Florenzer

"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 Arsén, 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 world's wealthiest and most influential bank. Each is, in his own way, a son of Florence. Each will, when their paths cross, shed blood on Florence's streets.

Brash and breathtaking, this lush historical drama explores the dangerous pursuit of artistic and political achievement—especially at a time when "florenzers," or gay men such as Leonardo, were often persecuted.

Mining the origins of one of history's finest artists and the city where he came of age, Florenzer introduces an enthralling new voice in fiction.

"Phil Melanson's entertaining historical fiction debut, Florenzer, imagines the early life and same-sex longings of Leonardo da Vinci against the backdrop of a conflict between the Medici family and the Vatican. 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." ― Charles Arrowsmith, Washington Post

"Phil Melanson's debut novel, Florenzer is set in Renaissance-era Florence, and follows three ambitious men—a banker, a priest, and a gay painter named Leonardo. (Yes... that one.) For anyone who loves historical fiction, this is your summer must-read." ― Queerty

"Melanson's tender historical novel reinterprets the lives of three celebrated men in 15th-century Florence... As each man matures, he grapples with his own ambitions, responsibilities, and secrets in the thriving Renaissance city that is also teeming with tension between commerce, art, and religion." ― Becky Meloan, Washington Post

"Florenzer focuses on a young Leonardo da Vinci as he comes to terms with his talent and what we would today call his queerness... But really, the thing I most love about the book so far is the physicality of it, how it feels to walk the streets of Florence in different sections of it, the sights and sounds and smells, the immediacy of it. I am only about a quarter of the way through this book. But I have it on very good authority that it gets, as the kids today say, pretty spicy. But right now, I'm loving the prose, the vividness of this writing, what we used to say in grad school, the availability of this place and time."― Glen Weldon, NPR, Pop Culture Happy Hour

"Melanson 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." ― Alida Becker, New York Times Book Review