Francesco Melzi (1491-1570)

Francesco Melzi, was an Italian painter born into a family of the Milanese nobility in Lombardy. He was a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci. Francesco Melzi’s career is inextricably linked to Leonardo da Vinci, and this could be a reason why he is not well-known—because his master overshadowed him.

However, Francesco Melzi are the most plausible author of the Prado’s version of the Mona Lisa. Francesco Melzi is known for creating the Codex Urbinas, which is a selection and careful compilation of Leonardo’s thousands of pages of notes and sketches under the title “On Painting”, and was later known as the “Tratatto della Pittura”.