Florenzer
This thoughtful, triple-point-of-view debut novel presents three important figures of the Italian Renaissance: Lorenzo de’ Medici, Leonardo da Vinci, and Francesco Salviati. The years 1471-1479 are fateful ones, not just for the characters but for the dazzling Republic of Florence itself, and these three men are intimately involved in the shifting cultural and political tides that bring an end to Florence’s ascendancy in the complex history of Italy.
Leonardo is the “Florenzer” of the title, a slur at the time for gay men. He knows he has talent, but struggles with the self-loathing instilled in him by his family and his city. Lorenzo is the powerful head of the banking family that controls Florence but learns that financial power has limits in the face of the open corruption of Church and state. Francesco is an illegitimate mixed-race priest hoping to rise in the service of Pope Sixtus IV. Like Leonardo, he shares the low opinion his family and the world have of him and like Lorenzo, he finds the demands of money and religion are seldom compatible. All three find themselves at the mercy of the greed and capriciousness of Rome’s domination of Italian identity.
Melanson has found an effective way to create a rich portrait of Florence. Like Leonardo, his technique is to focus in on small details of character and everyday life to create a panoramic vision. The three protagonists can be frustrating in their self-absorption and indecision, and the pace of the novel is very slow, but the insights Melanson offers into the complex relationships between morality, money, and art are well worth the effort.
