Decoder Rings Back | Why the Mona Lisa?

Decoder Rings Back | Why the Mona Lisa?

We are really lucky to get lots of listener suggestions for the show, more good questions than we can possibly answer in a mailbag episode once or twice a year. So we’re starting a new segment we call… Decoder Rings Back! Every month, host Willa Paskin will personally call up a listener to answer their question.

In this inaugural installment of Decoder Rings Back, Willa calls up listener Dustin Malek about his cultural mystery: Why did the Mona Lisa, of all paintings, become the most famous in the world, bar none? Willa shares the story of daring heist that turned Leonardo da Vinci’s enigmatic smiling subject into a celebrity.

Future episodes of Decoder Rings Back will only be available to Slate Plus subscribers. So if you want to be sure not to miss them, sign up for Slate Plus! You’ll get exclusive episodes and ad-free listening not just on our show, but all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.

This episode was produced by Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.


If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.


Sources for This Episode

Cumming, Laura. “The man who stole the Mona Lisa,” The Guardian, August 5, 2011.

Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. “Stealing Mona Lisa,” Vanity Fair, April 16, 2009.

Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection, Bison Books, 2010.

Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci, Simon & Schuster, 2018.

Roberts, Sam. “Happy Birthday to the Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa and Took It to Italy,” The New York Times, October 7, 2022.

Sassoon, Donald. “Mona Lisa: The Best-Known Girl in the Whole Wide World,” History Workshop Journal, Spring 2001.

Sassoon, Donald. Mona Lisa: The History of the World’s Most Famous Painting, HarperCollins, 2016.

The Theft That Made The 'Mona Lisa' A Masterpiece,” NPR, July 30, 2011.

Zug, James. “Stolen: How the Mona Lisa Became the World’s Most Famous Painting,” Smithsonian Magazine, June 15, 2011.



Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(158)

Weapons of Map Destruction

Weapons of Map Destruction

Most of us use GPS—the Global Positioning System—on a daily basis: to find our location when we’re driving, running, shopping, dating, and so much more. But GPS is even more important, and more vulner...

15 Jul 48min

We Are Monumentally Bad at Statues

We Are Monumentally Bad at Statues

It seems like the only time you hear about new statues these days is when something goes horribly wrong. Unfortunate bronze renditions of Lucille Ball, Cristiano Ronaldo, Dwayne Wade, and many others ...

1 Jul 48min

The Tootsie Shot (Encore)

The Tootsie Shot (Encore)

You know the Tootsie Shot. It’s that image that pops up all the time in movies set in a dense city: a really busy midtown street, everyone going somewhere—and smack in the middle of it all is the prot...

17 Jun 35min

Tina Turner and the Dance That Conquered Australia

Tina Turner and the Dance That Conquered Australia

In Australia, no wedding or school dance is complete without the Nutbush, Australia’s unofficial national dance. The Nutbush – a simple line dance to the song “Nutbush City Limits,” by Ike and Tina Tu...

3 Jun 49min

Preview: Decoder Rings Back | Duck, Duck, Jeep

Preview: Decoder Rings Back | Duck, Duck, Jeep

Earlier this year we debuted Decoder Rings Back, our new feature exclusively for Decoder Ring Plus subscribers. In each installment, Willa gets a listener on the phone and tries her best to answer the...

27 Mai 10min

No Pulp: The Killing of the Florida Orange

No Pulp: The Killing of the Florida Orange

Like the palm tree, the Everglades, Disney World, and the “Florida Man,” the orange is a classic symbol of the Sunshine State. But maybe not for much longer. Production has declined to catastrophic le...

20 Mai 41min

Mailbag: Spooky Strings, Phone Menu Options, and Eye Rolls

Mailbag: Spooky Strings, Phone Menu Options, and Eye Rolls

We are lucky to get fantastic questions from our listeners here at Decoder Ring, and in this episode, we’re going to open up our mailbag to answer three of them. What are the origins of an eerie horro...

6 Mai 48min

How to Make Dollars Make Sense

How to Make Dollars Make Sense

Money is everywhere. Money influences just about everything. We think about money all the time. But how much do we really know about it? In this episode of Decoder Ring, we explore the obscure histori...

22 Apr 34min

Populært innen Samfunn

rss-spartsklubben
giver-og-gjengen-vg
konspirasjonspodden
aftenpodden
rss-nesten-hele-uka-med-lepperod
popradet
rss-henlagt-andy-larsgaard
alt-fortalt
aftenpodden-usa
wolfgang-wee-uncut
grenselos
rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
fladseth
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
rss-siktet
198-land-med-einar-trnquist
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem
rss-frekvens-med-anine-olsen
sophie-leser
rss-herrepanelet