by E.L. Konigsburg

    "                             THE GREATEST ARTIST OF HIS TIME
        AN APPRENTICE WITH A LARCENOUS HEART AND AN AVERSION TO THE TRUTH
           A YOUNG DUTCHESS WHOSE PLAIN FACE BELIES HER BEAUTIFUL SOUL

    Could the complex ways these three lives intertwine hold the key to a historical riddle as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa's smile -- why Leonardo da Vinci devoted three years to a painting of the second wife of an unimportant merchant when all the nobles of Europe were begging for a portrait by his hand?"

-Simon and Schuster