This is a gorgeous book. The cover drawing is just one of the superbly executed and colored drawings, 76 pages worth. While Manara dedicates the book to history's models, perhaps it was just an excuse to dazzle us with his nude drawings? Perhaps not. The models are researched, described and presented as beautifully as they were when they inspired so many works of art. Uta, Pankaspe, Theodora of Byzantium, Lucrezia Bini, Fornarina, Titian, Phyllis, Artemisia, and dozens more are paid homage to in flowing text to accompany the artwork. Manara seems to have been just as inspired by these long-dead models as the famous masters were, creating modern works of art for us, and a vision of who these models were.