Lombardy offers to welcome the Mona Lisa

Who knows if Mona Lisa would not oppose her enigmatic smile to the proposal of the Lombardy Culture Councilor. That of making it retrain the Alps to protect it from the state of dilapidation in which the Louvre would pay. “We are ready to welcome him” said Francesca Caruso by reading the letter addressed by the president-director of the Parisian museum to the Minister of Culture Rachida Dati.

Alarming infiltration, leaks, dilapidated infrastructure and “Disturbing temperature fluctuations that put the works in danger”Lombardy is offered as the Joconde refuge. A refuge that could be even more congested than the room of states where the canvas of Leonardo da Vinci usually sits in which thousands of tourists mass.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), The Mona Lisa (c. 1503/1519) – Louvre museum

Francesca Caruso wants to make it one of the attractions of the Milan-Cortina Olympic Games in 2026. “It would be the best way to make this splendor of Italian genius accessible to the general public that will come to Lombardy and decide to visit the works of Leonardo da Vinci in what I like to call the” Vinciano circuit “” she explains.

If the transalpine media largely relayed the vicissitudes of the Parisian museum finding an echo there for the lack of means which affect the heritage of the peninsula, the proposal of Francesca Caruso is not taken seriously. The idea of ​​promoting a territory or an event with an iconic work of art is deemed anachronistic. The one that the Louvre can separate from one of the most famous fabrics in the inenvisable world. As for that of caressing cultural chauvinism of which some followers still cry out “give us the Mona Lisa!” Simply ridiculous. There are fewer and fewer in Italy to believe in the legitimacy of a hypothetical request for restitution of a work carried away by its author in France and which he has in his lifetime in his patron François 1er.

The answer to Francesca Caruso’s proposal can only be a smile. The same perhaps that the one could tear from Mona Lisa the memory of her last crossing of the Alps. It was in 1914. After being stolen in 1911 by Vincenzo Peruggia, she was found in Florence and exhibited throughout Italy in a large farewell tour before regaining her place at the Louvre. A place that can sometimes be uncomfortable but that it is not about to leave.

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