達文西密碼：「蒙娜麗莎」在哪裡微笑？｜經濟學人
原文標題：
Artistic mysteries
The other da Vinci code
Where did the 「Mona Lisa」 smile?
Look over her shoulders for clues
For centuries, two of the most intriguing questions about Leonardo da Vinci’s 「Mona Lisa」 were 「Who?」 and 「When?」 A discovery made at Heidelberg University in 2005 pretty much answered both. A note written in a manuscript in the library confirmed the account of da Vinci’s first biographer, Giorgio Vasari: that the sitter was a merchant’s wife, Lisa Gherardini. The note also helped date the masterpiece to between 1503 and 1506.
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A third conundrum—「Where?」—is still in dispute. But on June 3rd a French engineer, Pascal Cotte, declared that he and a collaborator had identified the landscape in the background of the painting.
Arguments had previously been made for stretches of countryside in the Marche region and between Milan and Genoa. During a presentation in Vinci, near Florence, Mr Cotte contended that the artist was
more plausibly depicting a part of his native Tuscany—one that keenly interested him at the time. According to this theory, da Vinci represented the area not as it was, but as, in an unrealised
scheme, he intended it to be.
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Mr Cotte, who was asked by the Louvre (where the 「Mona Lisa」 hangs) to create a digital image of the painting, is the inventor of the multispectral camera: a device that can detect not only the
drawing below the surface of an oil painting, but also, where they exist, intermediate layers of work. It was among these, under what appears to be a pointed rock, that he found a preparatory sketch
showing that da Vinci intended it to represent a castellated tower.
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The landscape of the 「Mona Lisa」 also includes a huge overhanging precipice. That is similar to one that da Vinci included in a sketch of a fortress contested by Pisa and Florence in the war that
flared between them in 1503 (around the time he was painting Gherardini). The fortress with the nearby precipice—and a tower, known as the Caprona tower—all overlook the river Arno as it snakes from
Florence to Pisa. All three also feature in drawings made by da Vinci to illustrate a plan about which, says Mr Cotte, he became 「obsessive」.
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This involved diverting the Arno to cut off Pisa’s water supply and give Florence an outlet to the Mediterranean. In the early 1500s, with the two city-states at war, the idea was under active
consideration. Mr Cotte argues that a channel winding through desolate countryside at the right of the 「Mona Lisa」 is too wide to be a road, as some have speculated, and is instead the dried-up bed
of the Arno as da Vinci envisaged it once his plan had been adopted.
（恭喜讀完，本篇英語詞彙量453左右）
原文出自：2022年6月18日《經濟學人》Culture版塊
精讀筆記來源於：自由英語之路
本文翻譯整理：Irene
本文編輯校對: Irene
僅供個人英語學習交流使用。
【補充資料】（來自於網絡）
《蒙娜麗莎》（Mona
Lisa）是義大利文藝復興時期畫家李奧納多·達·文西創作的油畫，現收藏於法國羅浮宮博物館。該畫作主要表現了女性的典雅和恬靜的典型形象，塑造了資本主義上升時期一位城市有產階級的婦女形象。《蒙娜麗莎》代表了文藝復興時期的美學方向；該作品折射出來的女性的深邃與高尚的思想品質，反映了文藝復興時期人們對於女性美的審美理念和審美追求。
喬爾喬·瓦薩里（Giorgio Vasari，1511——1574）是米開朗基羅的朋友，文藝復興時期義大利藝術理論家。主要作品有《藝苑名人傳》（又名《大藝術家傳》）等。美術史上記載更多的是他那本著名的美術史著作《藝苑名人傳》（又名《大藝術家傳》）長達百萬言，並第一次在書中提出文藝復興一詞。他提出可按14、15、16世紀劃分美術發展的階段，對後來的藝術理論研究造成巨大影響。
【重點句子】（3個）
A third conundrum—「Where?」—is still in dispute.
第三個仍有爭議的難題：「在哪裡？」
The landscape of the 「Mona Lisa」 also includes a huge overhanging precipice.
《蒙娜麗莎》的背景圖還包括一個巨大的懸崖峭壁。
In the early 1500s, with the two city-states at war, the idea was under active consideration.
16世紀初，兩個城邦處於戰爭狀態，當時佛羅倫斯考慮採取這樣的計劃。