{"podcast":{"title":"Slow Burn","slug":"slow-burn-474574","podcast_index_feed_id":474574,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6965759d79fe7d554545528a","website_url":"https://slate.com/slowburn","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/6965759d79fe7d554545528a/1778157374914-ae3ee4b6-49a1-4ca8-b5ab-9ddd01fce140.jpeg","author":"Slate Audio","episode_count":226,"summary":"Slow Burn illuminates America’s most consequential moments, making sense of the past to better understand the present. Through archival tape and first-person interviews, the series uncovers the surprising events and little-known characters lurking within the biggest stories of our time. Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to Slow Burn and your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe from the Slow Burn show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or visit slate.com/slowburnplus to get access wherever you listen. Season 11: Becoming Justice Gorsuch How Neil Gorsuch laid the foundation for a SCOTUS supermajority and then became its most unexpected wild card. Season 10: The Rise of Fox News How a cable news channel became a cultural and political force—and how a whole bunch of people rose up to try and stop it. Season 9: Gays Against Briggs A nationwide moral panic, a California legislator who rode the anti-gay wave, and the LGBTQ+ people who stepped up and came out to try and stop him. Season 8: Becoming Justice Thomas Where Clarence Thomas came from, how he rose to power, and how he’s brought the rest of us along with him, whether we like it or not. Winner of the Pod…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-01T18:18:26.361960+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/slow-burn-474574"},"episode":{"title":"Decoder Rings Back | Why the Mona Lisa?","slug":"decoder-rings-back-why-the-mona-lisa","published_at":"2026-01-14T08:50:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/slow-burn-474574/decoder-rings-back-why-the-mona-lisa","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/slow-burn-474574","url":"https://shows.acast.com/slow-burn/episodes/decoder-rings-back-why-the-mona-lisa","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6965759d79fe7d554545528a/e/6966b7f00b081bb8b932ef6a/media.mp3","summary":"We are really lucky to get lots of listener suggestions for the show, more good questions than we can possibly answer in a mailbag episode once or twice a year. So we’re starting a new segment we call… Decoder Rings Back! Every month, host Willa Paskin will personally call up a listener to answer their question.  In this inaugural installment of Decoder Rings Back, Willa calls up listener Dustin Malek about his cultural mystery: Why did the Mona Lisa , of all paintings, become the most famous in the world, bar none? Willa shares the story of daring heist that turned Leonardo da Vinci’s enigmatic smiling subject into a celebrity. Future episodes of Decoder Rings Back will only be available to Slate Plus subscribers. So if you want to be sure not to miss them, sign up for Slate Plus! You’ll get exclusive episodes and ad-free listening not just on our show, but all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify , or visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.  This episode was produced by Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Cumming, Laura. “ The man who stole the Mona Lisa ,” The Guardian, August 5, 2011. Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. “ Stealing Mona Lisa ,” Vanity Fair, April 16, 2009. Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection , Bison Books, 2010. Isaacson, Walter. Leonardo da Vinci , Simon & Schuster, 2018. Roberts, Sam. “ Happy Birthday to t…","meta_description":"We are really lucky to get lots of listener suggestions for the show, more good questions than we can possibly answer in a mailbag episode once or twice a…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1505,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/slow-burn-474574/episodes/decoder-rings-back-why-the-mona-lisa/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/slow-burn-474574/decoder-rings-back-why-the-mona-lisa.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}