them returned to Italy.
The Italian government still wants them. The truth is they never did belong to Italy.
Leonardo left the country of his birth because he was treated so badly. If the Pope had revered him the way the King of France did, he would never have left.
François I loved the paintings. He looked at them in Clos Lucé for the last three years of Leonardo’s life.
Leonardo left the paintings to his apprentice Salai in his will.
Salai sold them to a representative of the king (kings don’t buy and sell). Francois gazed on them lost in admiration until the day he died.
After the French Revolution, they became the property of the Republic which is how they ended up in the Louvre.
Post by Pamela Shields (BA History of Art), photography by Mark Playle.
Leonardo da Vinci
The Amboise Connection
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