Giorgio Vasari, who was Leonardo's first biographer (a person who writes about the life of another person), thought the painting was of a person named Lisa Gherardini. Speculation over the painting's model was solved in 2008 by Dr Armin Schlechter, a manuscript expert. Notes discovered in Heidelberg University Library which were written by Agostino Vespucci, a Florentine city official, reinforced Vasari's earlier identification of the model. Lisa was the wife of Francesco del Giocondo a rich silk merchant, who lived in Florence.
Although the sitter has traditionally been identified as Lisa del Giocondo, a lack of definitive evidence has long fueled alternative theories, including Leonardo's mother Caterina in a distant memory and glorified as the Virgin Mary as the painting’s subject, and the possibility that Leonardo used his own likeness.
Leonardo began painting the "Mona Lisa" in 1503 or 1504 in Florence, Italy. According to Da Vinci's contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, "...after he had lingered over it four years, left it unfinished...".
The painting was brought to France by Leonardo in 1516 and it was bought by Francis I of France.
The "Mona Lisa" used to hang in the Chateau Fontainebleau and was then moved to the Palace of Versailles. After the French Revolution, Napoleon I of France had it hanging in his bedroom in the Tuileries Palace, but it was later moved to the Louvre where it is still hanging today.
On August 21, 1911, the "Mona Lisa" was stolen. The Louvre museum thought it was being photographed, but when they checked, it was not there. The Louvre closed for one week to help look for it.
People thought Guillaume Apollinaire, a French poet, stole it. He was put into jail, and tried to make people think his friend Pablo Picasso did it, and he was questioned. It was not either of them, though.
It was lost for two years, and everybody thought it would be lost forever. A worker at the Louvre, named Vincenzo Peruggia, had actually stolen it. He had hidden it in his coat and walked out with it after the museum had closed. He wanted the painting to go back to Italy and be shown in an Italian museum. After hiding it in his apartment for two years, he grew impatient and tried to sell it to a gallery in Florence, but was caught. It was shown all over Italy before going back to the Louvre. People thought Vincenzo was a hero who loved Italy, so he only spent a few months in jail.
December 14
1542
February 13
January 31
1981
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Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981), is an American recording artist and entertainer. She has recorded several albums and has received several entertainment industry awards.
Britney Jean Spears was born on December 2, 1981. Her parents are Lynne Irene (née Bridges) and James Parnell Spears. She grew up in Kentwood, Louisiana. Her maternal grandmother, Lillian Portell, was English (born in London), and one of Spears's maternal great-great-grandfathers was Maltese. Her siblings are Bryan James and Jamie Lynn. She was the middle of three children.
She prepared early for a career in entertainment. She took music and dance lessons. She often performed for family and friends.
On January 3, 2004, Spears married her childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander in Las Vegas, Nevada. The marriage was annulled 55 hours later. On September 18, 2004, Spears married Kevin Federline. They had a son on September 14, 2005 named Sean Preston Spears Federline. On September 12, 2006, Britney gave birth to their second son, Jayden James Spears Federline.
In November 2006, Spears filed for divorce from Federline. In September 2007, Spears lost some custody of her two children, Sean Preston and Jayden James, to her ex-husband, Federline. At the beginning of January 2008, Spears lost full custody of her children after a mental breakdown. In February 2008, her father took control of her estate. Spears currently has 50/50 custody of her two sons.
Spears stated in 2012 that she has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Spears appeared on the 1993-1994 season of the children's television series, "The All New Mickey Mouse Club". In 1997, she signed with Jive Records. Her first and second studio albums "...Baby One More Time" (1999, the best-selling album by a teenage solo artist) and "Oops!... I Did It Again" (2000) became great successes. Their title tracks broke sales records around the world.
In 2001, Spears released her third album "Britney" and starred in the profitmaking but critically panned movie, "Crossroads". She developed a more sexualized image, dancing in little clothing with an albino python at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards. She took creative control of her fourth album "In the Zone" (2003). The song "Toxic" was a huge success. In 2003, she shared a kiss with Madonna at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards that raised eyebrows in the entertainment industry and fan magazines.
Spears' fifth album "Blackout" was released in 2007.
On September 17, 2013 "Work Bitch" was released as the first single from Spears' eighth album "Britney Jean".
In November 2017, her first watercolor painting sold for $10,000 in Las Vegas.
Spears has one Grammy, three MTV Video Music Awards, and her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She has had five #1 songs: "...Baby One More Time", "Womanizer", "3", "Hold It Against Me" and "S&M (remix)"
Spears has made nine studio albums:
The Matrix
The Matrix is a science fiction action movie that was made in 1999. It was written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers. The main actors in the movie are Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Hugo Weaving. "The Matrix" was followed by two sequels: "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions".
The main character of the movie is Thomas A. Anderson (played by Keanu Reeves), who is a computer programmer at MetaCortex, a big software company, but he is also an underground hacker. Thomas meets Trinity (played by Carrie-Anne Moss), who then introduces him to Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne), who gives him a choice between taking a blue pill or a red pill. If he took the blue pill, he would wake up at his bed and wouldn't be bothered anymore, but if he took the red pill, Morpheus would show him the truth about the Matrix. Thomas takes the red pill. Then Morpheus tells Thomas he is actually Neo, or "the one". He explains to Neo that the Matrix is a computer program made by robots to simulate a world which humans think is real. He then explains to Neo that, because he is "the one" he is able to modify the Matrix however he wants. Morpheus then helps Neo to get out of the Matrix. At the beginning, Neo is skeptical about his power, but after training, he is able to show his real power. Neo, Trinity, Morpheus and the rest of the rebels then go on a journey to free humans from the Matrix.
There is a lot of symbolism in "The Matrix". Common sources are Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism (the concept of maya), the ancient philosopher Plato and "Plato's Cave", modern philosophers such as René Descartes, and modern authors such as William Gibson.
Descartes says that maybe humans are brains in jars. A monster is maybe tricking humans. The monster makes humans believe that they are in the real world, but actually humans are simply brains. Humans cannot know what is real.
There are also references to "Simulacra and Simulation", a very modern philosophy book by Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard says that in the modern world, copies of copies are made. "The Real" is gone because people do not know what the first things were. For example, a modern person who eats a chicken did not kill the chicken. That person does not know what a real chicken is. The chicken meat is false because the person did not kill the chicken. The person's reality is the chicken meat.
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Don Davis made the score (orchestra part with violins and flutes).