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 world's wealthiest and most influential bank. Each of these young men harbors profound ambition, anxious to prove their potential to their superiors--and to themselves. Each is, in his own way, a son of Florence. Each will, when their paths cross, shed blood on Florence's streets. Fifteenth-century Florence flourishes as a haven of breathtaking artistic, cultural, and technological innovation, but discord churns below the surface: the Medici's bank exacerbates the city's staggering wealth inequality, and rumors swirl of a rift between Lorenzo and the new pope. Meanwhile, the city has become Europe's
