110. Soderini, once elected: Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, p. 74; Butters, Governors and Governed, pp. 60-61.

110. Instead of dividing Pisan: Luzzati, Una Guerra di Populo.

110. Compared to a a citizen army: Tommasini, La vita e gli scritti di Niccolò Machiavelli, vol. I, p. 307.

110. On August 18, 1503: Ridolfi, Machiavelli, p. 66.

110. This time, Niccolò was able: The brief tenure of Pope Pius III is of importance for readers of Machiavelli’s Prince. In chap. 7, Cesare Borgia is quoted as telling NM "on the day that Julius II was created, that he had thought about what might happen when his father was dying, and had found a remedy for everything, except that he never thought that at his death he himself would also be on the point of dying" (ed. Mansfield, p. 32). Machiavelli has written the chapter so that this remark seems to excuse Cesare’s inability to prevent the election of Julius II as successor to Alexander VI, when in fact it was Pius III who was elected at his father’s death. Generations of commentators have missed the irony. Niccolò did not meet Cesare in Rome until October, long after the immediate effects of illness would have passed; Cesare’s remarks in chap. 7 of The Prince were self-serving rationalizations. As early as the autumn of 1502, when Niccolò was with Cesare’s court in Imola, he wrote the Signoria that Borgia needed above all else to plan for the contingency of his father’s death. As the last sentence of chap. 7 puts it, Cesare made an "error" in the election of Julius II and it was the source of his "ruin." NM,The Prince, chap. 7, ed. Mansfield, p. 33, and Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power, pp. 68-72.

110. Niccolò left Florence: Ridolfi, Machiavelli, p. 67.

111. "My very dear compare": Luca Ugolini to NM, November 11, 1503, Machiavelli and His Friends, #75, p. 87. The implication of the congratulatory remark is, of course, that Niccolò had not been cuckolded.

111. On October 24: Bramly, Leonardo, p. 326; Ridolfi, Machiavelli, p. 67.

111. Leonardo had a formidable rival: Michelangelo had previously accepted the challenge of sculpting his powerful David from a damaged block of marble. The statue was an immediate success, guaranteeing that Michelangelo would be a competitor for the Council Hall commission. He was a jealous competitor too, having once taunted Leonardo as a failure in the streets of Florence. Bramly, p. 345. Although Michelangelo is recorded as taunting Leonardo for the failure of Il Cavallo in Milan, there is some reason to date this event after the failure of the Arno diversion. In Leonardo's Notebooks, there is an anguished entry: ""Tell me if ever there was done..." (Cod. Atl 368v b). Carlo Pedretti has dated this entry, which has plausibly been interpreted as self-justification after the public affront from Michelangelo, to 1505. Ibid.,p. 461.

111. Ultimately, both were chosen: Bramly, p. 342-344. According to Vasari, "the great council chamber had just been rebuilt, its architecture having been designed according to advice from Leonardo himself as well as that of Giuliano de Sangallo, Simone Pollaiuolo known as Il Cronaca, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Baccio d'Agnolo." In citing this passage, Bramly adds that "Today, it is regarded as being chiefly by Il Cronaca, with Filippino Lippi and Baccio d'Agnolo being responsible for the wooden decorations." (Bramly, p. 460).

112. description of the event: Bramly, pp. 336, 340. Some questions have been raised about the choice of subject, since the Battle of Anghiari was actually of minor historical importance. Although the account given Leonardo by Vespucci as well as other published histories record as many as seventy deaths, when Machiavelli later described the all-day fight for the control of the bridge over the Anghiari in 1440, he claimed that only one man had died -- and that from falling off a horse, not from battle wounds. Florentine Histories, The difference in these accounts, which puzzles historians, makes one wonder. Did Niccolò propose this topic as some kind of joke or test, asking Leonardo to paint a scene in which the army of Milan (where he had served for almost two decades) had been defeated by the Florentines?

112. At least one other entry: Leonardo, Notebooks, ed. J. P. Richter, #1552, vol. II, p. 465; corrected in Leonardo, Literary Works, ed. J. P. Richter and I. A. Richter, rev. ed. (Oxford University Press, 1939), vol. II, p. 386 (c. 1504: Pedretti, Literary Works, vol. II, p. 384): "Stephano Iligi, Canonico of Dulcigno, servant of the honorable cardinal Grimani at S. Apostoli.’

112. And in another note: In a passage on how to "turn the waterfall of a fountain into a harmony by way of a bagpipe," Leonardo adds: "Ask Messer Marcello [Adriani] about the sound made by water as described by Vitruvius." It is possible that the project in question was a musical fountain for the Ruccellai gardens, based on Leonardo's observation of the "harmony of the different falls of water as you saw them at the fountain of Rimini on the 8th day of August, 1502" Notebooks, ed. J.P Richter, #1048; II, 242; rev. ed., Vol. II, p. 193. Niccolò also knew Latin and could have translated the passage -- but since he was frequently away from Florence on diplomatic missions, perhaps Leonardo had to remind himself of another way to translate a technical passage.

112. They met on January 25: Leonardo, Notebooks, ed. I. Richter, p. 354; Bramly, Leonardo, p. 343.

114. "Item dicti Domini": The text is in the Florentine archives (Signori e Collegi, Deliberazioni fatte in forza di ordinaria autorità, 106, cc. 40v-41r) and was published in Fachard, Biagio Buonaccorsi, pp. 259-60. For the English translation, see Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power, pp. 239-40.

114. "by next February 1504 [1505]": In Florence, the calendar in use began the counting of the new year on March 25 (Machiavelli and His Friends, pp. 433-34).

115. Thereafter, Soderini’s policies: The first issue was the choice of a mercenary general. Shortly thereafter, the same group opposed additional taxes for the campaign against Pisa. Probably to undercut the hostility of Niccolò's erstwhile supporters, Soderini secretly negotiated a marriage between his nephew's daughter and the son of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco di Medici; the faction led by Salviati discovered the plan and temporarily blocked it. Butters, Governors and Governed, pp. 60-67, 83-87.

116. Niccolò went to Piombino: Ridolfi, Machiavelli, p. 76.

116. "Although many things are": Francesco Soderini to NM, May 29, 1504, Machiavelli and His Friends, #90, p. 102.

116. "it is not possible": Luzzati, Una Guerra di Popolo, p. 152.

116. Because poor citizens: Luzzati, Una Guerra di Popolo, esp. chaps. 5-6.

117. Leonardo therefore designed: The texts and drawings for this plan have been dated to 1504 by Pedretti (Literary Works, II, 62-63); consistent with this dating, on the back on Figure 7.1 are studies for the Battle of Anghiari. Leonardo's project is described beside a preliminary sketch for the image in Figure 7.1. On one side of the sketch: "Let the defences of the walls and towers be ruined first. ¶The walls are 16 braccia [c. 32 feet] high. I want you to take a 200 braccia [400 foot long] section of such a wall and demolish 10 braccia [20 feet] of its height, all along the 200 braccia space. Having done this let us use the debris, branches of trees and mould to make four terrepleins, each 25 braccia [50 feet] wide, with an interval of other 25 braccia from one terreplein to the other." On the other side of the sketch, Leonardo added: "there are many covered mines to house guns which are placed below ground level and which fire along the dry ditches. We shall dispose of them by means of inundation." (Literary Works, II, 62). There follows the passage suggesting the use of "water" instead of "mortars" cited in the next paragraph On another sheet, reproduced by Pedretti (Plate 33), Leonardo goes into further detail: "As the defences are overcome let the wall a b c d be thrown down, and leave the wall b d e f. [The sketch here is a schematic side-view of the detailed drawing in Figure 7.1]. ¶In the remaining wall b d e f let four apertures be made in the form of four great portals large and low, through which a great multitude of people may pass. Against the wall between these apertures let the debris of the ruined walls, mixed with branches of trees and earth be pile up in the form of four bastions, on top of which let us place the artillery which will be able to hit the enemy's defences being placed above them. In correspondence with the first and the last aperture let the terrain slope down for 25 braccia toward the camp for the horsemen and the foot soldiers to move easier, and let the terrain in excess be thrown in the moat on the other side of the wall to make a protection against the offences proceeding from the opposite bank of the moat, which would otherwise cause a great slaughter of men. ¶Next to the extremities of the remaining walls let two great terrpleins facing the breach be made of branches, earth and straw, and let them be learning against the walls and on top of them let the artillery be placed so that the fire be directed to the front of the inner moat, where are located the hidden guns, that is, the defences which cover the moat by crossfire and which could not be eliminated by the rain of stones from the mortars because they are protected by beams and earth. [Note the step-like construction to the side of the breach in Figure 7.2]. Pedretti, Literary Works, II, 63-64. At the end of this text are two fragmentary notes on the direction that the undermined walls should fall and the destruction of a segment of wall all the way to "its foot for a space of a hundred braccia."

117. "let the charges at once": "Let the props be ignited at once by pulling a cord, that is, let the charges at once be ignited that have been placed in each prop at different levels, so that the props will suddenly burst apart causing the wall that rests on them to collapse. Pedretti, Literary Works, II, 63.

117. "And if you do not want": Pedretti, Literary Works, II, 63, citing Codex Atlanticus, 24v - a (the text in Figure 7.1). By "mines" (cave) here, Leonardo clearly means "guns" placed in underground or protected bunkers, described as "hidden guns" (le artiglierie coperte) in the passage cited two notes previously (Pedretti, Literary Works, II, 64). The reference to water inside the walls shows that Leonardo's notes concern Pisa, where the ARno pases trhough the center of the city (see Figure 7.1). As these passages indicate, Leonardo was specifically concerned with the need to reduce Florentine casualties during the final attack on the city -- i.e., a central issue that was debated at the time.

117. "The prisoners said": Butters, Governors and Governed, p. 88.

120. "these are not troops": NM to Giovanni Ridolfi, June 1, 1504, Machiavelli and His Friends, #91, pp. 102-3. For the passage of this letter linking the "campaign against Librafratta" to the overall "victory," see Butters, Governors and Governed, pp. 60-67, 83-87.

120. Around this time, what purports: The text is described as a Latin translation of a letter in Italian from Amerigo Vespucci to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici by someone called Jocundus (which may be a Latin spelling of "Giocondo"). The work, usually called a forgery, is perhaps best described as plagiarism or unauthorized publication of the sort typical in Renaissance Italy. Many historians use the errors in the text to dismiss Amerigo Vespucci’s importance as an explorer. In fact, the publication of Mundus Novus may be connected to Florentine politics and was never a claim that Vespucci was the first European to set foot on the American mainland. See Pohl, Amerigo Vespucci, pp. 149-50.

120. Perhaps Italians could: Especially for those like Niccolò, who was hostile to the growing Spanish influence in Italy, Vespucci's exploration was an invitation to broaden the political horizon. A single city like Florence could not, of course, hope to compete with Spain, Portugal, England, or France. Ultimately, the rival cities of the Italian peninsula would have to be united in a single state. Years later, in The Prince, Niccolò would make an eloquent appeal to unite Italy under a leader such as Giuliano or Lorenzo de Medici. See esp. The Prince, ch. 26.

120. "On a former occasion": Amerigo Vespucci, Mundus Novus, Letter to Lorenzo Pietro di Medici, trans. George Tyler Northup (Princeton: Princeton Univesity Press, 1916), p. 1.

121. After describing the route: For these errors, see Pohl, Amerigo Vespucci, pp. 149-150. For example, Mundus Novus has Vespucci speak of his "fourth journey." Mundus Novus., p. 23-13 and Pohl, Amerigo Vespucci. On the possible reason for speaking of four voyages, see the discussion of the Letter to Soderini in note 30 below.

121. natives of the New World: We found in those parts such a multitude of people as nobody could enumerate (as we read in the Apocalypse), a race I say gentle and amenable. All of both sexes go about naked, covering no part of their bodies.. They have indeed large square-built bodies, well formed and proportioned, and in color verging on reddish....they have, too, hair plentiful and black." Mundus Novus, p. 5

121. "they have another custom": Vespucci, Mundus Novus, pp. 5-6.

121. "live according to nature": Vespucci, Mundus Novus, p. 6. Mundus Novus asserts that the natives have no private property ("all things are held in common), no government ("each is his own master"), no incest taboo or monogamy ("they marry as many wives as they please; and son cohabits with mother..."), no trade ("no merchants"), and wars that lead to cannibalism ("they bring home captives from war ..[to] be slain for food"). Ibid., p. 6. The actual texts of Amerigo Vespucci’s letters do not compare the natives of the New Worldto Epicureans.

121. Mundus Novus describes the different constellations: The image demonstrating that the earth cannot be flat shows two men standing on the surface of the earth at different latitudes, with the straight lines from the heavens through their bodies to the center of the earth forming a triangle (Vespucci, Mundus Novus, p. 12). This illustration is probably based on the observation that, at a given time and day, a man’s shadow differs depending on the latitude at which he is standing. Cf. Leonardo, Notebooks, ed. J. P. Richter, #863, vol. II, p. 139; rev. ed., Vol. II, p. 110: "Each man is always in the middle of the surface of the earth and under the zenith of his own hemisphere, and over the centre of the earth" (c. 1487-90: Pedretti, Literary Works, vol. II, p. 121). Elsewhere, Leonardo is explicit in his statements that the earth is a "globe," or sphere: Notebooks, ed. J. P. Richter, #857 and #861, vol. II, p. 137-38; rev. ed., Vol. II, pp. 109-110 (respectively 1503-5 and 1508: Pedretti, Literary Works, vol. II, p. 121). In his private letters to Lorenzo, Amerigo had more explictly challenged the bible, noting that "We so so many other animals that I believe so many species could not have entered Noah's ark." Letter to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici, 1502, in Pohl, Amerigo Vespucci, p. 132.

122. Bartolomeo also acknowledges: Bartolomeo Vespucci to NM, June 4, 1504, in Atkinson and Sices, Machiavelli and His Friends, #92, pp. 103-4.

122. "Vespuccio will give me": Leonardo, Notebooks, ed. J. P. Richter, #1452, vol. II, p. 436; rev. ed., Vol. II, p. 361 (c. 1503-5: Pedretti, Literary Works, vol. II, p. 346). Although Pedretti concludes that Leonardo’s "Il Vespuccio" refers to Agostino, Solmi ("Le fonti dei Manuscritti di Leonardo da Vinci," Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana [1908], Suppl., pp. 291-92) thought the note referred to Bartolomeo, the professor of astronomy who corresponded with NM.

122. "boxes of Lorenzo": Leonardo, Notebooks, ed. J. P. Richter, #1454, vol. II, pp. 436-37; rev. ed., Vol. II, p. 362. Pedretti has dated this list to 1504, while admitting it might be from 1506-7 (Literary Works, vol. II, p. 346). Among other entries are references to "the book on celestial phenomena," "Giovanni del Sodo" (a mathematician who was working on "the fractions of geometrical bodies"), "The map of the world from Benci," "on the celestial phenomena, by Aristotle," "show the book to Serigatto" (an astronomer), "get the rule of the portable sun dial" and indications that the list dates from the time when Leonardo was working on the mathematical problem of the multiplication of roots following the work of his friend, the mathematician. The conjunction of mathematical, geometrical, and astronomical research is precisely at issue in the attempt to determine longitude.

122. More important, at just this time: On Leonardo’s attempt to develop a ship’s log around 1504, see : "On Movements:--How Much a Ship Advances in an Hour," in Leonardo, Notebooks, ed. J. P Richter, #1113, vol. II, pp. 273-74; rev. ed., Vol. II, p. 220, and the comments by Pedretti, Literary Works, vol. II, p. 218, as well as his comments on #918 (ibid., p. 135) and #1156 (ibid., p. 239)--all dated either 1504 or 1506-7. On Leonardo’s concerns for computing longitude and nautical distance, see also Notebooks, ed. J. P. Richter, #864, vol. II, p. 139; rev. ed., Vol. II, pp. 110-111 (c.1506-9: Pedretti, Literary Works, vol. II, p. 121) as well as the citations several notes above.

122 While not actually: No one knows who prepared it. The plagiarist not only knew Vespucci's original letters, which presupposes contact with Lorenzo di Piero de Medici, but probably had communication with Amerigo himself. Was it a member of the Giacondo family ("Jocundus the translator" being a translation of the Italian name of one of Amerigo's business relations)? The circle of others who might have been connected with the publication in some way includes not only Amerigo's brother Antonio (Chancellor in charge of Florentine records) and his nephew Agostino, but Lorenzo di Piero de Medici's widow (who was the daughter of Jacopo Appiani, the ruler of Piombino, and had just negotiated a marriage contract between her son and Soderini's niece). Could either Niccolò or Leonardo have been involved?

122. "I saw things incompatible": Vespucci, Mundus Novus, p. 10.

122. And the evidence that a Florentine: Perhaps this explains the preparation of yet another plagiarism, this time in Italian hastily translated from a Spanish original. Dated September 1504 but not published until 1505, this Letter of Amerigo Vespucci on the Islands Newly Found in his Four Voyages combines the inaccuracies of Mundus Novus with further imprecisions. It is often called the Letter to Soderini because, in one manuscript version, copied on February 10, 1505, it is called a letter to Piero Soderini. After its publication in Florence (by a printer named Gian Stefano, who began to publish in 1505), this version of Vespucci's travels was translated into French, and then into the Latin version as part of Martin Waldzeemüller's Cosmographiae Introductio (published in France on April 25, 1507). It is this last work that introduced Vespucci's description of the new world to a broad public and led to the naming of the new hemisphere as "America." In pretending to give an account of four distinct voyages, this Letter dates Amerigo's trip as occurring in 1497. If so, Amerigo would have antedated Columbus in landing in the new world, with corresponding consequences for claims to land. In fact, there is no evidence that Vespucci made such a voyage in 1497. As a result, the Letter to Soderini might conceivably have been an attempt to establish a legal basis for a Florentine challenge to the claims of Spain and Portugal in South America. For a careful account of the Letter as well as text, unraveling the many problems of philology in the original Italian (which is marred by multiple hispanicisms), see Amerigo Vespucci, Letter to Piero Soderini, ed. George Tyler Northup (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1916).

123. "At this time it was considered": Biagio Buonaccorsi, Sunmario, trans. Francesca Roselli, in Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power, pp. 245-46. After Buonaccorsi's death, his diaries (Diario de' successi plus importanti seguit in Italia ) were published in 1568. This published version differs from the contemporary draft in many details -- the most important of which is the replacement of the name of Colombino by vague references to Mastri d'acque (hydraulic experts) in the plural. For the published version, see Pedretti, Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, vol. II, pp. 177- 179.

123. Upon completion, it would be: "The ditch, of 40 braccia [about 80 feet] in width at the mouth and of 32 [braccia or about 64 feet] at the end is 16 [braccia -- i.e., about 32 feet] in depth; (its surface) 576 braccia; (it is the length of a mile)." Leonardo, Codex Atlanticus, 210 recto and verso, cited in Solmi, Scritti Vinciani, pp. 554-555. In Florence at the time, a "braccia" was 21.7" (in land survey measurement) and 23" in a builder's measure. Atkinson & Sices, p. 448. For simplicity, I have estimated the measurements as approximately two feet per braccia. Without understating the massive nature of the project, it is far from the seven mile long canal which some critics of the diversion claimed was involved. Cf. ibid., with Heydenrich, "Military Architect," p. 141, citing the arguments of Bentivogli and Giacomini against the project.

125. He realized that to lift: Solmi, Scritti Vinciani, p. 555.

127. Should manpower be a problem: Solmi, Scritti Vinciani, p. 555.

127. "With regard to Colombino": NM to Antonio Giacomini, September 3, 1503, cited in Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power, p. 240.

128. "Colombino cannot be held": Giuliano Lapi to committee of Ten, September 10, 1504, in Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power, p. 241.

128. "Colombino is an excellent expert": NM to Antonio Giacomini, September 11, 1504, in Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power, p. 241.

128. "Your letter of yesterday": NM to Giuliano Lapi, September 20, 1504, in Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power, pp. 242-43.

129. "The greater of the two": In Florence at the time, a "braccia" was 21.7" (in land survey measurement) and 23" in a builder's measure. Atkinson & Sices, p. 448. Buonaccorsi, Sunmario, in Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power, p. 246.

130. "Your delay makes us fear": NM to Giuliano Lapi, September 21, 1504, in Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power, p. 242.

130. Niccolò probably recognized: After his study of the manuscripts, Solmi concluded that Leonardo and Niccolò talked on a daily basis at this time (Scritti Vinciani, p. 557).

130. "they ought to go forward": For the text, see Solmi, Scritti Vinciani, pp. 558-59. See also Villari, Machiavelli e i suoi tempi,, p. 216.

130. Soderini and Niccolò were: Solmi, Scritti Vinciani, p. 558.

130. A specialist, Marcantonio Colonna: Solmi, Scritti Vinciani, p. 559.

130. "and above all other things": Solmi, Scritti Vinciani, p. 560.

131. "And since the workers": Tommaso Tosinghi to committee of Ten, September 28, 1504, in Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power, pp. 244-45.

131. "And the undertaking": Buonaccorsi, Sunmario, in Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power, pp. 245-46.

132. As Buonaccorsi adds: Buonaccorsi, Sunmario, in Masters, Machiavelli, Leonardo, and the Science of Power, pp. 245-46.

132. As the river's sediment: "The Maestro having completed the first two projected ditches, and the weir begun but not finished, the Arno, being narrowed on account of the weir, was having its bed dug out by the faster waters to a level much lower than that of the ditch, so that the waters were entering the ditch only when the river was in flood. The Maestro maintained that the river itself would have corrected the anomaly once the weir was finished, because the sediment produced continually by the waters would have raised its bed, but in actuality the waters never went through except under flood conditions, and as soon as they diminished they flowed back." Ibid.

132. Leonardo’s Notebooks show: Zammattio, "Mechanics of Water and Stone," pp. 200-201.

133. "This undertaking came to cost": To keep the cost in perspective, however, recall that the Florentines had spent twenty thousand gold ducats to purchase a cardinal’s hat for Francesco Soderini. The annual cost of the alliance with France in these years was often around one hundred thousand ducats.