Before his death in 1517, Leonardo DaVinci devised a stratagem to preserve his nude masterwork Monna Vanna from being destroyed by powerful forces of l’Inquisition. Five centuries later, American art professor Dov Markov embarks on a dangerous search for the lost DaVinci painting. Markov confronts international art traffickers and a secret religious sect known as the Order of the Sword of St. Jerome—the “Holy Madmen.”
HISTORICAL SUB TEXT: When Giuliano de Medici was co-ruler of Florence with his brother Lorenzo the Magnificent, he commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint his mistress, Pacifica Brantano, as a naked Madonna. The nude painting was entitled Monna Vanna. The original DaVinci masterpiece, now dubbed the lost Topless Gioconda, has not been seen for 500 years.