Mona Lisa stank.
Y’all don’t come for me now. This thought consumes my brain even before I go to bed. It’s a topic that keeps me up at night and honestly? I think it’s about time I write my thesis on this. It all goes back to these tweet that was on Twitter (now X)
Image: THIS HAD ME SENT. Shoutout Nellythamenace on X.
On the real, this was the catalyst for a deep dive into history all about Mona Lisa’s probable hygiene. First up: who tf was Mona Lisa and was she real? Well apparently there’s a load of rumours and theories and it’s said the most credible one (according to TikTok & Wikipedia 😭) is one that she was called Lisa Giocondo and the wife of a wealthy merchant.
Ok, now I want to clear Lisa’s name. Did she actually smell of “spit” and was she really a “stinky b!tch”? In the original tweet the user says “what was they sleeckin their hair back with back then….”. This will all be discussed. My theory below relies upon the fact that the Mona Lisa was Lisa Giocondo, and all points discussed are conditional upon it.
On a important contextual background note, the painting was painted in Florence in Italy - I just know that Italy had better hygiene in terms of bathing in comparison to their other European counterparts (the English & French). Seeing as Lisa G came from a wealthy family, we can assume that she bathed using soap - as in the 14th & 15th century prior to plague outbreaks, the rich used soap.
Image: 15th century soap recreation by fleur du Gigi. La Bella Donna
It’s also interesting that Lisa G was the wife of a wealthy merchant - in Italy - of all places. Italy was also one of the many birth places of perfume, with Venice being the first trade centre for fragrance. So I could only assume that Lisa may have got her hands on some sort of fragrance - especially to ward of the plague. (It was believed that bad smells: miasma, caused illness). It’s said that women at the time would use herbs in their hair, place it in their linen and their clothes. So I think we can eliminate the fact she was not “stinky” for now….
As she was a rich housewife - one can assume she wasn’t exactly doing manual labour or gardening, so she may not have sweated a lot & thus a lack of BO (body odour). It’s also has been said, that in the renaissance period undergarments were changed regularly, as they were in contact with pores that excreted “harmful toxins” from the body. So even if she did smell like BO this smell hopefully have been decreased with each undergarment change. Lisa also may have had access to all the fine foods at the time, so I can deduce her diet was balanced and varied and she may not have lacked any minerals and nutrients that could have contributed towards her smelling bad.
Now - her hair? did she use her saliva? I think I can confidently say Lisa G did not smell like spit. She probably used a range of things to slick her hair back (if she did slick it back), for women in this time period this could have been Beef Tallow, lard, Olive oil or Pine Resin. Whilst Beef Tallow or lard don’t really have a bad smell, they just smell oily. But as she was a rich bish I think she would’ve omitted the use of any animal fat and used the fancy stuff like olive oil or a resin. And if she did use these, her hair would have smelt nice. Women also fragranced their hair to ward off the plague as mentioned before.
Image: pine resin taken from pine trees, beezerowaste.com
But in all honesty, I don’t even think she slicked her hair back, her veil that she wore must’ve imprinted and made her hair lie in a permanent position - so the middle part. And this veil most likely would have been fragranced too with some sort of herb.
As I come to the conclusion of this theory, I want you to be mindful that this whole discussion relies upon the fact that the Mona Lisa WAS Lisa Giocondo. Now if the Mona Lisa was a different Lisa…. Whew we would have a whole different story.
So if Mona Lisa was a different Lisa and if the original point of discussion (that she was stinky) was in fact true, Da vinci should’ve painted the Mona Lisa more realistically like this:
Image: taken from Etsy. I think you can buy this. From here
BYEEEEEEE.