Early on a spring morning in 2011, I threaded my way through a maze of lanes in the Oltrarno to the street where Lisa Gherardini, the woman generally believed to be the model for Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait, was born. Via Sguazzo lived up to its name, derived from a word for ‘wallow.’ Five centuries after its residents had complained about the stench from a clogged municipal drain, the alley still stank. Graffiti smeared the grimy houses. Trash huddled in corners.
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