Leonardo, Montserrat and the secret of the Mona Lisa

Five years ago, I published my book titled "Alto riesgo, los costes del progreso". At that time, I was working on a new editorial project: specifically, a study on Nazi ideology. Then, an article from the magazine "Historia y Vida" (issue 158, May 1981), written by Hilari Raguer, a monk from Montserrat and a reputed historian, came into my hands. In this precious document, an exceptional event was explained in great detail: the visit of Heinrich Himmler to Montserrat on October 23, 1940. His guide, a monk named Ripoll, listened with astonishment to the following declaration from the high-ranking Nazi official: "The Albigensian heresy was proclaimed in Montserrat, with which we (the National Socialists) have so many points of contact."

Hitler's lieutenant went to Montserrat following the trail of Parsifal, the legendary character who inspired the famous poem by Wolfram von Eschenbach (around 1200). Sixty years earlier, in his opera "Parsifal" (1882), the composer Richard Wagner identified Montserrat with the no less legendary Montsalvat. Himmler, unlike his disciple Otto Rahn, located the mythical Grail in this magical mountain, inhabited since ancient times by hermits and Benedictine monks. This fact aroused certain expectations in me, which increased when I learned that other relevant figures in History and Culture had passed through Montserrat: Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and perhaps Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. All of them in search of the same objective: their enlightenment.

Goethe, in his poem titled "Geheimnisse" (The Mysteries), describes an enclave identical to Montserrat. In a passage of this work, he calls Rosicrucian (Rosenkreuzer) the valley where the monastery is located. In 1816, he clarified in the newspaper "Morgenblatt" that the original idea of the poem was "to lead the reader through a kind of ideal Montserrat."

Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Society of Jesus) interrupted his journey to Montserrat, on his way to Jerusalem, and stayed in the monastery and its surroundings for several weeks, during which he renounced his military career, gave away his sword and armor, and learned the essentials of his doctrine (the well-known "Spiritual Exercises"), with the support of a monk named Dom Chanon.

Francis of Assisi, according to tradition, arrived in Montserrat walking from Barcelona because he refused to ride a horse. José María de Mena, in his delightful book "Curiosities and Legends of Barcelona," explains the following anecdote: "It is also said that after Saint Francis manifested his intention to visit the Virgin of Montserrat, the counselors of Barcelona offered him a horse for the journey, but Francis rejected it, saying that if Jesus had gone to Jerusalem on a donkey, he could not accept a horse. Not even the donkey, for he was not worthy of equaling Jesus, and therefore, he would make the journey on foot. From this came the phrase in Barcelona "Going with Saint Francis's little horse," to indicate that one is traveling on foot." From this act of Saint Francis (from Barcelona to Montserrat is about 60 kilometers) may come the custom of walking from Barcelona to Montserrat at night, to reach the monastery at dawn. A tradition, by the way, that I have fulfilled for two consecutive years.

Goethe, Ignatius of Loyola, and Francis of Assisi. Not to mention Wagner. Great men who sought the "ideal Montserrat." Goethe's brother Marcus, or Wagner's Parsifal, merely followed in the footsteps of so many humble pilgrims, who from all over Europe, found solace and remedy for their sorrows in the black virgin (the Virgin of Montserrat).

There is a possibility that one of them was Leonardo Da Vinci. With Catalan roots, and perhaps even with family in Barcelona. One of his ancestors (Giovanni Da Vinci) died in Barcelona in 1406. Where he surely left family and friends. Leonardo Da Vinci had dealings with some figures who were distinguished by a common trait: their ancestors were heretics who had fled from the Catalan Pyrenees after the Crusade against the Cathars in the first half of the 13th century. Among them, Francesco da Melzi (descendant of the Catalan Melción family), and perhaps Gian Giorgio Allione (related to the Alió family), who, like him, served the King of France (Francis I) in 1518. But he also knew Americo Vespucci (he gave him a book), a descendant of Catalans established in Florence, named Aimerich Despuig; and the Geraldini family, related to Lisa Geraldini del Giocondo, the famous Mona Lisa (Antonio Geraldini was the ambassador of Florence in Barcelona).

Too many connections with Barcelona to be a coincidence. My suspicion turned into conviction when my friend Toni Babia i Privat discovered that near Martorell there is an enclave (a natural lookout) with a panorama almost identical to what we find in the painting known as the Mona Lisa.

Later, with my trips to Vinci (in the Italian Tuscany) and Vince (in the French Department of the Eastern Pyrenees), I learned: 1) that it was the Da Vinci family who gave their name to the town of Vinci, and not the other way around; and 2) that Da Vinci could derive from the ancient Vinciano (today Vince or Vinçà), a town in the Catalan region of Conflent.

Yes, the Da Vinci family would have Catalan origins. Their coat of arms clearly shows this, as it is identical to that of the Kingdom of Mallorca, which ruled in Cerdaña, Rosellón, and Conflent for three-quarters of a century: from the death of James I the Conqueror, until its recovery (by the Crown of Aragon) by Peter the Ceremonious.

Leonardo would have been in Catalonia twice: in 1481-1483, and at some point during the first decade of the 16th century. He would have visited Barcelona, Montserrat, and his homeland: Vinciano, the current Vinçà. This "vital landscape" he would have captured in his paintings, drawings, and some of his writings. In Montserrat, he would have painted at least one painting (his "Saint Jerome"), and he would have taken notes to paint another one ("The Virgin of the Rocks," "The Mona Lisa"). Some snippets of this "vital landscape" also appear in his "Annunciation." And perhaps the famous smile of the Mona Lisa has something to do with the beatific expression of the black virgin of Montserrat.

Leonardo, the heretic, the Cathar, would have expressed his religious dissent in his painting "The Adoration of the Magi," which he did not finish to avoid ending up in prison, or worse, at the stake. These years of stay in Catalonia, from 1481 to 1483, I call "The Lost Years of Leonardo da Vinci." It is a scarcely studied and poorly understood period.

The documentary "Leonardo, Montserrat and the Secret of the Mona Lisa" is a modest attempt to shed light on an unpublished, unexplored period of the life of the unique artist, scientist, and philosopher from Florence with Catalan roots.

Author: José Luis Espejo.

Article published on the website of the Institut Nova Història (INH) on 05-05-2009.

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