7. "In 1333, 1466, and 1478" The flood of 1333, according Giovanni Villani, generated "lengthy discussions ... about the destructive power of water." That of January 12, 1466 was recording as follows by Luca Landucci in his Florentine Diary: "During the night, the Arno began to be in flood, although there had not been a drop of rain; but the snow had melted suddenly, so that the river entered the town and flooded it as far as the Canto a Monteloro, and benches from the Church of Santa Croce floated across to that point... Many mules and horses were drowned in their stables, and all the wine-casks went floating about, mostly towards the Arno. This flood had come suddenly." Pedretti, Leonardo, A Study in Chronology and Style, p. 10.

7. "Despite these disasters" The unpredictable flooding of the Arno continues to haunt Florence to this day: although much of the damage from the disastrous flood of 1966 has been repaired, in the words of Antonio Paolucci, former Italian Minister of Culture, "the Arno was and remains a wicked, treacherous waterway." Ken Shulm, "30 Years Later, Florence Warily Watches the Arno," New York Times, Sunday, February 9, 1997, pp. A41- 42.

8. "Amid all the causes": Leonardo, Notebooks, ed. I. Richter, pp. 26-27.

9. "a river which is to be turned": Leonardo, Notebooks, ed. J. Richter, pp. 351-52.

10. While in Milan: For Fancelli’s plan, see his letter to Lorenzo the Magnificent, dated August 12, 1487, in Baratta, Leonardo da Vinci negli Studi per la Navigazione dell’ Arno, pp. 52-53.

10. "I liken her [that is, Fortune]": NM, The Prince, chap. 25, ed. Mansfield, p. 98.

10. "And although they [rivers] are like this": NM, The Prince, chap. 25, ed. Mansfield, p. 98.

11. In the Divine Comedy: Dante, Inferno XXXIII, 82-84.

11. Early in the fifteenth century: See G. Cavalcanti, Istorie Fiorentine, VI, xviii, ed. F. Polidore (Florence, 1838), vol. I, p. 328, in Brunelleschi in Perspective, ed. Isabelle Hyman (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1974), p. 60; and NM, Florentine Histories, IV, 23, ed. Banfield and Mansfield, pp. 169-70.

12. "With the domestication" On the difference between hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists, see Alexandra Maryanski and Jonathan Turner, The Social Cage (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994). For the obstacles to the emergence of larger, civilized communities, see Roger D. Masters, The Nature of Politics (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1989), esp. ch. 5.

12. The centers of early civilizations: The classic source of this analysis is Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957). More recent archaeological studies have shown the importance of water control in many if not all "pristine" centers of civilization, in which the institutions of centralized governments seem to have emerged spontaneously rather than by cultural diffusion; for a review of the evidence, see Masters, The Nature of Politics, chap. 5. Of course, not all cities were located on rivers. A few, like Megiddo in prehistoric Palestine or Chaco Canyon in the American southwest during the 11th and 12th centuries, were at the cross-roads of land routes. Some, like ancient Athens and medieval Venice, were ports where varied sea-routes join. Most, however, were along a river, where a major overland trade route crosses a river at an inland point of considerable flow. Thebes, Babylon and Rome in antiquity; Paris, Vienna, London, Berlin and Moscow in modern Europe.

14 But only in the last two hundred:. In Arles, another example of Roman engineering skill reminds us how rivers make it possible to move enormous objects, even for purposes that might seem rather frivolous. As an imperial city, Arelate had its circus for chariot races. To count the number of laps that had been completed in a race, charioteers sought an object that would cast a shadow across the track. With the conquest of Egypt, an enormous obelisk was brought from the Nile Valley and erected for this purpose. With the disintegration of the Roman Empire, the circus was destroyed and the obelisk eventually fell to the ground. By the time of Leonardo and Niccolò, no one would have known that the object had ever been there.... until one day a farmer discovered a stone over 15 meters tall with strange hieroglyphs in a field near Arles. In honor of the King, the obelisk was to be moved and erected again in the Place Royale at the center of Arles. No one knew how to do it. The Romans had transported this immense stone across the Mediterranean from Egypt to Gaul, but by 1675 the task of moving the obelisk several hundred meters seemed insurmountable. A contest was announced throughout France for an engineer who would succeed. And it was finally done, though it took almost six months to move the stone to its current site, today appropriately renamed the Place de la République. For the Roman ruins in Arles, see Jean Claude Clébert, Provence Antique (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1970), vol. 2, pp. 155-171.

14. "since the city of Fiesole": NM, Florentine Histories, II, 2, ed. Banfield and Mansfield, p. 53.

14. "With the civil wars" As Machiavelli puts it: "Thus first by Sulla, and later by those three Roman citizens who divided up the Empire after the revenge they had for Caesar [sic. Octavius, Mark Anthony, and Lapidus], colonies were sent to Fiesole, either all or some of these located their dwellings in the plain near the town already begun; and by this increase the place became so full of buildings, men, and every other civil order that it could be counted among the cities of Italy." Ibid., p. 54.

15. "For already in the time of Tiberius": NM, Florentine Histories, II, 2, ed. Banfield and Mansfield, p. 54 (citing Tacitus, Annals, I, 79).

16. Around Milan, a network of canals: Carlo Zammattio, "The Mechanics of Water and Stone," in The Unknown Leonardo, ed. Reti, pp. 206-7.

16. "equilibrium of the Renaissance": David Hackett Fischer, The Great Wave (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966).

16. Commerce developed along with banking houses: Fischer, The Great Wave, pp. 60-61. The rapid diffusion of printing presses throughout Europe is evident from the dates of the earliest presses: Strassburg, 1460; Bamberg, 1460; Basle, 1462; Subiaco, 1465; Cologne, 1466; Rome, 1467; Augsberg, 1468; Pilsen, 1468; Venice, 1469; Paris, 1470; Florence, 1471; Lyon, 1473; Utrecht, 1473; Valencia, 1474; Zaragoza, 1475; Budapest, 1475; Cracow, 1475; Bruges, 1476; Gouda, 1477; London, 1477; Oxford, 1478; Leiden, 1483. R. R. Palmer, Atlas of World History, (N.Y.: Rand McNally, 1957), pp. 58-59.

17. "equal liberty exists": Quoted in Nicolai Rubenstein, "Cradle of the Renaissance," in The Age of the Renaissance, ed. Denys Hay, p. 18.

18. Among these elective officials: Nicolai Rubenstein, "The Beginnings of Niccolò Machiavelli’s Career in the Florentine Chancery," Italian Studies 11 (1956): 72-91. Unlike other offices, the first term of the Chancellors and Secretaries was two years, with the option thereafter of continued reelection to one year, renewable terms in office. See also the sources in the next note.

18. "a league of Mafia families": See Richard C. Trexier, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980), Ch. 1; H. C. Butters, Governors and Governed in Early Sixteenth Century Florence, 1502-1509 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985); Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, Ch. 1. The phrase "a league of Mafia families" is from Karl Morrison's Europe's Middle Ages (Glenview: Free Press, 1970), p. 82, quoted by Trexier, p. 27.

18. For example, both the Vangelista: The classic study is Ronald F. D. Weissman, Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence. See also John Henderson, Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence, especially pp. 437, 439; Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, chap. 11.

18. Although some confraternities stressed: Henderson, Piety and Charity; Christopher F. Black, Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century.

19. "Florence harbours the greatest minds": Quoted in Rubenstein, "Cradle of the Renaissance," p. 12.

19. "You may have and possess": Pico della Mirandola, "Oration on the Dignity of Man," cited in Fischer, The Great Wave, p. 62.

20. Both the Florentine field commander: F. Villari, Machiavelli e i suoi tempi, pp. 213-15.

20. "Certainly, as far as human judgment": Ercole Bentivoglio to NM, February 25, 1506, in Atkinson & Sices, Machiavelli and His Friends, #107, p. 119.

21. "For most people" As two unnamed correspondents wrote Niccolò later in 1506, "There is no other news from here, except that the Arno is running downhill as before." Giustiano and "Your comrade" to Niccolò Machiavelli, 1 October 1506, in Atkinson & Sices, Machiavelli and His Friends, #125, p. 139,

21. "Niccolò presented a theory" In the last chapter of The Prince, to show that the Medici have been divinely chosen to lead Florence to the unification of Italy, Machiavelli writes as if a series of miracles identical to those in the bible have just occurred : "here may be seen extraordinary things without example, brought about by God: the sea has opened; a cloud has escorted you along the way; the stone has poured forth water; here manna has rained; everything has concurred in your greatness." Prince, Chapter xxvi (ed. Mansfield, p. 103). For Machiavelli, what the public might think are divine miracles seem to manufactured or man-made.