The old and the new live in tandem in Florence, Italy. Electric cars zip down centuries-old cobblestone streets. Vendors type out texts while displaying their wares on the Ponte Vecchio. Tourists decked in t-shirts, shorts, and Apple Watches feast on gelato under Brunelleschi’s famous dome.

Still, there’s something startling about witnessing the Renaissance come alive before one’s eyes—as it does when Leonardo da Vinci checks his cellphone or Mona Lisa leans out from her frame to take a sip of apple juice.

This is standard fare for artistic impersonators Valter Conti and his daughter Elena Pinori who masquerade as Italy’s majestic painter and his most famous subject. At least three days a week, Conti spends two hours dressing to look like a