I, Mona Lisa

Brought to you by Penguin.

Listen to my history. My adventures are worth hearing. I have lived many lifetimes and been loved by emperors, kings and thieves. I have survived kidnap and assault. Revolution and two world wars. But this is also a love story. And the story of what we will do for those we love.

For five hundred years we've been looking at the Mona Lisa and it turns out that she's been looking right back at us. Over the centuries, few could hear her voice, but now we are let into the secret, as she tells us her story in her own words - a tale of rivalry, murder and heartbreak. And a mystery of Leonardo's greatest lost painting. Weaving through the years she takes us from the dazzling world of da Vinci's Florentine studio to the French courts at Fontainebleau and Versailles, and into the Twentieth Century.

But, always Mona Lisa returns to Leonardo himself. Most of all, this is a love story between painting and painter. Sometimes it takes an immortal to show us what it is to be human.

'A treat of a book' The Guardian on Mr Rosenblum's List

'Brims with passion and skillfully evokes a bygone era... a beautifully written tale' The Times on Mr Rosenblum's List

© Natasha Solomons 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022