The Famous Mona Lisa

Everyone knows about the famous Mona Lisa, but not everyone knows who the woman that sat and posed for hours and even days to get painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. The wife of Francesco del Giocondo is the woman being painted,  Lisa Gherardini. Leonardo chose to paint her because he though she was the most beautiful woman alive and she was celebrating her new marriage and her new born son Andrea, although she had a daughter die the year before around the same time he was born. The Mona Lisa was the first Italian portrait to focus on the half-length on a woman in 1503.