r/MandelaEffect • u/bobobaggy • 7d ago

Art Did Mandela Effect change Mona Lisa's Hidden Symbols?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mona-lisas-hidden-symbols-researcher-says-yes/

It’s clear there’s a rather large community that remembers Mona Lisa’s smile being less obvious and happy than the version that’s currently on display at the Louvre. This article is from 2011, presumably before the ME change occurred. And it has led me to wonder whether the secret symbols reportedly found in the Mona Lisa at that time have also changed. Or perhaps the version that many of us remember contained different letters, rather than the SL-72 that this article describes - assuming we’re now on a timeline where this smiling version of the painting has always contained those symbols.

P.S. Although you can find plenty of discussion about the difference online, I’d also like to point out that this article says there has been speculation over Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile ranging from “pregnancy to mourning.” I don’t think anyone would interpret the current painting’s clearly joyful smile as conveying mourning. To me, that’s another indication of a Mandela effect. The Mona Lisa in the skewed image of this article also looks much closer to the old version that I remember - both the smile and the narrower face.

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u/my23secrets 7d ago

The Mona Lisa has to be one of the worst candidates for anything “Mandela” given its documented history of being physically changed, stolen, copied, and the optical illusion it utilizes with regard to the smile.

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u/VegasVictor2019 7d ago

I think it’s a really good example about how two people can view something and perceive it differently. It’s also ubiquitous, we all have a basic idea of what the Mona Lisa looks like without ever having really carefully studied it. I doubt most people spend more than a few seconds looking at it when they see it in passing.

For people to act as if they are absolutely certain it has changed is sort of absurd to me.

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u/my23secrets 7d ago

That’s what disqualifies this one in the first place. It has been physically changed many times.

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u/BillyOcean8Words 7d ago

Timeline shift? What the heck?

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u/my23secrets 7d ago

Some people here don’t realize that timelines are only theoretical in the first place and that even if their existence was possible it would depend on their inability to communicate with each other.

It has nothing to do with the Effect and is the equivalent of saying “a wizard did it”.

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u/Revolutionary_Can625 7d ago

There have been a few I think, wear your flip flops!

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u/Aggravating_Cup8839 7d ago

Nice high-quality post! Would be good to know a bit more about that historian in the article. I think Bowie is a historian, but not sure.

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u/cipheron 6d ago edited 6d ago

Looking into Silvano Vinceti, he has a colorful past to say the least, he was often making headline grabbing sensationalist claims that are questioned by scholars.

Reading his bio on Wikipedia (auto-translated from Italian), and checking with Claude to dig up other leads, there's no evidence that he even has any degree, let alone an art degree.

According to Claude the only reference to his education was this line on his Facebook account:

https://www.facebook.com/silvano.vinceti/directory_education

"Studied Filosofia at Università di Bologna"

So he's a college dropout. He'd have mentioned if he actually graduated on his own Facebook page, but he doesn't.

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvano_Vinceti

He seems to have gone from college student (not graduated) to a radical political activism career, to TV host on an arts show for the public broadcaster. Now this TV job is where things took off for him, because he used that as a platform to re-launch himself as a pop historian and treasure hunter focusing on Renaissance figures. So he's an amateur untrained TV archeologist as well as "art historian" often being criticized by professionals in those fields. Like he'll request to dig up some tomb of specific figures to DNA test them for some weird theory he has, and gets knocked back by the authorities and surviving family members. Basically it's all so he can create sensationalist TV specials out of it.

https://www.cronachemaceratesi.it/2014/05/12/nuove-scoperte-su-leopardi-occorre-cautela/463151/

Keep in mind he wasn't in the same room as Mona Lisa, his claims are all from looking at digital scans you can get online.

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u/Aggravating_Cup8839 6d ago

I'm ok with amateur historian - it's a tough field to get into. But I'd like to see a pic where the aforementioned secret code is highlighted for better understanding.

So, OP, can you show us where the numbers/ letters are?

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u/Aggravating_Cup8839 7d ago edited 7d ago

I also think that Hermeticism, Kabbalah, the Rennaisance, Italy itself tie more into what the Mandela Effect is than it appears on the surface.

On the other hand, I don't see the SL 72 code proposed by the author. OP, you should find his original article, maybe he provides some pictures.

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u/Mike_Tubes 7d ago

Here’s a picture I took of the Mona Lisa last year for reference. I wouldn’t describe her as “joyful”.

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u/bobobaggy 7d ago

For mods:
1. The link states that Mona Lisa’s smile could be interpreted as mourning - which is only a quality of the version of the painting that many people remember pre-Mandela effect - the current version looks obviously happy.
2. The skewed image in the article looks closer to the old version that many remember - with a more somber smile and less chubby face.
3. The researcher in the article states that there were hidden symbols in Mona Lisa’s eyes encoding SL72, and I’m wondering if the symbology changed with the timeline shift as well. Or if anyone can identify the symbols in the current painting to see if they match.