Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa within ten years of Columbus's discovery of America. He required several years to complete the world’s most famous painting. Mona Lisa was the wife of a very rich silk merchant named Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Gioconda of Milan. We know very little about Mona Lisa herself or why her husband never obtained the picture. When Leonardo da Vinci moved to France, he brought this painting and several others with him. After he died in 1519, the king of France purchased the painting from Francesco Melzi, a student of da Vinci's, who was the sole recipient in his will.

Da Vinci developed a new way of painting. Rather than just outlining his figures, he used shadows and contrasting colors to cause the figure to stand out from the background. While other painters of the time filled their backgrounds with symbolic meaning, Da Vinci used his backgrounds to add to the three dimensional effect. The objects in Da Vinci's background came from his imagination and have no particular meaning. Only 17 of da Vinci's paintings have survived, and two of them are unfinished. At the time, his new method had little effect on the painters in Italy. It was only later that the force of his style of painting was appreciated.

In 885 the Vikings encamped on the right bank across from the western tip of the ile de la Cite during an "unsuccessful" siege of Paris. In 886 AD, the Frank king, Charles the Fat, paid the Norsemen 700 pounds to lift the siege. In 1200, King Philip built a castle on the site. Francis I razed this castle in 1546, and a new castle was started on the same site. Many French leaders, including Napoleon, have added to it. This structure is now the National Art Museum of France and is known around the world as the Louvre. In this beautiful building, the Mona Lisa hangs today for all to see. The Louvre houses one of the most extensive art collections in the world. It is worth making a trip to Paris to see it.