Description

‘Exquisitely sexy’ JAMES CAHILL

‘Told in rich, vivid prose’ DANIELLE GILES

THE DAZZLING NEW HISTORICAL FICTION NOVEL FOR FANS OF THE SONG OF ACHILLES AND MARRIAGE PORTRAIT.

15th-century Florence: where the river runs red with slaughterhouse blood and bronze statues glow in every square. Into its fold comes a young Leonardo da Vinci. Wayward and dreamy, he is different from the other artist’s apprentices, drawn to what passes behind veils of steam in the baths and along the moonlit banks of the Arno.

Such habits have long belonged to Florence, but they carry risk in a city where anonymous accusations slipped into letterboxes destroy reputations overnight. Alongside Leonardo, two men pursue their own forms of immortality: Francesco Salviati, a priest willing to endure any degradation in the name of salvation, and Lorenzo de’ Medici, heir to a great banking fortune, for whom wealth proves a shifting, uncertain thing.

Weaving together these three lives, Florenzer is a sensuous and richly imagined portrait of a city that paints over its own decay; where an untested artist, not yet marked by greatness, will dare to follow his most unholy desires.

ONLINE READERS ARE LOVING FLORENZER:

‘Lush, immersive and gorgeous’ ?????

‘I wrote a letter to the author, pleading for a sequel’ ?????

‘A magnificent achievement’ ?????

‘Brings Renaissance Florence to life’ ?????

‘I could not put this book down’ ?????

Publisher Review

The rift between Rome and Florence brings Melanson’s three characters together in a bloody, vivid climax. All three characters are superbly drawn and renaissance Florence leaps from the page. . . A stunning debut * The Times * A captivating portrait of an all-too-human genius – subtle, erudite and exquisitely sexy — James Cahill, author of The Violet Hour Florenzer is a heady, intoxicating debut that examines the meaning of art in a time of turmoil. Melanson draws subtle, intimate portraits of his three protagonists, each of them caught between the worldly and the divine. Tortured Leonardo, ambitious Lorenzo and fanatical Salviati: the lives of these men intersect in surprising and sometimes bloody ways in the cutthroat world of Renaissance Italy. Told in rich, vivid prose, passion and desire permeate every page — Danielle Giles, author of Mere Introduces us to a teenage Leonardo still struggling to find himself amid the roiling artistic and political atmosphere of late-15th-century Florence . . . For a young man sexually attracted to other young men, this can be particularly dangerous . . . Yet his work may be his salvation * New York Times Book Review * Takes up the task of reimagining Leonardo’s life as a young, gay man in rollicking Renaissance Florence. . . sharp and sensuous * Cold Magazine * The novel, which owes a debt to Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy in the detail and immediacy of its telling, feels freshly contemporary in its papal intrigue and plutocratic power battles’ * Washington Post * Follows an ambitious young Leonardo da Vinci as he figures out who and what he wants to be in late 15th-century Florence — Chloe Ashby * The Art Newspaper * History buffs will relish in Florenzer, which is set in Renaissance-era Florence and reimagines the life of Leonardo da Vinci. Tapping into the historical speculation that da Vinci was gay, Florenzer follows the young painter as he intersects with two men – one being the powerful patriarch of the world’s wealthiest bank – amid an era of cultural and technological innovation * USA TODAY * Captures these figures before their glory, when they’re dogged by the universal and timeless fear that they were born too late and won’t be remembered’ * Publishers Weekly * A superb debut that encompasses both the agony and the ecstasy of Renaissance Florence. . . Unforgettable characters and an ever-twisting plot, all told with style, skill, and wry black humour — Tim Leach, author of The Sarmatian Trilogy Well-researched, proudly lusty historical fiction * Kirkus Reviews * It’s got all the gorgeous detail of a meticulously researched historical novel, but with a very contemporary pulse * Electric Literature * Florenzer tells a tender, passionate story that offers a bold new perspective on an iconic genius and the city that shaped him * Tara Karr Roberts, author of Wild and Distant Seas *