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Leonardo da Vinci and Machiavelli are two Renaissance figures who have earned immortal fame, Leonardo for his fantastical notebooks, artistic masterpieces and proto-scientific approach to the natural world, Machiavelli for his foundational text on the cynicism of realistic politics with The Prince. Cesare Borgia is the most colorful member of the extremely colorful Borgia clan, notorious as the worst thing that ever happened to Catholicism. And for a few key months in 1502, they were in the same place, influencing each other as the world lurched from Medieval superstition to modern clarity.
Strathern spins a fascinating study of these three characters, but one which dissipates in the gaps in his sources. Much of the meat of the story is Borgia's critical 1502 campaign to secure his rule of Romagna as the first step towards a united Italy under Borgia rule. In this case, Borgia outmaneuvered a conspiracy against him, winning a war with treachery and boldness against his dithering and divided enemies.
The second viewpoint is Leonardo da Vinci, a bastard son raised in the rural hinterlands of Florence, who by sheer talent became one of the major artists and engineers of the age. In 1502, Leonardo was a military engineer working for Borgia, creating maps, updating fortresses, and building diabolical engines of destruction. While Leonardo had always had pacifists impulses, he was fascinated by tempests and engines of destruction. Strathern claims that seeing the aftermath of battles and sacked towns traumatized Leonardo, turning him from war, and likely also exacerbated the psychological block that prevented him from finishing his masterpieces or organizing his notebooks.
The third viewpoint is Machiavelli, who was a hard-travelling Florentine envoy posted to the Borgia court, to keep an eye on one of the many titans which threatened to crush his beloved city. Machiavelli is the most normal of the viewpoints, a civil servant who loves gossip and a bawdy joke with his drinking buddies, as contrasted against the genius of Leonardo and the overweening ambition of Borgia.
After 1502, their paths diverged. But Borgia's boldness and fortune did not long survive his father, Pope Alexander VI (and yeah, Popes should not have children, which is about the least scandalous thing about the Borgias), who'd been the strategic force behind Cesare's tactics. Imprisoned by his enemies, stripped of his riches and titles, and eventually exiled to Navarre, Cesare died in a pointless skirmish, a failure.
Leonardo's artistic block got worse and worse, but he found a comfortable retirement with the French and eventually painted the Mona Lisa. His unpublished notebooks are full of wonderous fragments of genius, though the scientific revolution would wait for a century after his death.
Machiavelli suffered the hardest fall. He'd been a major booster of Leonardo's in Florence, and his reputation was damaged when two of Leonardo's projects, an immense fresco and a plan to divert a river in the war against Pisa, came to nothing. Worse, the Medicis overthrew his republic and he lost his office. He wrote The Prince to try and curry favor with the Medicis, but the infamous manuscript doomed his chances when the Medici left power.
This book is often fascinating and plausible, and while there's frustratingly little hard proof of key elements, particularly of a friendship between Leonardo and Machiavelli, it's not like there lots of clever Florentines hanging around Borgia in 1502.
Strathern spins a fascinating study of these three characters, but one which dissipates in the gaps in his sources. Much of the meat of the story is Borgia's critical 1502 campaign to secure his rule of Romagna as the first step towards a united Italy under Borgia rule. In this case, Borgia outmaneuvered a conspiracy against him, winning a war with treachery and boldness against his dithering and divided enemies.
The second viewpoint is Leonardo da Vinci, a bastard son raised in the rural hinterlands of Florence, who by sheer talent became one of the major artists and engineers of the age. In 1502, Leonardo was a military engineer working for Borgia, creating maps, updating fortresses, and building diabolical engines of destruction. While Leonardo had always had pacifists impulses, he was fascinated by tempests and engines of destruction. Strathern claims that seeing the aftermath of battles and sacked towns traumatized Leonardo, turning him from war, and likely also exacerbated the psychological block that prevented him from finishing his masterpieces or organizing his notebooks.
The third viewpoint is Machiavelli, who was a hard-travelling Florentine envoy posted to the Borgia court, to keep an eye on one of the many titans which threatened to crush his beloved city. Machiavelli is the most normal of the viewpoints, a civil servant who loves gossip and a bawdy joke with his drinking buddies, as contrasted against the genius of Leonardo and the overweening ambition of Borgia.
After 1502, their paths diverged. But Borgia's boldness and fortune did not long survive his father, Pope Alexander VI (and yeah, Popes should not have children, which is about the least scandalous thing about the Borgias), who'd been the strategic force behind Cesare's tactics. Imprisoned by his enemies, stripped of his riches and titles, and eventually exiled to Navarre, Cesare died in a pointless skirmish, a failure.
Leonardo's artistic block got worse and worse, but he found a comfortable retirement with the French and eventually painted the Mona Lisa. His unpublished notebooks are full of wonderous fragments of genius, though the scientific revolution would wait for a century after his death.
Machiavelli suffered the hardest fall. He'd been a major booster of Leonardo's in Florence, and his reputation was damaged when two of Leonardo's projects, an immense fresco and a plan to divert a river in the war against Pisa, came to nothing. Worse, the Medicis overthrew his republic and he lost his office. He wrote The Prince to try and curry favor with the Medicis, but the infamous manuscript doomed his chances when the Medici left power.
This book is often fascinating and plausible, and while there's frustratingly little hard proof of key elements, particularly of a friendship between Leonardo and Machiavelli, it's not like there lots of clever Florentines hanging around Borgia in 1502.