New Book Reveals Mona Lisa's Husband Was a Slave Trader

A new book titled 'Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting' by Oxford art history professor Martin Kemp and Florentine scholar Giuseppe Pallanti reveals that Francesco del Giocondo, the husband of Lisa Gherardini (the model for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa), was not a silk merchant as long believed, but a slave trader. The authors cite purchase documents showing del Giocondo regularly bought enslaved girls from North Africa to work as domestic servants in Florence, and that he transported more Moorish women than needed for his household, likely selling the excess. This revelation offers a new interpretation of the enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa, suggesting the melancholy captured by Leonardo may stem from her husband's involvement in the slave trade. The painting, valued at $800 million, is displayed behind bulletproof glass at the Louvre in Paris, where director Henri Loyrette noted that 80% of visitors come specifically to see it.