We know him as Renaissance genius: inventor,
scientist, artist. Visionary painter of the Mona Lisa,
the smiling, enigmatic Gioconda. They knew him as
Leonardo from Vinci, Leonardo the Florentine: heretic,
butcher, lunatic. It is dawn in the barn. On a wooden
plinth lies a terrifying creature, part lizard, part
dog, part cockerel, pieced together from several
slaughtered animals. Sitting in front of it, a boy draws
an image of a monster. His first thought: men need
saving from each other. His second: men need saving from
themselves. A solitary child, Leonardo's only intimate
is Lisa Gherardini, the girl who spies on him in his
workshop. Spurned by his tutor, he is sent by his
despairing father to Florence as an apprentice. Under
the guiding hand of Verrocchio, the master sculptor, he
begins to make his name. But success requires sacrifice;
Florence demands a level of conformity impossible for
him. Forced to leave, Leonardo places himself at the
service of the charismatic, power-thirsty Duke of Milan.
His journey leads him back to Lisa and the portrait he
has waited so long to paint, the culmination of his
life's work.From the glittering court of the Medici to
the mortuaries of Milan and the battlefields of the Po
valley, Lucille Turner's powerful debut novel vividly
imagines Leonardo's lonely struggle to convince others
of his vision of the world. |
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