Lisa del Giocondo (Mona Lisa)

Lisa del Giocondo 

 

Born :     Lisa Gherardini  

June 15, 1479   Via Maggio, Republic of Florence

Died :  July 15, 1542 (aged 63)   Convent of Saint Orsola

Parent's :   Antonmaria di Noldo Gherardini

Lucrezia del Caccia

Children : 5

Life and family :  Lisa's Florentine family was old and aristocratic but over time had lost their influence   They were well off but not wealthy, and lived on farm income in a city that was among the largest in Europe. While economically successful, there were great disparities in wealth among Florence's inhabitants   Antonmaria di Noldo Gherardini, Lisa's father, lost two wives, Lisa di Giovanni Filippo de' Carducci, whom he married in 1465, and Caterina di Mariotto Rucellai, whom he married in 1473. Both died in childbirth   Lisa's mother was Lucrezia del Caccia, daughter of Piera Spinelli, and Gherardini's wife by his third marriage in 1476. Gherardini at one time owned or rented six farms in Chianti that produced wheat  wine and olive oil and where livestock was raised

Marriage and later life :  On March 5, 1495, 15-year-old Lisa married Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo, a modestly successful cloth and silk merchant, becoming his third wife. Lisa's dowry was 170 florins and the San Silvestro farm near her family's country home  , Lisa and Francesco had five children: Piero, Camilla, Andrea, Giocondo, and Marietta, four of them between 1496 and 1507 ,  Lisa lost a baby daughter in 1499      Lisa also raised Bartolomeo, the son of Francesco and his first wife Camilla di Mariotto Rucellai, who was about a year old when his mother died. The second wife of Lisa's father, Caterina di Mariotto Rucellai, and Francesco's first wife were sisters, members of the prominent

Death :  In one account, Francesco died in the plague of 1538. Lisa fell ill and was taken by her daughter Ludovica to the convent of Sant'Orsola, where she died on July 15, 1542, at the age of 63 In a scholarly account of their lives, Francesco was nearly 80 years old when he died, and Lisa may have lived until at least 1551, when she would have been 71 or 72.