Cardinal Virtues (Seventh Adventure of Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo da Pavia)

MARTIN LUTHER, a newly ordained Augustinian monk, begins to raise questions concerning the papal policy of selling indulgences. Pope Julius II dies, and Giovanni de’Medici is elected POPE LEO X. The young French king, FRANCIS I, invades Italy again, and Niccolo is wounded by the Spanish at the rape of Prato. At a peace conference in Bologna, the French king meets Leonardo and invites him to come and work in Amboise under his personal sponsorship, but GUILIANO DE MEDICI, the new pope’s younger brother, immediately commissions Leonardo for an unusual and highly secret assignment which becomes “The Savoy Project.” He brings the maestro to Rome where he is housed in the Vatican’s Belvedere. An attempt is made on the life of the new pope by a number of cardinals, and Leonardo’s friends are listed as conspirators. Feeling the weight of age and noticing a paralysis beginning in his right hand, the Maestro is despondent. When Guiliano de Medici dies, and with no further prospects in Rome, Leonardo finally accepts the French king’s invitation and prepares to leave the land of his birth …