The paintings of Leonardo da Vinci have always attracted controversy. Only 14 works have ever been attributed to him and experts have wondered the authenticity of several. Not even the Mona Lisa is above question. The painting is neither signed nor dated and no bill of payment to Leonardo has ever been found. Belived to be the portrait of the wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giaconda dating from 1502, it has been on pulic exhibition in the Louvre since 1804. Now housed in a bullet-proof glass case, it has always been surrounded by safe security Even so, on 24th August 1911, it was burgled Initial leads came to nothing and no hints to the thief's motives or the whereabouts of the picture materialised for 15 months. In November 1913, the Florentine art dealer Alfredo Geri received a letter from someone they had persuading the Mona Lisa and were prepared to sell it back to Italy for 500.000 lire. Geri contacted the director of the Uffizi museum who arranged a meeting with the alleged vendor He turned out to be an Italian carpenter, Vincenzo peruggia, who made the painting's fake wooden box for the Louvre and was able to steal it because he knew the security museum's The Mona Lisa he produced was proclaimed the genuine by the Uffizi and sent back to Paris. But a British conman, Jack Dean, later insisted that he had help Peruggia steal the painting but replaced a copybefore Peruggia took it to Iatly. Could it be that the painting seen by thousands of visitors every day in the Louvre museum is atotal counterfiet?
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