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Updated: June 22, 2025
When living in Paris in the service of King Louis XII, Fra Giocondo built two superb bridges over the Seine, covered with shops works truly worthy of that magnanimous King and of the marvellous intellect of Fra Giocondo.
On one occasion, by the advice of some friends, he had set it in a place where the King was to pass and would be able to see it, when certain courtiers, who passed by first, plucked all the peaches off that little tree, as suchlike people were sure to do, and, playing about with one another, scattered what they could not eat along the whole length of the street, to the great displeasure of Fra Giocondo.
It gives a faint idea of what the master may have accomplished in the finished picture. During his stay at Florence Lionardo painted a portrait of that Ginevra Benci already mentioned as painted by Ghirlandajo; and a still more famous portrait by Lionardo was that of Mona Lisa, the wife of his friend Giocondo.
One of his first works after his return to Florence was the famous portrait of Madonna Lisa del Giocondo, called in French La Joconde, and now in the Louvre , which after the death of Leonardo was purchased by Francis I. for 4,000 gold crowns, equal to 45,000 francs or £1,800, an enormous sum in those days; yet who ever thought it too much?
But his work was less with the saints than with the living women of Florence; for he lived still in the polished society that he loved, and in the houses of Florence, left perhaps a little subject to light thoughts by the death of Savonarola the latest gossip is of an undraped Monna Lisa, found in some out-of-the-way corner of the late Orleans collection he saw Ginevra di Benci, and Lisa, the young third wife of Francesco del Giocondo.
This man, when he assumed the habit of S. Dominic, was called not simply Fra Giocondo, but Fra Giovanni Giocondo. How the name Giovanni dropped from him I know not, but I do know that he was always called Fra Giocondo by everyone.
But nothing is less certain, and Humboldt's opinion has hitherto appeared to the best writers to offer the largest amount of probability. Americus Vespucius made three other voyages. At the close of this latter year, Giuliano Bartholomeo di Giocondo induced Vespucius to enter the service of Emmanuel, King of Portugal, and he accomplished two more voyages at the expense of his new master.
Roused by this warning, and hearing the powerful arguments of Fra Giocondo, the Signori summoned an assembly of the best engineers and architects that there were in Italy, at which many opinions were given and many designs made; but that of Fra Giocondo was held to be the best, and was put into execution.
Wherefore it is the opinion of many persons, and in particular of the Magnificent Messer Luigi Cornaro, a Venetian gentleman of ripe wisdom gained both by learning and by long experience, that, if it had not been for the warning of Fra Giocondo, all the silting up that took place in the lagoons of Chioggia would have happened, and perhaps on a greater scale, in those of Venice, inflicting incredible damage and almost ruin on that city.
In consequence of this haste, the substructures of the new church proved insecure, and the huge piers raised to support the cupola were imperfect, while the venerable monuments contained in the old church were ruthlessly destroyed. After Bramante's death Giuliano di S. Gallo, Fra Giocondo, and Raphael successively superintended the construction, each for a short period.
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