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[Kemp & Pallanti] marshal meticulous research into the family histories of painter, patron and subject; deep knowledge of the traditions and allusions of Renaissance art; and scientific analyses of the venerated object. * Philip Ball, Nature *

Fascinating... revelatory... with their scholarly and fluent book Kemp and Pallanti have given Lisa Gherardini, mother and silk merchants wife, a new lease of authentic life and re-established the Mona Lisa as an extraordinary painting with ordinary origins. * Michael Prodger, The Sunday Times * Brings the portrait of the enigmatic Lisa into a sharper focus than ever before. * Ross King, Woodstock and Bladon News * [Kemp & Pallanti] marshal meticulous research into the family histories of painter, patron and subject; deep knowledge of the traditions and allusions of Renaissance art; and scientific analyses of the venerated object. * Philip Ball, Nature * A model of clear-headed rationality, succinct, intriguing and marvellously readable. * Michael Bird, Daily Telegraph * This book is state of-the-art informative and will be mightily useful for students. * James Hall, Literary Review * Riveting reading... This book is a veritable mine of information. Beautifully written, it reaches out in an engaging and fluid way to those who know relatively little about the subject, whilst still imparting fascinating new evidence to the more experienced on the origins of the painting, and also about Mona Lisa herself. It is not just a further paean to 'the most famous painting in the world', it also offers to the reader a rich and tantalising picture of the world in which Leonardo da Vinci inhabited, and the huge part that an insignificant bourgeois woman, Mona Lisa del Gioconda, played in history. * Sandra Callard, On: Yorkshire Magazine * This well-researched book is also highly readable: after so many bunkum theories, the sober truth about the Mona Lisa's origins comes across as surprisingly radical and refreshing. * Alastair Smart, Prospect * Elegantly-produced study. * Richard Owen, The Tablet * Kemp analyses the painting as a key to all of Leonardos thinking and works, describing it as the 'window of the soul', in which is reflected all the knowledge acquired by the artist-scientist in the course of his life spent in the study of anatomy, optics, perspective, geology, atmosphere, hydrology and the science of painting. * Pietro C. Marani, The Burlington Magazine *

[Kemp & Pallanti] marshal meticulous research into the family histories of painter, patron and subject; deep knowledge of the traditions and allusions of Renaissance art; and scientific analyses of the venerated object. * Philip Ball, Nature * Fascinating... revelatory... with their scholarly and fluent book Kemp and Pallanti have given Lisa Gherardini, mother and silk merchants wife, a new lease of authentic life and re-established the Mona Lisa as an extraordinary painting with ordinary origins. * Michael Prodger, The Sunday Times * Brings the portrait of the enigmatic Lisa into a sharper focus than ever before. * Ross King, Woodstock and Bladon News * [Kemp & Pallanti] marshal meticulous research into the family histories of painter, patron and subject; deep knowledge of the traditions and allusions of Renaissance art; and scientific analyses of the venerated object. * Philip Ball, Nature * A model of clear-headed rationality, succinct, intriguing and marvellously readable. * Michael Bird, Daily Telegraph * Highly readable. * Alastair Smart, Prospect *

[Kemp & Pallanti] marshal meticulous research into the family histories of painter, patron and subject; deep knowledge of the traditions and allusions of Renaissance art; and scientific analyses of the venerated object. Philip Ball, Nature

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Martin Kemp FBA is Emeritus Professor in the History of Art at Trinity College. Oxford University. One of the world's leading authorities on Leonardo da Vinci, he has published extensively on his life and work, including the prize-winning Leonardo da Vinci. The marvellous works of nature and man (1989 and 2006) and Leonardo (2004 and 2011), both of which are also published by Oxford University Press, and most recently La Bella Principessa, written with Pascal Cotte (2010). Giuseppe Pallanti lives and works in Florence, where he is an Economics teacher. He has a passion for archival research and has been researching the history of the Del Giocondo and da Vinci families for many years.

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