Based on the screenplay for Columbia Pictures' motion picture, this novelization tells the story of a free-spirit from Berkeley who takes a teaching position at Wellesley in 1953. Starring Academy Award( winners Julia Roberts and Marcia Gay Harden, the film is scheduled to be released December 19. Original.

In Renaissance Italy, Elisabetta longs for romance, and when Leonardo da Vinci introduces her to Guiliano de Medici, whose family rules Florence but is about to be deposed, she has no inkling of the romance--and sorrow--that will ensue.

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 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.

"From 1501 to 1505, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti both lived and worked in Florence. Leonardo was a charming, handsome fifty year-old at the peak of his career. Michelangelo was a temperamental sculptor in his mid-twenties, desperate to make a name for himself. The two despise each other."--Front jacket flap.

A Harvard neurobiologist explains how vision works, citing the scientific origins of artistic genius and providing coverage of such topics as optical illusions and the correlation between learning disabilities and artistic skill.

While visiting the art museum, Katie has an adventure stepping in and out of five paintings by van Gogh, Gauguin, and Cezanne. Includes information about postimpressionism and the particular paintings and artists in the story.

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.

What has made the Mona Lisa the most famous picture in the world? Why is it that, of all the 6,000 paintings in the Louvre, it is the only one to be exhibited in a special box, set in concrete and protected by two sheets of bulletproof glass? Why do thousands of visitors throng to see it every day, ignoring the masterpieces which surround it?

The "Mona Lisa" is widely recognized as the most famous painting in the history of art--and an undeniable icon of pop culture. Her celebrated face is used to sell everything from champagne to automobiles, and appears on ashtrays, mouse pads, and refrigerator magnets. More than any other art object, the "Mona Lisa "demonstrates that something can be high art and pop, classic and cool. Likewise, Donald Sassoon's elegant narrative is as much the story of one painting's ascendance to the status of global icon as it is the popularization of serious and distinguished art. A professor and acclaimed writer, Sassoon provides a fascinating account of Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance genius who created the picture; who the mysterious subject was; why it gained its unrivalled position in the art world; and how it has come to be used and abused by other artists and the international advertising industry. Lavishly illustrated, "Becoming Mona Lisa" is at once social, cultural, and art history of the highest order.