Michelangelo doesn’t want a fiefdom in the Balkans; he wants cold, hard ducats. It is 1506, and “Il Divino” is in Constantinople at the invitation of Bayezid II. The Ottoman ruler has commissioned a bridge across the Golden Horn, an immortal structure to secure the great destiny of his continent-straddling capital. Glory awaits the artist in this Oriental Rome, but the promised reward of a Bosnian village threatens his cherished independence. In a fit of pique, he hurls a caged monkey across his quarters. His companion Mesihi—a courtier-poet tragically enamored of the moody, musky Florentine—holds back uncomprehending tears. Will Michelangelo’s provincial insecurity spoil this chance to vanquish his competitors, taste the liberating pleasures of transcontinental homoerotics, and bind two worlds with an unprecedented feat of artistry and engineering?
