The painting of Mona Lisa owes some of its fame and enduring quality to the mystery built up around it in popular culture. We see a woman sitting on a balcony against the backdrop of a view, smiling. On the surface of it, there is nothing particularly extraordinary about that…or is there?

Few cities are as closely associated with a single genius as Florence is with Leonardo da Vinci. While researching Gioconda, I followed the places that shaped Leonardo’s early life, from the hills of Vinci to the workshop where he first learned his craft.