Word: gioconda
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...does: high cholesterol. Vito Franco of the University of Palermo has spent his spare time applying his medical expertise to the study of famous subjects of Renaissance artworks. And in the first formal collection of his findings, Franco has concluded that the woman whom Italians call "La Gioconda" suffered from xanthelasma, the accumulation of cholesterol just under the skin. Franco told the newspaper La Stampa this week that he spotted clear signs of the condition around Mona Lisa's left eye as well as evidence of a lipoma, a fatty-tissue tumor, on her right hand. Hardly a flattering diagnosis...
...enigmatic face will keep prompting new theories from its admirers. Over the past decade, American neurological researchers have suggested that her seemingly disappearing smile is an effect caused by the way the brain processes certain elements of light. There is another possibility that may be hard to disprove: La Gioconda's face is itself a mirror on which the story of our own lives is reflected. Does it make you smile? Sort...
...Romanticism to Freud's assertion that her smile was that of Leonardo's lost mother Caterina - he finds "an exceptionally subtle and sympathetic image of femininity." She was, he says, simply the young wife of a Florentine merchant whose curling lips embody the essence of her husband's name, Gioconda, meaning joyful...
...time off but maintain close connections to their former jobs, to ease their eventual re-entry into the working world--or simply to avoid going insane after reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar for the 2,000th time. A former saleswoman in the distribution department at the movie studio DreamWorks, Gioconda Mitas, 31, was the first of her work friends to have a baby, three years ago. Once a week, she dresses up and drives from suburban Granada Hills, Calif., to have lunch with three former co-workers and pump them for office dirt. "What I miss most about working...
...first in Valmont (1989), in which her glossy beauty and Gioconda smile provided the film's finest moments. Raised in Kansas and Southern California, Bening, 33, caught the theater bug in college. The Broadway hit Coastal Disturbances (1987) launched her career, and soon films were beckoning too. Now, after the critical success of The Grifters, she gets the top dramatic scripts...