The Case of the Mona Lisa Portrait

“The object that ended up in Leonardo’s hands was unlike anything. In his lifetime—no, not so long ago, in April, he turned fifty-one—Leonardo had seen many oddities, but now he was ready to admit that what he was holding was the most astonishing thing of all ever created by the genius of human reason, in combination with unimaginably delicate work by the most skilled of masters.

Holding the ends of a black strip between two fingers—made of a strong, resilient, yet remarkably pliable material—Leonardo stretched it, and tilting his head so that his long hair fell over his right shoulder, looked at the flat rectangle with its corners cut off, fixed at the center.

Leonardo took two steps toward the window. With his shoulder he slightly opened the sash, framed in lead with small four-sided glass panes—millefiori—inside of which had been fused multicolored stars and flowers. Then he sat down on the windowsill. He wanted to examine the precious thing more closely.

The man who handed Leonardo the surprising rectangular object on a black strip called it a watch. But these had nothing in common with the watches that hung on the walls of Leonardo’s workshop. For starters, on the tiny watch—Leonardo’s stranger explained it was supposed to be worn, fastened with a strap to the wrist—there was no dial. The digits corresponding to the hours and minutes glowed in a narrow window located at the top part of the watch case.”