Gonzalo Ríos Araneda - The Mystery of the Chamberlain

But Francesco del Giocondo was not at all pleased by this premeditated deviation from the signed contract, and he let it be known to the Florentine, because, he yelled out loud at Giacomo, he had rights and would not accept the artist’s capricious treatment of him; he demanded the painting be finished.

“Even though it regards signor Leonardo da Vinci, I will bring my complaint before the Duke,” the man shouted from the portico. “You have been deceiving me the whole time. I’m going to complain to his lordship the Duke,” the banker insisted, as if Giacomo didn’t exist. It was easy to hear him, because the door had remained half-open. “He tells me to wait ten days, then to wait ten more…, and it’s already been 10 months… when will it end!”

On the other side, Leonardo approached the door, closed it carefully and returned to his work.

Predictably, in no time the master flew into a rage and clarified to the gentleman that the contract did not authorize meddling in his work and that, by persisting in his demands, he would find himself obligated to cancel the agreement, along with the reimbursement of the gentleman’s compromised funds. Naturally, all of this, coming from Giacomo, caused the magnate to respond, through the same channel, with renewed threats to appeal to His Lordship.

Faced with such clear evidence of things wrapping up, the Florentine decided against going forward with the contract that tied him to Pietro Francesco Bartolomeo del Giocondo and sent Salaì to tell him so, while he prepared to leave the city of Florence, as he needed to return to Milan. He would return to the portrait as many times as were necessary and for as long as considered convenient, because for some time now the Madonna’s presence was no longer indispensable to him.

Lisa Gherardini never again returned to Leonardo’s workshop, and according to the news from the palace, she shut herself up in the connubial residence on the outskirts of Florence, where, for several days she refused to speak to anyone. It’s said that later, and for the rest of her life, she dedicated herself to her husband and to bringing up her considerable brood, with the sole desire of being a faithful wife and loving mother.

The last day the painter and his model saw each other, she was alone, standing like a virgin inquisitor beneath the doorway’s lintel, as if awaiting this moment like a wedding’s consummation. When he approached her, she allowed him to take her hands, while he bent and kissed the back of one. The woman, blushing and silent, let the same smile creep across her face that the master captured that second day in the workshop, months before. Immediately, guiding her gently by the waist, Leonardo brought her to the stairway that led outside; then Salaì ran to open the carriage door, beneath the watchful gaze of the coachman holding the reins of the steed that would take her home. Lisa settled into the seat and placed her hands in her lap, and when the coach began to move, she let her eyes close, as if trying to hold a long, secret restlessness in her memory.

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