Leonardo flees Milan as Duke Lodovico Sforza's army returns to reclaim the city, leaving behind his crumbling fresco.

Michelangelo breaks into the Vatican at night and carves his name into the Pieta after the crowd misattributes it.

Granacci tells Michelangelo about the Duccio Stone competition and warns that Leonardo has effectively already won the commission.

Michelangelo wins the Duccio Stone commission over Leonardo at a tense presentation before Florence's leading dignitaries.

The Operai summon Michelangelo and demand he carve the biblical David instead of his planned Hercules statue.

Michelangelo secretly dissects corpses in the Santo Spirito morgue to study anatomy for his David statue.

Machiavelli manipulates Leonardo into presenting Florence's defense plans to the city council, which rejects them as too expensive.

Leonardo accepts Cesare Borgia's offer to work as a wartime military engineer, shocking the Florentines who view it as betrayal.

Watching the Easter fireworks display, Michelangelo is struck by inspiration and decides to depict David before his battle with Goliath.

Leonardo secretly views Michelangelo's Pieta in Rome, recognizes his rival's genius, and immediately resigns from Borgia's service.

Leonardo's overconfident levee designs collapse during torrential rain, flooding Florence and killing eighty people.

Salaì confesses he organized the stone attack on the David statue, having taken Leonardo's angry words literally.

The David statue arrives undamaged at the Piazza della Signoria and is unveiled to universal praise from all of Florence.

Leonardo takes the finished Mona Lisa portrait to Giocondo but reclaims it at the last moment, surrendering his prized bird ring instead.

Leonardo positions himself beside the unveiled David statue and begins to sketch it, wordlessly acknowledging Michelangelo as a fellow master.

Leonardo flees war-torn Milan and returns to Florence despite his vow never to do so, setting the stage for a rivalry with the young sculptor Michelangelo. Michelangelo wins the coveted Duccio Stone commission over Leonardo and spends years in tortured labor to carve the David, while Leonardo makes the fateful choice to serve Florence's enemy, Cesare Borgia. When Leonardo's arrogant dam designs collapse and flood Florence, killing dozens, both artists are humbled and redirected toward their true masterpieces. The David is unveiled to universal praise, and the Mona Lisa portrait is reclaimed by its creator in a moment of private devotion. The rivalry resolves not in triumph but in wordless mutual respect, as Leonardo sits to sketch Michelangelo's statue.

The headline story of Leonardo and Michelangelo's rivalry in Renaissance Florence.

A French soldier attacks and destroys Leonardo's unfinished clay horse model as Leonardo and Salaì prepare to flee Milan.

Isabella d'Este privately commissions Leonardo to paint her portrait, having pawned a jewel to pay him.

Michelangelo is arrested at Florence's city gates as a suspected Medici spy before Granacci arrives to vouch for him.

Leonardo throws the notary out of his Florence studio, refusing the man's flattery after years of deep resentment.

Michelangelo escapes his father's barricaded door using stonecutting tools, muddying his new clothes before sprinting to the Duccio competition.

Michelangelo confronts Leonardo by revealing that his abandoned bronze horse for Duke Sforza had a secret, unworkable design flaw.

Michelangelo builds a wooden shed around the Duccio Stone to hide his work from spectators and rival artists.

Giovansimone reveals Michelangelo's illegal dissections to their family, and Lodovico throws his son out of the home.

In Borgia's war camp, Machiavelli tells Leonardo that all of Florence is obsessed with Michelangelo's statue, not Leonardo's betrayal.

Soderini secretly summons Michelangelo to the top of the bell tower and implies the David must restore Florentine civic pride.

Michelangelo collapses from exhaustion near the nearly finished David statue and spends three weeks unconscious in a hospital.

Giovansimone and his friends accidentally burn down the Buonarroti family home while Michelangelo is still recovering from illness.

Florence's city council votes to install the David directly in front of the Palazzo della Signoria, overruling Leonardo's preferred hidden location.

The Mona Lisa portrait is displayed publicly for one day, and crowds gather to marvel at Leonardo's mastery.

Felice della Rovere, rumored daughter of Pope Julius II, hints to Michelangelo after the unveiling that the pope has work waiting for him.

Behind the headline rivalry, smaller but pivotal scenes reveal the full texture of both artists' lives in Renaissance Florence. Leonardo's destroyed clay horse, his complicated affair with Isabella d'Este, and his bitter rejection of his estranged father illuminate the wounds driving his ambition. Michelangelo's daily struggles with family disapproval, civic pressure, and the physical toll of his labor provide the human cost of artistic obsession. Political scheming by Machiavelli, a secret meeting with Soderini, and the fierce debate over where to place the David show that art in Florence was never separate from power. The story closes with young Raphael Sanzio being drawn to Florence by the fame of the David, suggesting the rivalry between Leonardo and Michelangelo will inspire generations to come.

The secondary moments that shaped two artists, a city, and a rivalry.

The crowd at the Pieta unveiling in Rome misattributes the statue to a Milanese sculptor, devastating Michelangelo.

Leonardo and Salaì depart Mantua for Florence despite Leonardo's longstanding vow never to return to the city.

Leonardo mocks Michelangelo at his Florence studio, calling him greedy and pretentious; Michelangelo vows to win the Duccio commission in revenge.

Leonardo examines a dead bat while refusing to discuss the passionate Michelangelo with Salaì, betraying his jealousy.

A mysterious woman in the Florence market pays for Leonardo's caged birds and tells him to learn to fly.

Michelangelo studies the existing David statues by Donatello and Verrocchio and wonders how he can compete with such masterpieces.

Leonardo's flying machine crashes on Mount Ceceri, and Borgia soldiers carry away the wreckage before Leonardo can retrieve it.

Leonardo is traumatized by the brutal violence of the siege of Cesena while serving as Borgia's military engineer.

Mona Lisa refuses to sit for her portrait, telling Leonardo he used his genius to betray Florence by working for Borgia.

Pope Alexander VI dies, plunging Florence into anxiety about what the now-unrestrained Cesare Borgia might do next.

Michelangelo wakes from his hospital stay to find his father weeping over him, showing paternal love for the first time.

Leonardo overrules his foreman's advice to reinforce the Arno dam, insisting his own specifications are sufficient and will hold.

Michelangelo dives into the floodwaters caused by Leonardo's broken levees and drags his barely breathing brother Buonarroto ashore.

Sneaking into the church at night, Michelangelo is so overwhelmed by the Mona Lisa's brilliance that he considers fleeing Florence.

After the David is unveiled, Michelangelo notices Leonardo's absence from the crowd and privately acknowledges him as the greatest artist alive.

Beneath the public rivalry runs a current of private discoveries and emotional reversals that shape both men. From the moment Michelangelo's authorship of the Pieta goes unrecognized, to Leonardo's hidden jealousy at the mere mention of his rival's name, both artists are driven as much by fear as by genius. Key revelations—Leonardo's encounter with the mysterious Lisa in the market, his trauma in Borgia's war camp, and Mona Lisa's furious accusation of betrayal—steadily strip away Leonardo's protective arrogance. Meanwhile, Michelangelo's near-death from exhaustion, his father's unexpected tearful love, and his midnight encounter with the Mona Lisa force him to confront his own limitations. The pool closes with Michelangelo at the David's unveiling, scanning the crowd for Leonardo and privately conceding that his rival remains the greatest artist alive.

The hidden turning points and revelations that transformed two rivals into legends.