Image credit: Leonardo da
Vinci
Historian Carla Glori may
have identified the location shown in Da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting.
Carla
Glori, an Italian art historian, believes that the landscape behind Mona Lisa is known
as the Ponte Gobbo or Ponte Vecchio (the Old Bridge) identifiable by the
three-arch-bridge which can be seen behind Mona Lisa's left shoulder. This bridge,
contends Glori, is a structure that was located south of Piacenza in northern Italy;
however, the bridge was later destroyed in a flood. Bobbio is a village which lies in
rugged hill country south of Piacenza, in northern Italy. Da Vinci was born in Vinci in
Tuscany; however, he travelled extensively throughout Italy during his lifetime working
in Venice, Rome and Bologna, so he could easily have come across depictions of this
bridge.
As documentation, Glori says, "Leonardo added in the numbers 7 and 2
[for 1472] beneath the bridge to record the devastating flood of the River Trebbia and
to allow it to be identified." These numbers were discoverd by art historian Silvano
Vinceti. Obviously, the bridge was destroyed before DaVinci's painting was even begun
in 1503 or 1504.
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