Fortune is a River: Leonardo Da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli's Magnificent Dream to Change the Course of Florentine History - Hardcover

History is sometimes made by seemingly insignificant moments that turn out to have been pivotal in hindsight--and sometimes what didn't happen proves to be as important as what did. One such moment came in the Florentine court of Cesare Borgia, when a civil servant named Niccolò Machiavelli recruited a local engineer named Leonardo da Vinci to devise a plan to change the course of the Arno River. Diverting that river, Machiavelli reasoned, would deprive Florence's enemy, the nearby city-state of Pisa, of a dependable water supply. It would also make the Arno River navigable for oceangoing vessels from the inland city of Florence, and as an added incentive, would help limit damage caused by the flood-prone Arno to the surrounding farmlands.

Machiavelli and da Vinci devised a hydrological plan for the river that was extraordinarily promising, at least on paper. The flood-prone Arno, however, made the task an impossible challenge. The pair's chances of success were further reduced by poor design, bad timing, and undisciplined workers. Their failure brought official disfavor on Machiavelli and da Vinci alike. Leonardo transferred his studio to Milan and then Rome, where he would produce remarkable work, while Machiavelli retreated from public life for a time and used his forced leisure to write The Prince. Roger Masters crafts an epic tale out of a historical footnote. Although some of his conclusions are speculative in regards to Niccolò's and Leonardo's relationship, readers will likely find his narrative persuasive and deeply informed.

A curious work based on speculation and conjecture more than documents, yet interesting in its own way. Although historians have long speculated that Leonardo da Vinci and Niccol Machiavelli knew each other and perhaps collaborated on a fantastic project to transform Florence into a seaport by diverting the Arno River, little evidence survives to reconstruct the story. Masters (Government/Dartmouth) makes a valiant attempt to do so, and that lack of documentation allows him to weave a fanciful tale. With the discovery of the ``New World'' shifting the economic focus of Europe to the Atlantic and away from the Italian city-states, Florence was desperate to reassert its dominance in European trade. On a smaller scale, the ``Athens of Italy'' was in a perpetual state of war with its neighboring city-states, especially Milan, Venice, Pisa, Lucca, and the papacy. Focusing more on Leonardo's capacities as a brilliant military technician rather than as an artist and Machiavelli's responsibilities as administrator and diplomat for Florence rather than his role as political theorist, Masters recounts their failed attempt to divert the Arno by building a series of canals that would transform Florence into a seaport, allowing the city to engage in the trans-Atlantic trade. At the same time, the diversion of the Arno would deprive the city of Pisa of a necessary water supply, thereby forcing its defeat and Florence's domination of Tuscany. As might be expected from the lack of evidence, only a small part of this short book is devoted to the actual project; most of the narrative is taken up with introducing Leonardo's genius in constructing military defense systems and urban planning while uncovering Machiavelli's career as Florentine diplomat and administrator. Although readers might be frustrated at the slight reconstruction of the project, they will be rewarded with a behind-the-scenes look at Renaissance society: its spying, treachery, machinations, striving for power and patrons, and a more human portrait of both protagonists. Readers might recall Machiavelli's famous aphorism, ``Fortune is a woman that sometimes has to be taken by force before she has a chance to resist''; here they will find one of the more curious collaborations in history to take Fortune. (illustrations) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.