Lost Leonardo

Leonardo's Lost Robots reinterprets Leonardo da Vinci's mechanical design work, revealing a new level of sophistication not recognized by art historians or engineers. By identifying his major technological projects, the book reinterprets Leonardo's legacy of notes, showing that apparently unconnected fragments from dispersed manuscripts actually comprise cohesive designs for functioning automata.

For the pleasure of Queen Mother Anne of Austria and the only 7-year-old King Louis XIV, Cardinal Mazarin had an Italian opera performed in Paris for the first time in December 1645. With great effort, the invited Italian ensemble performs La Finta Pazza by Francesco Sacrati (1605-1650), composed for Venice in 1641. Leonardo García Alarcón directs an extraordinarily successful and colorful revival of this masterpiece, so important for the history of French opera and long considered lost - a true musical miracle.

When Holmes joins his sidekick and friend, Doctor Watson, at the wake for Brigadier Buffington, they wonder how Buffington acquired a lost Leonardo da Vinci painting. And, after a curious incident or two, another question arises: Did Buffington die of natural causes?..

Leonardo da Vinci is not just the most famous and most admired of all painters - he is an icon, a superstar. Yet, the man himself remains elusive. Accounts during his lifetime describe a man too handsome, too strong, too perfect to be accurate. But in 2009, the chance discovery in the South of Italy of an ancient portrait with strangely familiar features takes the art world by storm. Could this be an unknown self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci? Controversy erupts among the experts. The implications of such a discovery have far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the work of this great Renaissance master.

Fiona Bruce uncovers the story of Leonardo da Vinci, who is considered by many to be one of the greatest artists who ever lived. Yet his reputation rests on only a handful of pictures - including the world's most famous painting, the Mona Lisa. As the National Gallery in London prepares to open its doors on a remarkable exhibition of Leonardo's work, Fiona travels to Florence, Milan, Paris and Warsaw to learn more about this enigmatic genius - and to New York, where she is given an exclusive preview of a sensational discovery: a new Leonardo.