Florenzer

Set in 15th-century Florence during the Italian Renaissance, the novel follows three intertwined lives across two decades: Leonardo da Vinci, a young artist contending with his illegitimacy and sexuality; Lorenzo de' Medici, the ambitious heir to Florence's most powerful banking dynasty; and Francesco Salviati, a priest of illegitimate birth and darker complexion who seeks advancement in the Catholic Church. Their stories converge around the Pazzi conspiracy of 1478, one of the era's most dramatic political assassinations.

The novel opens in August 1464 at the funeral of Cosimo de' Medici, patriarch of the Medici Bank and de facto ruler of Florence, a republic governed by elected councils but effectively controlled by the Medici family's wealth. Twelve-year-old Leonardo, newly arrived from the countryside, is dragged to the ceremony by his father, Piero da Vinci, a notary who views his illegitimate son as an inconvenience. Fourteen-year-old Lorenzo, Cosimo's grandson and heir, promises his mother, Lucrezia, to protect the family's legacy. Twenty-one-year-old Salviati attends with his cousin Jacopo de' Pazzi, a wealthy banker. When Lorenzo's father makes a remark about Salviati's appearance, the humiliation confirms Salviati's resolve to leave Florence for Rome and the priesthood.

Seven years later, Leonardo apprentices in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, one of Florence's leading artists. Years earlier, Leonardo modeled nude for Andrea's bronze David and was humiliated when his arousal was observed by the other apprentices. Andrea urges him to stop hiding in the workshop and seek independent commissions. Meanwhile, Cardinal Rovere is elected Pope Sisto IV, and Lorenzo travels to Rome to request a cardinalship for his younger brother, Giuliano. The pope introduces Salviati as his Florentine advisor, but Salviati tactlessly suggests rival candidates, irritating both men. Salviati takes a loan from the Pazzi Bank's Roman branch, managed by Francesco de' Pazzi, Jacopo's nephew, to improve his appearance at court.

In Florence, a dispute over an alum mine in the hill town of Volterra escalates. The Signoria, Florence's nine-member governing council, votes against military action, but Lorenzo personally hires 12,000 mercenaries and rides to Volterra expecting a bloodless surrender. He finds a massacre instead: corpses in the streets and a pyre of bodies burning in the piazza. Shaken but defiant, he rides home. The pope then requests a 40,000-ducat loan so his nephew Girolamo Riario can purchase the countship of Imola, a strategically located city near Florence's borders. Lorenzo refuses, seeing it as an insult. Salviati seizes the opportunity, brokering a deal for the Pazzi Bank to furnish the loan and winning the Vatican's banking account away from the Medici. In exchange, Francesco de' Pazzi forgives Salviati's debt. The pope rewards Salviati with the archbishopric of Pisa, though Lorenzo blocks the appointment for over a year.

Leonardo begins visiting the Buco, a tavern catering to men seeking male companionship, where he finds Iac Saltarelli, a golden-haired model who once posed at Andrea's workshop. Their regular encounters give Leonardo a rare mental stillness. He wins his first independent commission, a portrait of Ginevra de' Benci, and then receives a more significant one: Giuliano asks him to paint a Madonna as a gift for Fioretta Gorini, the professor's daughter Giuliano loves. When Lorenzo discovers the relationship and the painting, he confronts his brother, insisting Giuliano choose a suitable bride. Impressed by Leonardo's work, Lorenzo commissions a painting of Saint Sebastian. Leonardo begins the piece using Iac as his model, but officers of the Night, Florence's sodomy police, arrest Leonardo at the workshop. He is imprisoned in the Stinche, the city's prison. Lorenzo personally secures Leonardo's release, but Iac, who has prior accusations, is banished. The officers partially burn the Sebastian painting as evidence; Andrea injures his hand trying to rescue it from the flames. Devastated, Leonardo relocates across the Arno, where he spends over a year unable to paint.

Political instability deepens when Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan and Lorenzo's key military ally, is assassinated. Salviati and Girolamo recruit conspirators, including Francesco de' Pazzi, the head of the papal guard, and two priests. They secure military promises from Naples and Urbino and present their plan to the pope, who says he cannot wish for anyone's death but desires a change of government in Florence.

On April 26, 1478, the plan unravels when Giuliano refuses to attend Mass. The conspirators improvise, shifting their attack to the moment of the Eucharist's elevation in the cathedral. Salviati cannot bring himself to enter and proceeds instead to the Palagio, the seat of Florence's government, to confront the gonfalonier, or chief magistrate. Inside the cathedral, priests stab Lorenzo in the neck while Francesco de' Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini dei Baroncelli, a debtor to the Pazzi, kill Giuliano. Lorenzo is dragged into the sacristy, glimpsing his brother's body on the floor. At the Palagio, Salviati's nerve fails. Fleeing through the building's self-locking doors, he stumbles into the priors' chapel, where Leonardo has been sketching alone. In a brief exchange, Salviati speaks of coveting advancement and losing his way, and asks whether Leonardo believes in forgiveness. Leonardo says the Bible makes it seem easy, but he has never found it so. Guards seize Salviati. Leonardo watches from the terrace as Salviati is hanged from the parapets beside Francesco de' Pazzi.

Lorenzo orders the conspirators executed and appears at the palace window in his bloodstained doublet, raising his hand to a chanting crowd. A month later, his mother brings him to Fioretta Gorini, who lies dying after giving birth to Giuliano's son. Lorenzo takes the infant and names him Giulio. War follows: The pope excommunicates Lorenzo, armies invade Tuscan territory, and plague returns. Leonardo receives no commissions and abandons painting for weapon and machine design. A young musician named Atalante Migliorotti arrives seeking an apprenticeship, and Leonardo reluctantly takes him in.

Lorenzo secretly travels to Naples, spending three winter months and 60,000 florins to negotiate a truce with King Ferrante. After the Turkish invasion of Otranto forces a broader peace, Lorenzo journeys to Rome, where he confesses, kisses the pope's slippers, and receives absolution. The pope asks him to send four painters to fresco his new chapel. Lorenzo names Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Pietro Perugino, and Cosimo Rosselli, deliberately excluding Leonardo.

When Lucrezia de' Medici dies, Lorenzo sends Leonardo a commission to paint her portrait. Leonardo tears the letter apart. His father has also secured him a commission for an Adoration of the Magi from Augustinian friars, but Leonardo produces a radically unconventional painting depicting the Madonna amid chaos and indifferent bystanders, placing himself in the foreground turning away. The friars reject the work, and his father berates him, explicitly referencing his relationship with Atalante. Leonardo visits Andrea one last time. Andrea gives him money, reveals he has not painted since the fire destroyed the Sebastian because Leonardo's talent surpassed his own, and tells Leonardo the city was never good enough for him. Leonardo packs his belongings and departs for Milan with Atalante. On the road, he drafts a letter to Ludovico Sforza, Milan's regent, listing his skills as engineer, weapon designer, architect, and, last of all, painter. At a hostelry in Bologna, Atalante and Leonardo kiss, and Leonardo begins sketching Atalante as he sleeps, his first drawing of a living person in years.