In the end, Allied forces located more than 1,000 repositories in mines and castles across Europe, many of which were filled with art, sculpture, furniture, archives, and other cultural property stolen by the Nazis.

Images such as Michelangelo's David entombed in brick for protection or a Rembrandt Self Portrait sitting atop crates in a salt mine, capture the story in ways beyond words.

Forewords to Rescuing Da Vinci were written by Lynn Nicholas, author of The Rape of Europa (a scholarly 1994 book on the same subject), and Dr. Edmund Pillsbury, former director of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

Nine chapters document the history from Hitler's artistic ideals and his premeditated theft of Europe to the formation of the MFAA and their recovery and restitution of thousands of works of art and other cultural properties.

Catalogues reprinted in Rescuing Da Vinci list works of art in other countries which Hitler desired for his own museum, and that he was determined to obtain, by whatever means necessary.

Photographs showing warehouses of furniture and household items from pianos to children's toys, all of which had been looted from Jewish families, symbolize the reach and extent of the Holocaust.

In this book Robert Edsel and his extraordinary team of researchers have retrieved and reproduced for the general public a rare collection of photographs illustrating the dramatic vicissitudes of Europe's masterpieces and the people who held them dear.

This book and its unforgettable images will surely help in that endeavor, and Robert Edsel is to be commended for commemorating here the terrible events of World War II and the heroic efforts of the "Monuments Men" to save Europe's artistic treasures.

Throughout Rescuing Da Vinci beats the pulse of excitement that accompanies any good mystery, and it leaves the reader dying to know where still-uncovered works of art may be.