The Medici Boy

The acclaimed author of The Miracle “brings to life the bliss and treachery of the Italian Renaissance” in this novel of beauty and betrayal (David Henry Hwang).

In fifteenth-century Florence, young and beautiful Agnolo does whatever he must to survive. When he isn’t living with a soldier, he provides company for lonely men. But when his soldier is sent to war, Agnolo finds work as a model for the great artist Donato di Betto Bardi—otherwise known as Donatello.

While creating his famous bronze of David standing on the head of Goliath, Donatello develops a desire for Agnolo that ignites a dangerous jealousy. The artist’s assistant, the complex and conflicted Luca, is determined to save Donatello and put an end to the cattivo Agnolo.

With incisive detail, John L’Heureux beautifully renders the master sculptor’s creative genius, and the artistry that enthralled the powerful and highly competitive Medici and Albizzi families, in a novel of Renaissance Italy that is a “pleasure to read” (The Washington Post).

“A gripping story of love, genius, and betrayal.” —J. M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize–winning author

“A novel bursting with love—collegial, artistic, and erotic . . . [and] prose as passionate as his characters.” —David Henry Hwang, author of M. Butterfly