The Miniature Lisa

Death often opens more doors than it closes. At least it did in my case. My grandmother, Nonna we called her, was the first in my family to leave this world after I had entered, eliciting my first experience of the profoundness of death. A wave of emotions that ends with a calm nostalgic fondness after time. Whilst my fondness could be described as nostalgic, it certainly was anything but calm.

In the time after her death, the bestowal of assets in her last will and testament was made known. With a reasonably sized family including nine grandchildren, Nonna had done well to bequeath something specific to all of us. As the youngest, but secretly the favourite of the grandchildren, I was somewhat saddened when the rest received jewellery, ornaments and other luxury assets, to just receive a key myself. And a rather boring key if I was being honest. If Nonna had some secret jewels, she wouldn’t go to all this trouble since Linda received a ruby the size of an almond in front of everyone. Don’t go being ungrateful now, I thought to myself, Nonna had her reasons, and she did not do with impoliteness.

Later in the evening, at that time when you could taste alcohol on your tongue, my grandfather took me aside. ‘Come over tomorrow,’ he whispered, draperies of black hiding a knowing smile, ‘I’ll show you what that key opens.’

‘Come in, come in.’ His warm leathery hand clasped mine as I walked over the threshold from out to in. Morning light fell down the staircase like a slinky, inviting me to find its source. Up to Nonna’s reading room we went. Time had gone by enough that the air no longer held her, releasing her from the open window out into the green and purple of the garden below.

He gestured to a little chest filled with small lockable drawers; one like you’d find in a pharmacy a century ago. The drawers were unlocked and filled with nick-nacks of art and crafts. All but the one at the bottom right. The key in my pocket became heavy, the cool of its metal suddenly burning my skin.

Click click, the perfect fit and ease of turn in the mechanism. My curiosity spiked as a clear box housing a little black book awaited me in the recess of the drawer. A pair of white gloves sat folded next to it, silently gesturing my use.

I pulled them on, the silk mix soft and tactile, and then lifted the clear box out onto the desk behind. Through the perspex, I could immediately see the book was incredibly old. The cover was worn, the black soft and mottled with use, corners slightly dented from being carried around. The edges and spine had begun to flake a little and I could see veining in the fabric that wouldn’t have been there from new. But the wear seemed old, as if the more recent time had been kinder to it.

The age of the book explained its housing in the clear box. From what I could see it was a protective case that regulated temperature, humidity, UV and visible light. Something that without, the book could have easily fallen to pieces.

At the touch of a button and a gentle hiss, the box opened and lifted the book out to my wanting hands. I opened the cover carefully with my gloved fingers. A reddish-brown ink on yellowed pages penned a strange sort of writing. At first glance it looked Arabic, but when I looked closer letters from the Roman alphabet jumped out at me, only curiously they were mirrored. They spelt words of what looked to be Italian origin, but the quick scrawl made it almost impossible to decipher.

Another page. This time alongside the writing were diagrams of elaborate 3D shapes and diagrams breaking them down. A couple more pages similar, and then the pages began to feature beautifully sketched faces. Women, men, children, all different in little detailed sketches amongst the page. As I moved through the book, the variety of faces that had flourished in the pages before suddenly became scarce as the focus of these sketches seemed to settle on one face in particular. A woman. She would be facing one way in one pose and the next her opposite profile. The drawings went from less detailed to more: a chronology of familiarity as if she had first been drawn from afar by a stranger to then drawn up close by a friend. This narrative had seemingly got to my head as her face almost seemed recognisable.

I could tell that as time had gone on, she must have sat for whomever this author was, since the sketches became more and more repetitive, as if they were experimenting, trying to perfect the pose and the features just so.

I turned another, continuing my exploration, and then I audibly heard my breath as the full realisation of what was in my hand came to light. Now I knew why she looked so familiar. There before me on the page was a sketch of the woman, but in a pose with her right hand across her left wrist, a slight show of youthful bosom, dark hair touching her shoulders parted in the centre, barely an eyebrow to show, and a hint of an alluding smile. Indisputably an early sketch of what would become the most famous painting in history.

My head shot round to my grandfather, his body a glow of excitement. ‘This is Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook isn’t it?’

He smiled proudly. ‘It is.’

I laughed in disbelief, my body not knowing how else to deal with the enormity of the adrenaline rush. ‘I can’t believe this.’ I gasped. ‘How come Nonna had it?’

‘It has been passed down from mother to daughter for centuries. Now it’s Nonna’s turn to pass it down.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nonna’s great-great-something-grandmother gave it to her daughter, and then she gave it to her daughter, and so forth until Nonna. It was always passed down the female lineage, so since Nonna and I had only boys, she would give it to one of her granddaughters.’

‘So how did Nonna’s great-great-etcetera-grandmother receive it? Did she know da Vinci?’

‘I think she modelled for him once or twice.’

‘Oh wow, what a story.’ I said as I flipped the delicate page over to find studies of the smile, hundreds of them in small detail all over the next pages. ‘Why is this not in a museum?’

‘Nonna’s family have always been the quiet type, respectfully keeping their shows of wealth humble and elegant, so it has stayed in private collections over the years. But it is yours now and so you can choose to do as you please with it.’

I looked back down at the unseen history in my hands and found choice wasn’t an option.

*

The door opened to an expensive pair of stilettos and crimson red lipstick.

‘We couldn’t wait to fly out to see this incredible book you sent us pictures of. There was a fight amongst us curators to be the one to come out.’ The curator said in a deep French drawl.

‘I’m guessing you won then.’

‘Well, Leonardo da Vinci is my area of expertise. I’ve been the curator of his works at the Louvre for over a decade now, and before that, I was an authenticator of his works.’

‘Definitely the right person for the job then.’ I smiled as we walked up the stairs to Nonna’s reading room.

I turned to watch her expression as her eyes met the book within the borders of its protective case. Crimson red gave way to white and dark pink as a smiling awe flooded her face.

‘Oh my…’

The awed silence amplified the hiss of the case and carefully the book was in her gloved hands. Her eyebrows: a story of undulating disbelief. Little sighs, moans and gasps were her only sounds as she took in the delicate pages.

The murmurs were broken when she reached the page of realisation. The miniature Mona Lisa.

‘And there it is. Wow, that is incredible. The detail, the experimentation. You can see here this is certainly an early sketch since the positioning of the jaw is slightly different to the painting, but undeniably her. We know he worked on her positioning and smile obsessively to give her that alluring… charm…’ The pages of smiles stole the end of her sentence. ‘My god. The birth of the most famous smile.

‘This is by far the greatest discovery in all my time in art. And not just for the art world. This will send waves through history. Already from just looking I can see it is authentically his. The mirrored writing itself is just perfect.’

‘Is the writing mirrored for secrecy?’ I asked.

‘Many have thought the same, but surprisingly no. Da Vinci, whilst being ambidextrous, wrote mostly with his left hand, and being of genius logical mind, the only appropriate way to write with slow drying ink with the left hand was to write from right to left so that the ink didn’t smudge.’

I chuckled. ‘Now that is smart.’

‘You said that this was your grandmother’s and that it had been passed down from woman to woman since the early 16th century. Just incredible.’ She shook her head smiling. ‘I’m very pleased to hear you don’t want to sell it, that’s a smart choice. Nevertheless, the last of da Vinci’s notebooks was the most expensive book ever to be sold, so it would be wise to store this somewhere a little more secure. For priceless art, there’s arguably nowhere safer than the Louvre itself. As we discussed on the phone, it would be an honour for us to receive the book on loan from you and create an exhibition around its debut. I can give you an advance of $20,000 right now and in the meantime the finance department will be in touch.’

I gulped at the enormity of what Nonna had left me. An income for my life whilst being able to still keep part of our family’s history.

‘Of course, we’d love to have you there at the opening soiree, with your travel and a boutique 5-star hotel by the Tour Eiffel for your stay all included.’

‘That would be incredible, I’ve wanted to go to Paris for years.’

‘Paris will welcome you with open arms.’

*

My head was giddy from the excitement and the expensive champagne. The cinching of couture tailoring elevated my posture. The little black book had been debuted under the exhibition titled The Miniature Lisa and had been set in a case in perfect parallel with the Mona Lisa herself.

Stepping past the book to the painting beyond, my grandfather and I had space to drink in her beauty.

‘Oh yes, it’s startlingly obvious now.’ He said with a smirk.

‘What’s so obvious?’ I turned to see him looking at me and then back to the painting.

‘The likeness. It’s uncanny.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Maybe I was a little too vague when I said she modelled for him once or twice.’ He looked at me with that knowing smile once more, edging me to make the conclusion myself. ‘What’s your middle name?’

Frissons of energy burned through my veins, standing the hairs on my arms straight up and puckering my skin like a goose as it hit me. Lisa.

‘She was Mona Lisa.’ I breathed in awe.

He nodded. ‘Her real name was Lisa Gherardini, and you are her bloodline. A miniature Lisa yourself.’

I looked back up at my many-great-grandmother, seeing her with a new familiarity. That smile, a curiosity that could only be described as a personification of infinity. I wondered if she knew, knew that her great-granddaughter would be looking up at her centuries later with that same smile toasting to her legacy.