Joe Reina’s ‘Lost Masterpieces’ Imagines a Fictional Farewell Among Renaissance Painters

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Joe Reina has published a new novel, "Lost Masterpieces: Three Paintings, 500 Years A Journey Through Time," built around an imagined scene from Renaissance history: the night before Leonardo da Vinci leaves for Milan, when three fellow painters each hand him a small work carrying a private message.

According to the announcement, those three gifts come from Sandro Botticelli, Titian, and Andrea Mantegna, each painting standing in for a different kind of counsel. Botticelli’s piece is described as layered with allegory and coded warnings about power and patronage. Titian’s is framed as warm and sensual, suggesting reinvention and a break from convention. Mantegna’s is austere and classically precise, encoding discipline and endurance. According to the announcement, these three paintings form a wordless exchange between masters, transmitting wisdom, mutual regard, and assurance across generations through visual means.

Reina comes to this material from outside the art world. His career was built in apparel, footwear, and real estate development in Chicago, and the publisher’s materials trace his interest in European history, and in Italy specifically, to years of international business travel. He has published several previous books, including "The Goat Sleeps in the Kitchen," "A Love Affair in Tuscany," and "Shadows over Scottsdale," before turning to this account of a fictionalized moment at the hinge of the Renaissance.

"I wanted to capture that extraordinary moment when masters speak to each other across time through their work," Reina said in the announcement. "These paintings represent not just gifts, but a conversation about what it means to pursue greatness while remaining grounded in purpose and principle."

The book is published through Covenant Books and is available in hardcover and paperback, as well as through Apple Books, Amazon, Google Play, and Barnes & Noble.

Studio CarryOnHarry is intrigued by novels that build fiction around real historical figures at a specific, dramatized turning point rather than attempting straight biography — the approach succeeds or fails based on how seamlessly the fictional moment integrates with documented historical fact.

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