Mona Lisa - The Woman Soul

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The Woman Soul

In the early days of my young manhood,when I was living in Florence with my master Verrocchio working at both painting and sculpture, and beginning experiments and studies concerning artificiosa natural there was one subject which I did not pursue, but on the contrary avoided as much as possible. And that was the study of the minds and souls of women, or rather of those who were beautiful or seductive. It may be that I feared their influence upon me should I become too intimate with them, too absorbed in them ; for very early I had become convinced that he who does not control his sensuality becomes unfitted for giving form to visions that should last for eternity; and, moreover, from my observations of the painters and i There is no exact equivalent in English which will translate this phrase so common in the writings of Da Vinci. He means by it sculptors among whom I lived, I saw that those who made themselves the companions of loose women, nay even those who espoused good women, though they sometimes acquired great prosperity in the things of this world, yet, because they did not fully possess themselves, failed to manifest in its plenitude their inborn virtue. For the true painter should be a solitary man, especially when he is intent upon his meditations. Since, if he is alone he is all his own, and if he is accompanied by only one companion he will be just half his own, and so much the less will he be his own the more he multiplies his indiscretion. Therefore, being fully persuaded of this, if at any time when I was a young man I perceived that the thoughts of some beautiful or seductive woman pursued me when absent from her presence and came between me and my meditations on my art or science, I withdrew altogether from her company, lest she i There is no word or phrase in English except of the time of Chaucer that expresses what virtti meant to the Italian of the Renaissance. It connotes force, capability, talent, courage and the like, rather than mere moral rectitude. It is similar to the Latin virtus. Machiavelli could speak appropriately of the virtit, of such a moral monster as Cesare Borgia.

Salai might hinder me in the work for which the Creator had fashioned me namely, to make of myself as it were a mirror that could transmute itself into the forms and colors of whatever thing it might have for an object. For that reason it would not be well to let any foreign influence come between me and what I should reflect in the truth of my art. By this practice I so accustomed myself to live for my art and my science, that finally I could mingle and hold converse with women and could study and paint their faces and bodies, and no distracting thoughts would follow me to prevent my meditation upon the works of art which I planned or upon the laws of nature which I was discovering by experiment. Moreover, when I was an engineer in the service of the Diodario of Syria, after my first departure from Florence, I often heard the Mahometans say that women had no souls, and sometimes when I was among them I was even inclined to agree with them so different from the operations of the divine reason of man were the workings of women's minds.

But when I returned to my own land and saw the people paying great honor and worship to a woman because she was the Mother of God, when I saw how much less barbarous these people were because they so honored her and all women in her, when I recalled what great things had been achieved by Christian women, how many noble saints and martyrs had come from among them to glorify God, how Beatrice Portinari had been the inspiration of our divine Dante, how the sainted Catherine of Sienna had been the only one able to bring back the Most High Pontiff from the Babylonish Captivity at Avignon, and when I remembered also that women are the mothers of men, I knew that they must be possessed of a soul, however different it might be from the wondrous soul of man. Just as the bodies of women are like unto those of men in that nearly all the members are similar, and yet they differ marvellously in both perfections and imperfections, so must it be with the woman soul alike and yet unlike to that of man. And I thought that if were able to discover in just what things that difference consists, then I should of a truth know all of the woman soul that can be known by any male being.

So with this thought, when I first entered the service of Ludovico il Moro at Milan, having no longer any fear of sensual desire, I mingled again in the society of women. I had at that time much opportunity of conversing with those of all kinds and degrees the noble and well-instructed ladies of the court, the light and brilliant women of the town, the sedate and virtuous wives of the burghers, the simple and often honest helpmates of the laborers and peasants, the old and the young, the ugly and the beautiful, the ordinary and the exceptional. I drew and painted their faces and figures and observed carefully their words and actions. But though at first I seemed to make some progress in the discovery of what the woman soul might be, yet soon was I baffled in every case by the cloud of deceit and falsehood that each woman cast about her, when she perceived that I wished to learn what she really was in herself.

Now I know well that there is much of falsehood in man also ; but it is certain that while he may use falsehood to accomplish his purposes, not only the base but also the good as when holy friars deceive the stupid people in order to lead them to God yet, with a few exceptions, man, in his inmost heart, loves and desires the truth for himself, even when he denies it to others. But woman, as I then thought, seemed to love falsehood for itself, to delight in it, and to clothe herself in it. Moreover, with man, falsehood seemed like the shadows of daytime, which, while concealing some things, render others more evident by showing them in relief; but with women falsehood seemed like the shadows of night, distorting, obscuring, and hiding everything only here and there pierced by small and dim lights, and those in truth artificial and misleading. It may be that woman like other weak animals strives to protect herself from man by seeking the shadows of falsehood and guile I know not ; yet it is certain that I did not find in those days any woman who, when she discovered that some one was desirous of knowing all that was in her soul, would not immediately shroud herself in deceit and so baffle all further knowledge.

Yet, in spite of this, I was able to discover a few facts; namely, that woman, being weak, loves power especially over those who are stronger than she and often acquires great influence over man by a subtle knowledge of his weaknesses, particularly of those weaknesses which are due to his animal nature; and also that because of her love of falsehood woman has no sense of justice, which is truth made manifest in thought, nor of friendship, which is truth 'made manifest in action. But of these and of other similar matters I shall not write further because they are clearly and wittily set forth in the book entitled 11 Manganello, which I was much given to reading at that time.

Nevertheless I remained certain that there was something in woman behind these faults and shortcomings, an elusive something * I had not yet known, but the effects of which I had seen in the ineffable smile that at times glorifies the face of woman, and which I had often endeavored to paint upon the features of saints and madonnas. In that elusive something I felt must be the cause that made the woman soul a different thing from the soul of man. And I was certain that if I could know what it was I should love it, and that it was because I had not been able to obtain any sure knowledge of the woman soul that I had completed a half-century of life without having ever loved a woman.

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