Florence, 1478. The bells of Santa Maria del Fiore mark the hour when the nobles yawn, the commoners pray, and boys like Lorenzo refine their letters with the same patience with which one trains a dog not to bite.

He has a face that still hasn't decided if it wants to be a man's or a statue's, and a silence that is not a virtue, but a defense. He works as a copyist in the Medici house, transcribing letters with a monastic pulse, perfecting his calligraphy while learning that, in that city, the most valuable thing is not to tell the truth, but to know when to keep quiet.

Giuliano de Medici, thirty years older, has chosen him as a scribe just as one chooses a tunic: for the soft fall, the color, for what it says. "It's not a sin to admire the beauty of the gods," he mutters.

Every day, the young boy works from sun to sun, with barely any rest. Each stroke he draws in the margins of a manuscript is also an unspoken question.

Each word he corrects is a gesture of waiting.

He doesn't know yet that his face has already been chosen. That his mute voice is already noted on a list that is not written with a pen, but with glances.

He only understands that, for weeks, Giuliano has been observing him with a patience that hurts. As if waiting for something that has not yet been fully born.

That afternoon, a servant hands him a small envelope without a seal. Inside, only a phrase written in perfect calligraphy:

"Dress in white. At midnight. In the garden of statues."

Lorenzo feels something that is not fear, but not desire either. It's as if his body already knows something that his mind still doesn't want to accept.

He has heard rumors.

He has intuited silences.

But nothing has prepared him for a secret that, for his fortune or misfortune, he will soon discover.

Lorenzo is not foolish. He knows that his body is the key to entering the circle where men do not only command with gold or signatures, but also with skin and promises. He quickly learns that desire in Florence has a hierarchy, Latin, and perfume, but no pity. And that everything that is offered to him - new clothes, books, a place at dinner - has a price that is not written with ink, but with flesh.

Lorenzo has heard the rumor of the garden, of the Circle, of the fanciulli who become shadows and return with new rings and old glances. Or maybe they never return. He is not a child. He knows how to read the pauses of adults when they talk about beauty, when they fall silent when mentioning certain rooms in the Medici house.

In Medici's Florence, everything is paid for dearly and in silence.

The invitation is not a suggestion; it's an order wrapped in perfume and impeccable calligraphy.

Lorenzo arrives at the garden of statues. He is dressed in white, as he was ordered, but he feels naked. There are candles lit among the hedges and distant music that onl...