Author’s Note

ON MY FIRST visit to Florence I had the exhilarating experience of seeing Michelangelo’s David at the Accademia and later that same day seeing Donatello’s David in the Bargello. Michelangelo’s deeply moved me but Donatello’s was a revelation. It was naked in every sense and seemed to me personal, erotic, a testament to the sculptor’s sexual obsession for the teenaged boy he had created. Someone, I thought, should write a novel about it.

I spent years reading in a general way about early Renaissance art, politics and religion, and during those years revisited Florence many times, always with a long stop at the Bargello. In 2006 the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awarded me a generous grant that allowed me to spend an extended period in Italy doing research. Research aside, THE MEDICI BOY is pure invention, whose purpose it is to entertain, provoke, and disturb. The statue of David is its own narrative.

I want to thank the Guggenheim Foundation and especially Edward Hirsch and André Bernard. And for their generous critical support: Eavan Boland, Edie Wilkie Edwards, Nancy H. Packer, and Arnold Rampersad. And for all those years of faith and patience: my agent, Peter Matson.