The idea of hosting the Mona Lisa in Lombardy makes no sense: no appeal from the Louvre to find a place for it

Let’s be serious: there is no appeal for the search of a different location for the Mona Lisa, as the Lombardy Region’s councillor for culture, Francesca Caruso, implied in a note this morning. No one at the Louvre has yet dreamed of asking for help, all the more so abroad, to look for some entity to take charge of hosting the Mona Lisa. The alderman’s idea, circulated through a note and re-launched this morning by a large number of newspapers, is to “host this work that best represents Italian art and culture and is a heritage of all humanity,” “pending the decisions of the French government on moving or renovation.”

Councillor Caruso, ready to accept imaginary appeals, believes that the possible hosting “would have an even stronger meaning if projected in view of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympics. It would be the best world to make this splendor of Italian genius usable to the general public that will come to Lombardy and decide to visit the works of Leonardo da Vinci in what I like to call the ’vinciano circuit.’” It is not clear what connection the Mona Lisa should have with next year’s Winter Olympics, nor is it clear why the Lombardy Region, instead of promoting what it already has in the territory, should gather crowds around a fetish going moreover against the direction desired by the Louvre director herself, Laurence des Cars: the problem, according to Des Cars, is that the work, “elevated to icon status, exerts a fascination that has not faded over the decades,” and that because of this “popular fervor, the public flocks in large numbers to the Salle des États without being provided with the keys to understanding the work and the artist, thus calling into question the museum’s public service mission.”

The idea of doing territorial promotion through one of the world’s most famous works, in addition to being outdated and outdated (nowadays any tourist board that knows it has a fetish on its territory tends to want to promote, if anything, the less considered heritage), would not even take into account the fact that the possible exhibition of the Mona Lisa is contrary to any good modern cultural practice. For that would be the exhibition of the painting outside of a solid framework, outside of an exhibition of robust scholarly framework (and it is difficult to imagine a new Leonardo exhibition only six to seven years after the Leonardo hangover of 2019, of the five-hundredth anniversary year, when almost everything that needed to be said was said and when everything that could be said was exhibited): a display, nothing more. Legitimate only if he believes that works of art are freaks.

Not only that: proposing Lombardy as a temporary venue for the Mona Lisa also demonstrates a substantial neglect of the affairs of the Louvre. Those who follow the vicissitudes of the French museum (and in the roster should theoretically include those who deal with museums by trade or by assignment) know that the Louvre has been considering relocating Leonardo da Vinci’s painting for some time. But not in a random location: last April, Laurence des Cars was letting it be known that the museum is considering moving the painting to a dedicated room, also within the Louvre. A room that balances the global iconic status assumed by the Mona Lisa with the needs of the public who want to see without major hindrances the paintings now housed in the Salle des États, whose viewing is made difficult, sometimes almost impossible, by the crowds that besiege Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait. We are not so much talking about Veronese’s Marriage at Cana as we are talking about the paintings arranged along the side walls of the room: getting a good look at those closest to the Mona Lisa is no mean feat.

It is hard to imagine a Louvre depriving itself of its most famous painting while awaiting the work that should lead to the completion of the new hall. That the work will be moved seems now to be beyond dispute: in the meantime, however, it is not clear why the Mona Lisa should leave the Louvre. Instead, it is easier to imagine the more concrete results that Councillor Caruso’s statements will achieve: a few headlines in the newspapers, a few tweets or a few posts from the buzzers convinced that an eventual exhibition of the Mona Lisa on Italian soil is owed to us, someone who will tell her that her idea makes no sense, that it is nothing more than an attempt to populistically gather the consensus of those who ill tolerate the idea that there are Italian works on French soil. Leave the Mona Lisa alone, then. There are more serious topics.

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