Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 22, 2025
Leonardo undertook to execute, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Monna Lisa, his wife; and after toiling over it for four years, he left it unfinished; and the work is now in the collection of King Francis of France, at Fontainebleau.
The wall-thickness is similarly to be preserved above ground likewise, and the intervals between these walls should be vaulted over, or filled with earth rammed down hard, to keep the walls well apart. The entasis as given by Fra Giocondo in the edition of 1511.
Now, from the circumstance that it had been erected in haste, and for other reasons given in another place, it was threatening to fall in many parts, and by the advice of Fra Giocondo, Raffaello, and Giuliano, the foundations were in great measure renewed; in which work persons who were present and are still living declare that those masters adopted the following method.
And the design, with others by the same monk, remained in the house of the Bragadini, opposite to S. Marina, in the possession of Frate Angelo, a member of that family and a friar of S. Dominic, who, by reason of his many merits, afterwards became Bishop of Vicenza. Fra Giocondo was very versatile, and delighted, in addition to the pursuits already mentioned, in simples and in agriculture.
The same Giocondo wrote some observations, which are in print, on the Commentaries of Cæsar; and he was the first who made a drawing of the bridge built by Cæsar over the River Rhone, and described by him in those same Commentaries, but misunderstood in the time of Fra Giocondo.
This lady must have been very beautiful; Ghirlandajo introduced her portrait into two of his frescoes. But the most remarkable portrait was that known as Mona Lisa del Giocondo, which is in the Louvre, and is called by some critics the finest work of this master. The lady was the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, a lovely woman, and some suppose that she was very dear to Leonardo.
A short silence followed, during which his thoughts wandered far from the precincts of that quiet room. "Mr. Palma, will you please give me my picture?" "It is yours of course, but conditionally. Remaining here, it will be called an imitation of 'Mona Lisa del Giocondo, and none will ever suspect the truth.
While these matters were in progress, and the fame of Antonio was growing and spreading abroad, it happened that old age and various infirmities made Bramante a citizen of the other world; at which three architects were appointed straightway by Pope Leo for the building of S. Pietro Raffaello da Urbino, Giuliano da San Gallo, the uncle of Antonio, and Fra Giocondo of Verona.
It was also his opinion that right round the outer side of the buildings there should be erected shops looking out upon those same quays, and that these shops should serve only for the sale of eatables of every kind. And in these four sides the design of Fra Giocondo had four principal gates namely, one to each side, placed in the centre, one directly opposite to another.
This and other things declares Budé, extolling Fra Giocondo as an excellent architect, and adding that by the researches of the same monk there were discovered in an old library in Paris the greater part of the Epistles of Pliny, which, after having been so long out of the hands of mankind, were printed by Aldus Manutius, as may be read in a Latin letter written by him and printed with the same.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking