Set in Renaissance-era Florence, this ravishing debut reimagines the intersecting lives of three ambitious young mena banker, a priest, and a gay painter named Leonardo.

A dazzlingly prescient parable of ambition, greed, and wealth rattling even the firmest foundations. Like the fractured Italy leaping from its pages full of life and sound and smell, Florenzer churns at the quicksilver pace of creation itself.Isa Arsn, author of Shoot the Moon

Leonardo da Vinci, twelve years old and a bastard, leaves the Tuscan countryside to join his father in Florence with dreams of becoming a painter. Francesco Salviati, also a bastard and scorned for his too-dark skin, dedicates himself to the Catholic Church with grand hopes of salvation. Towering above them both is Lorenzo de Medici, barely a man, yet soon to be the patriarch of the worlds wealthiest and most influential bank. Each of these young men harbors profound ambition, anxious to prove their potential to their superiorsand to themselves. Each is, in his own way, a son of Florence. Each will, when their paths cross, shed blood on Florences streets.

Fifteenth-century Florence flourishes as a haven of breathtaking artistic, cultural, and technological innovation, but discord churns below the surface: the Medicis bank exacerbates the citys staggering wealth inequality, and rumors swirl of a rift between Lorenzo and the new pope. Meanwhile, the city has become Europes preeminent destination for gay menor florenzers, as they come to be crudely called. For Leonardo, an astonishingly gifted painters apprentice, being a florenzer might feel like personal liberationbut risk lingers around every corner.

Brash and breathtaking, this lush historical drama unfolds the machinations of a city on the brink of a new age as it contends with the tensions between public and private lives, the entanglement of erotic and creative impulse, the sacrifices of the determinedly pious, and the risks of fantastic power. With his unforgettable characters and an ever-twisting plot, all told with style, skill, and wry black humor (Tim Leach), Phil Melanson emerges as an enthralling new voice in contemporary fiction.

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