Portrait of a Woman

"Historically founded on the seventeenth century Stradivari family, Portrait of a Woman is a novel about Beatrice Stradivari, a young concert guitarist, and the two men who vie for her love; of an older Beatrice who, during World War II, rescues Italian Jews by crossing the Swiss border; finally, of an aging Beatrice, who, as a Benedictine nun, Mother Ambrose, catches the interest of a novelist who falls in love with her in his imagination. In his effort to translate his devotion into a novel, he searches out Mother Ambrose's secret on the shores of Como, Istanbul, Dubrovnik, and Rome"--Dust jacket.