Lisabetta: A Stolen Smile

FATE IS MORE MYSTERIOUS THAN A SMILE

Women artists were of little consequence within the Florentine sweatshops of paint and marble. We were invisible child laborers. Domestic slaves who faced life-threatening periods of serial motherhood if we survived childbirth the first time. Yet, we were also the hidden alchemists who had the audacity to help our brothers and fathers turn raw minerals into the golden age of art.

I know what it's like to be ignored. History only ever recorded me squeezed between two commas in a population census, and after all my climbing and dedication and discipline, I was still not a vital enough statistic to warrant a footnote in the memoirs of art.

The irony is that Leonardo's 'Mona Lisa', the most famous portrait in the world, lost her identity while the pampered wife of a silk merchant, Monna Lisa Giocondo, became a household name with the wrong face... MY face!

And now, 'The Mona Lisa' smiles more radiantly as my new adventure begins.