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Dan Brown has capitalized on the supposed conspiracy theories surrounding DaVinci's famous work's of art including The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda-The Happy Woman in Italian). It's been said that DaVinci's trickery knew no ends and that even vast sums of money could not hold his morbid-prankster ways back. When commissioned to create a portrait for a church or a wealthy household, the genius himself would supposedly throw in subtle symbols here and there that only the “enlightened” would notice.
When it comes to The Mona Lisa, the entire painting could be a giant Nose Jerk to his employers (the “Nose Jerk” is the Italian version of the American finger). One theory say's that The Mona Lisa is nothing more than a painting of DaVinci himself and that oh-so-famous smile is his way of laughing at us. There are other theories that the portrait is of his mother, and even his lover (male lover given feminine qualities). It's the mere possibility of these theories that brings credibility to novels like The DaVinci Code and book like Holy Blood Holy Grail. But what if....what if The Mona Lisa, for example, was proven to be as legitimate a painting as The Screaming Man?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080114/ts_n...