Since the early 1980s, Zeffirelli nurtured the project of depicting the historical period in which Florence was home to perhaps the greatest artists in history: Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti. The early years of the sixteenth century were extremely turbulent, with the Florentine Republic torn by power struggles, while the powerful Medici family, expelled from Florence after the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, schemed to regain control of the city. Drawing from documented facts, Zeffirelli imagined an encounter between these two giants, considering what is known about their personalities, and shaped the story into a novel clearly intended to become a film. He then entrusted the screenplay to English playwright Christopher Hampton, demonstrating great insight. At that time, Hampton was just over thirty and had written several interesting plays, but he achieved international success as a screenwriter only many years later, winning two Oscars. The project further evolved, being developed with the dual possibility of becoming a film or a television miniseries. For the second version of the screenplay, Zeffirelli involved also another renowned English playwright, Robert Bolt, a multi-award-winning writer and regular collaborator of David Lean. This second version attracted the interest of United Artists, and finally, in 2000, it seemed the project was nearing realization. The Archive holds many preparatory materials. Unfortunately, production costs continued to rise, the subject was considered too sophisticated for the general public, and Zeffirelli's advanced age made it difficult to secure the necessary insurance to finalize the film's financing. Thus, even the latest version of the screenplay, developed in 2005 with american playwrigh Martin Sherman, met no better fate.