Leonardo’s Madonna dei Fusi

Leonardo’s Madonna dei Fusi
Leonardo da Vinci spent some five years living and working in and around Arezzo and the city is proud to host his painting ‘La Madonna dei Fusi’ for five months.

The painting was commissioned in 1501 by Florimond Robertet, secretary of state to Louis XII.

They depict the Virgin Mary with the Christ child, who looks longingly at a yarnwinder which the Virgin could use to measure off yarn.

The yarnwinder serves as a symbol both of Mary's domesticity and the Cross on which Christ was crucified, and may also suggest the Fates, understood in classical mythology as spinners.
Leonardo’s Madonna dei Fusi

Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa
Also known as La Giocondo is a portrait of the wife of Francesco del Giocondo. The painting was painted by Leonardo between 1503 and 1505. It was painted in oil on a poplar panel.

It was sold to Francois I. It was greatly admired and considered the prototype of the Renaissance portrait.

The painting is half length portrait and depicts a woman whose expression is often described as enigmatic. Mona Lisa has slight smile which enters into the gentle, delicate atmosphere pervading the whole painting. This because Leonardo uses the sfuma technique, a gradual dissolving of the forms themselves, continuous interaction between light and shade and an uncertain sense of the time of the day.

Mona Lisa dressed on the Florentine fashion of her day and seated in a visionary, mountainous landscape. Mona Lisa subject has been adapted in turn as an aesthetic, philosophical and advertising symbol, entering eventually into the irreverent parodies of the Dada and Surrealist artists.
Mona Lisa