Historian reveals truth about bridge

Forget Mona Lisa’s smile. What about her bridge?

The Mona Lisa is one of the world’s most famous paintings and has spawned many mysteries and theories, including the woman’s identity.

But one historian said he has settled one debate about the painting that hangs in the Louvre: the location of the bridge behind the beguiling woman.

Silvani Vinceti said the backdrop of the early 16th-century painting by Leonardo Da Vinci depicts the Romito Bridge in the nearby Tuscan town of Laterina, reports CNN.

“The distinctive form of the Arno [River] along that stretch of territory corresponds to what Leonardo portrayed in the landscape to the left of the woman depicted in the famous painting,” Vinceti said Wednesday, during a press conference for the Foreign Press Association in Rome.

This takes the wind from the sails of the village of Ponte Buriano, which is a suburb of Arezzo in Tuscany.

They have confidently claimed the bridge in the painting is the Ponte Buriano and have made it the centerpiece of their local tourism campaign.

It’s even featured on the village’s welcome sign.

But Vinceti — who made virtual reconstructions of the bridge, studied drone footage of the river banks and used documents from Florence’s state archives — disagrees.

He noted that Da Vinci lived there with Cardinal Cesare Borgia between 1501 and 1503, the year he started painting the Mona Lisa. The bridge in Laterina had four arches as depicted in the painting. Whereas Ponte Buriano has six arches.

Ponte Bobbio, a bridge in Piacenza, which is also considered in the debate, has more than six arches.

The Romito bridge is now in ruins, but Vinceti said the “Etruscan-Roman Romito bridge is unmistakably” the one.

Simona Neri, who is the mayor of Laterina, population of 3,400, is excited by the discovery and the potential for tourism in their village.

“We really hope that this wonderful news will intrigue and fascinate local and foreign tourists, with the knowledge that it will be a great opportunity to relaunch the tourism of our territory on which we can work a lot starting from naturalistic, cultural and monumental valuation,” Neri said at the press conference.

“We need to try to protect what’s left of the bridge, which will require funding,” said Neri adding that there are funds available for places linked to artists like Da Vinci and the other masters.

“There’ll be some rivalry; we’ll need to put a poster up, too,” she added.