LISA ROCHON is as an award-winning architecture critic, cultural commentator and the author of Up North: Where Canada’s Architecture Meets the Land. She has contributed numerous essays and articles to books and journals such as Alphabet City, Canadian Architect, Metropolis and Architectural Record (NYC). She is the two-time winner of the National Newspaper Awards for her “City Space” column in the Globe and Mail, and the recipient of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s President’s Award for Architectural Journalism. Educated at the University of Toronto and in Paris at Sciences Po and L’Ecole du Louvre, she travelled to Florence many times to retrace the steps of Lisa del Giocondo, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci as she researched this novel, and was granted rare access to Leonardo’s original drawings at Windsor Castle. She’s passionate about art and ideas and is a frequent commentator on television and radio. You can find out more about her at www.citylab.space.