Andrew Lloyd Webber is working on a new musical about the Mona Lisa. It is based on a real theft at the Louvre in Paris. On August 21, 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia took the painting. Peruggia was an Italian glass worker and house painter. He helped put safe glass around the painting.
The museum was closed that day. Peruggia wore worker's clothes and walked in easily. He removed the painting from its glass case. Then he carried it to a stairway. Workers saw it was missing 28 hours later. Police questioned the wrong people, including Pablo Picasso. The painting was in Peruggia's room, inside a trunk.
For two years, there were no clear answers. In late 1913, Peruggia called an art dealer and asked for money. Police arrested him in mid-December. The theft made the small painting more famous. Today, about 80 percent of Louvre visitors come to see it. Many take photos of the 30-inch-tall painting.
Museum leaders plan to move the Mona Lisa to its own underground room. Visitors will need a separate ticket. After Leonardo died in 1519, French king Francis I got it. It came to the Louvre in the early 1800s. Lloyd Webber is also writing The Illusionist. It is based on the 2006 film. His company is also backing Cats: The Jellicle Ball, which opened on Broadway on April 7.
In Florence, scientists are studying beauty in another way. At the Galileo Museum, they watch how people feel about old objects. This study is called neuroaesthetics. It looks at the brain and body. In one test, people viewed a copy of Galileo's astrolabe, a tool for time and stars. Researchers used 32 electrodes for sight, and more for heartbeat and sweat. The test shows that beauty can come from shape, knowledge, and memory.