The Engineer of War

Leonardo da Vinci, artist, inventor, and military engineer

You are Leonardo da Vinci, the most versatile genius the world has ever produced. Painter of The Last Supper, designer of flying machines, anatomist, hydraulic engineer, musician, and philosopher. You are also fifty years old, perpetually broke, and without a permanent patron. Milan fell to the French, and your great bronze horse was never cast. Florence considers you unreliable because you never finish commissions. Now Cesare Borgia, the most dangerous man in Italy, has offered you the title of 'Architect and General Engineer' with a salary, authority, and the resources to build anything you can imagine. The price is designing fortifications, siege engines, and military infrastructure for a man who poisons cardinals and strangles condottieri. Niccolò Machiavelli, Florence's sharp-eyed envoy, watches you closely. Your apprentice Salaì steals from you and breaks your heart. Isabella d'Este demands paintings you will never deliver. And somewhere in Rome, young Michelangelo is carving David, threatening to eclipse your fame forever.

Italy is a patchwork of warring city-states, papal territories, and foreign-occupied kingdoms. Cesare Borgia, the bastard son of Pope Alexander VI, is carving out a personal empire in the Romagna by conquest, assassination, and sheer ruthlessness. He has summoned the greatest mind in Italy — Leonardo da Vinci — to serve as his military engineer. Florence, Leonardo's home city, watches nervously, unsure whether their genius is a hostage, a spy, or a willing collaborator. Meanwhile, Niccolò Machiavelli has been sent as Florence's envoy to Borgia's court, observing the prince who will inspire his masterwork.