LOUVRE MUSEUM, Mona Lisa Denon Wing Hall 6

You are now in front of the most famous painting in the world. Well, you might not be standing right in front of it, you could be in the middle of a crowd; everyone wants to see La Gioconda by Leonardo da Vinci!

Flash photography is supposed to be banned, but none of the guards has the inclination to step in, and there's a special glass shield to protect the painting from excessive exposure to flashes. This is the most frequently reproduced painting throughout the history of art, but it's nonetheless of a fairly modest size, just under 80 centimeters by 50. You can imagine how it looks reflected inside an armoured glass case; this is both the easiest picture to see and the hardest, it's easier to believe the masterpiece is a myth than to actually get a look at it.

So while you're trying to get a good view of the painting between the heads in the crowd, I'll start on the history of it....