What makes it ‘The’ Mona Lisa?
Half a millennium after Leonardo da Vinci’s death, his iconic portrait has competition.
After climbing a twisted, shrimp-evoking staircase, I found myself facing a vitrine with golden reliquaries. Devoid of the relics once housed within and displayed as art objects, the ornate receptacles had outlived their ritual usefulness in a manner that recalled the sacred “dollar store” in the basement of Philadelphia’s St. Charles Borromeo Seminary,…