The woman in Leonardo da Vinci's work gazes out from the canvas with a quiet serenity. But what lies behind the famous smile? Shrouded in mystery, the Mona Lisa has attracted more speculation and questioning than any other work of art ever created. This work provides an aide memoire of the world's most famous painting. The full-page colour plates portray the Mona Lisa in close-up photographs, while Serge Bramly, the author, explores its shadowy history and the fascination the painting has engendered.

Invites young readers to touch Baroque and Renaissance paintings, including Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa," Botticelli's "Birth of Venus," and Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring." On board pages.

In this study Rab Hatfield provides a thorough, no-nonsense analysis of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa or La Gioconda. The book begins with a consideration of the generally known sources and documents and a careful look at the painting as we know it now. There follow discussions of rarely examined laboratory photographs and of a recently discovered annotation by Ser Agostino Vespucci in a book he owned of letters by Cicero, from which we learn that Leonardo left a portrait of "Lisa del Giocondo" unfinished no later than October 1503. The book concludes with a hitherto unknown letter written in 1515 by Filippo Strozzi to Lorenzo de' Medici, Captain General of the Florentine Armies and soon to become Duke of Urbino, describing some supposed advances these two men made to Mon(n)a Lisa. The laboratory photographs and newly discovered sources make it clear that the Mona Lisa has probably been reworked twice, that it in fact depicts Mon(n)a Lisa del Giocondo, and that it would be better if we spoke of it as La Gioconda rather than the Mona Lisa. Contents: Part One: Setting the Stage - I. Vasari and Some Other Well Known Sources and Documents. II. The Mona Lisa As We See It Now. Part Two: The Three Mona Lisas. III. The Changes: The x-ray photographs and the first Mona Lisa. IV. The Annotation of Ser Agostino Vespucci. V. Filippo Strozzi's letter.

Historical fiction - Mystery & Suspense Thriller In this elaborately plotted, fast-paced thriller, Phil Philips takes you on a roller-coaster ride through the streets of Paris and to the Jura mountains of Switzerland, to uncover a secret hidden for thousands of years ... Fans of the da Vinci code will love Mona Lisa's Secret.

The book rests on the premise that the woman in the painting "Mona Lisa" is indeed the person identified in its earliest description: Lisa Gherardini (1479-1542), wife of the Florence merchant Francesco del Giocondo. Dianne Hales has followed facts from the Florence State Archives, to the squalid street where Mona Lisa was born, to the ruins of the convent where she died

The famous painting, Mona Lisa, describes how she was painted by Leonardo da Vinci, taken to France, hung in the Louvre Museum, was stolen and then recovered. Suggested level: junior, primary.

ONE OF PEOPLE MAGAZINE'S BEST BOOKS OF SUMMER! "Unstoppable what-happens-next momentum."—Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author "A deliciously tense read."—Ruth Ware, #1 New York Times bestselling author From award-winning crime writer and celebrated artist Jonathan Santlofer comes an enthralling tale about the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, the forgeries that appeared in its wake, and the present-day underbelly of the art world. August, 1911: The Mona Lisa is stolen by Vincent Peruggia. Exactly what happens in the two years before its recovery is a mystery. Many replicas of the Mona Lisa exist, and more than one historian has wondered if the painting now returned to the Louvre is a fake, switched in 1911. Present day: Art professor Luke Perrone digs for the truth behind his most famous ancestor: Peruggia. His search attracts an Interpol detective with something to prove and an unfamiliar but curiously helpful woman. Soon, Luke tumbles deep into the world of art and forgery, a land of obsession and danger. The Last Mona Lisa is a suspenseful and seductive tale, perfect for fans of the Netflix documentaries This Is A Robbery and Made You Look and readers obsessed with the world of art heists and forgeries.