A mysterious adventurer saved from death by Leonardo da Vinci tries to stop - with the help of the scientist - the evil Pope Borgia and his ruthless son Cesare from conquering the whole Italy.

SYNOPSIS:

August 31st 1499. Milan is under siege by French troops while the citizens start a rebellion against Duke Ludovico Sforza, “Il Moro”. An athletic figure climbs up the walls of the Filarete Tower of the castle where the Duke was seeking refuge. This man easily defeats the guards facing him, but while he's about to enter a window in the inner circle of the castle, a cannonball hits the same wall and the man falls to the ground.

At dawn, Leonardo Da Vinci is in the middle of the battle field and with the help of his young assistant Salai, takes the body of the man he believes dead and brings him in the nearby lab, where he starts performing an autopsy. While explaining to his assistant how the heart works and how powerful would a man be if like a god he could gave life again to a dead body, he unintentionally performs a cardiac massage to the man, whose heart starts beating again. Not having today's surgical tools, Leonardo is forced to close the open chest of the man with leather straps and a metal plate.

Two months later, Leonardo is asked to prepare a celebration with musical numbers for French King Louis XII. Here the scientist meets Cesare Borgia, “Il Valentino”, the young son of the corrupted Pope Alexander VI and his ruthless right hand Miguel de Corella, known also as Don Michelotto. Borgia is planning to subdue most of Northern Italy to the State of the Church and is looking for political back-up from the French king.

In 1502 Leonardo is back in Florence. The man Da Vinci resurrected is now firmly back on his feet and in great shape. He has no memories of his former life, so the scientist has given him the name “Renato Da Tenebre” meaning “Reborn from Darkness”. Still able with a sword, Renato however seems to consider himself almost as if one of the walking dead, and the spark of life only truly comes back to his eyes when he tests Da Vinci's most dangerous inventions (like the first prototypes of the flying machine) or when he meets Lisa Gherardini, the young lady that Da Vinci is planning to portray in a painting (the now immortal ‘Mona Lisa’).

On July 1502 Leonardo leaves Florence with Salai and Renato and starts doing inspections in the territories of Tuscany and Emilia, recently conquered by Cesare Borgia. Leonardo is appointed General Engineer by Borgia with the task to improve the fortifications of the Imola's castle and his other fortresses and to build new war machines. The scientist is really trying to find out the weakness in Borgia's plans and using Renato as a courier, is reporting everything to Florence, as is Niccolò Machiavelli, who's also acting as a spy while posing as a political advisor for the Valentino.

But the magnetic personality of Cesare Borgia seems to be winning over both Machiavelli and Leonardo, who's being provided with unlimited means to carry out all his projects.

In the meanwhile Renato is trying to secretly convince some of the soldiers of fortune that Cesare has enlisted as his captains, like Vitellozzo Vitelli and Oliverotto Da Fermi, to turn against the Borgias. But after some victories of the rebellious troops, on December 31st 1502 Renato leads the captains to a meeting with Valentino that turns up to be a trap; the two captains get brutally garrotted by Don Michelotto.

Renato, who was with them, gets captured and tortured by the terrible Michelotto, who seems to know our hero from his previous life.

Will Renato succeed in using his mind instead of the sword and find a way to escape?

Will he find out if Leonardo is still loyal to Florence or if he was convinced by Borgia to switch sides?

Will he get back alive to Florence to meet Mona Lisa ever again?

WGA-E registration # 151780 (June 2007)

ScriptVamp Feature Screenplay competition 2011 Top 5 Finalist

BlueCat International Competition 2012 - Joplin Award Finalist

Storypros Competition 2011 Semifinalist

Screenplay Festival 2011 Semifinalist