Author(s): Jack Dann

General Fiction

In a masterpiece of historical fantasy that triumphantly melds fact and fiction, Jack Dann offers his own thrilling secret history of a lost year in Leonardo da Vinci's life. He begins with a wildly imaginative bit of speculation: what if Leonardo, who was obsessed with flight and who conceived brilliant blueprints for the first flying machines, didn't stop with his designs? What if, during that missing year, he actually built and flew his marvellous machine five hundred years before the Wright Brother's legendary flight at Kitty Hawk? The Memory Cathedral magically recreates the world of Renaissance Italy, following Leonardo as he sets out on a mythic journey to a destiny and an adventure that might have been. Filled with extraordinary, authentic detail, and rich with historic figures that live and breathe with spellbinding immediacy, The Memory Cathedral is a marvel of craftmanship and style that captures the essence of fifteenth-century Italy and the opulent Middle East. First published 1995.