Fortune is a River Part 1

Fortune is a River
Roger D Masters

Image to the right is Leonardo's sketch of the execution of Bandini Baroncelli, the assasin of Giuliano de' Medici ->

Amid all the causes of the destruction of human property, it seems to me that rivers hold the foremost place on account of their excessive and violent inundations ... A river which is to be turned from one place to another must be coaxed and not treated roughly or with violence.

Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks

I liken her (Fortune) to one of these violent rivers which, when they become enraged, flood the plains, ruin the trees and the buildings, lift earth from this part, drop in another; each person flees before them, everyone yields to their impetus without being able to hinder them in any regard. And although (rivers) are like this, it is notas if men, when times are quiet, could not provide for them ...

Niccolò Machiavelli, The prince

pg 1 LV (Leonardo da Vinci) & NM (Niccolò Machiavelli) prob first met in Imola 1502 at court of Cesare Borgia.
pg 2 1503-04 project to divert the Arno, making Florence into a seaport and depriving Pisa of it's water. 1503 LV received a commission for The Battle of Anghiari.
pg 4 Secrecy: NM: "for some time now I have never said what I believe nor ever believed what I said; and if indeed I do sometimes tell the truth, I hide it behind so many lies that it is hard to find."
LV wrote in mirror writing.
pg 5 Florentine Law allowed anonymus accusations: LV accused of sodomy (1476), NM accused of illegally holding his post (1509) "Your adversaries are numerous and will stop at nothing. The case is public everywhere, even in the whorehouses". (Ross King talks of NM also being accused of sodomy with a prostitute)
pg 7 Arno flooded in 1333, 1466, 1478.
pg 10 Luca Fancelli proposed a system of canals to make the Arno navigable.
pg 10 - 13 The wonders of Roman hydraulic engineering.
pg 15 Villa Arnina -> Florentia (100 BC)
pg 16 1400-1470 The "equalibrium of the Renaissance"
pg 17 The relative social mobility and openness of Italian cities, like those of Greece in antiquity, fostered a spirit of enquiry and innovation. Leonardo Bruni (1428) "equal liberty exists for all - the hope of obtaining high office and to rise is the same for all"
Florentine government:
Signoria: Two members to be chosen from each of the four quarters (priors) of the city. Drawn by lot; names pulled from a bag containing the names of eligible male citizens who paid their taxes. Term of office is two months.
Gonfaloniere: Ninth member of Signoria, head of government.
Buonomini (Twelve Good men)
Galfalonieri (16 Standard Bearers) 4 from each Prior. Term: 3 or 4 months.
Dieci: Ten of War
Under Lorenzo de' Medici, only supporters' names were placed in the bag. After Savonarola, a Great Council was formed which elected the Signoria.
pg 18 Real Political Power rested in patronage, cliques, confraternities.
pg 19 - 20 Pico della Mirandola Oration on the Dignity of Man. God admonishes Adam:
You may have and possess whatever abode, form and functions that you might desire. The nature of all other beings is limited and constrained within the bounds of law prescribed by us. But you, constrained by no limits, in accordance with your own free will, in whose hand we have placed you, shall ordain for yourself the limits of your nature.
pg 23 - 48. LV's bio. Not accepted by humanist scholars. Painting considered lower status.
His Introduction to Treatise on Painting:
I am fully conscious that, not being a literary man, certain presumptuous persons will think that they may reasonably blame me; alleging that I am not a man of letters. Foolish Folks! do they not know that I might retort as Marius did to the Patricians by saying: That they, who deck themselves out in the labors of others will not allow me my own. They will say that I, having no literary skill, cannot properly express that which I desire to treat of; but they do not know that my subjects are to be dealt with by experience rather than words; and experience has been the mistress of those who wrote well. And so, as mistress, I will cite her in all cases.
Verrocchio's apprentice. Education of a "renaissance Man" - Education totally practical, never theoretical!
pg 31 Probably stimulated by a war in which Florence seemed besieged by Naples and the Papacy, Leonardo also turned to military technology.
pg 34 LV went to Ludovico Sforza (IL MORO) Milan as a musician. His silver lute. His poverty. He becomes military advisor to Sforza. His paintings and sculpture.
pg 49 - NM bio.
pg 51 Pazzi conspiracy April 26, 1478. Description in Discourses. Description in Histories :
there was no citizen armed or unarmed who did not go to the houses of Lorenzo in that necessity, and each one offered himself and his property to him. Leonardo's sketch of the hanging body of Baroncelli.
Machiavelli's confraternity. His father's connection to Bartolomeo Scala probably assisted NM election to second chancellor in 1498.
pg 52 Humanist education. Pico della Mirandola, kabbalist and mystic.
pg 55 NM speaking of Lorenzo Medici's enthusiasm for art (from Histories)
He loved marvelously anyone who was excellent in an art; he favored men of letters ... Hence Pico della Mirandola, a man almost divine, left all the other parts of Europe where he had traveled and attracted by the munificence of Lorenzo, made his home in Florence. Lorenzo took delight in architecture, music, poetry; and many poetic compositions not only composed but commented on by him are in existence. And so that the Florentine youth might be trained in the study of letters, he opened a school in Pisa to which the most excellent men in Italy were brought.
pg 56 love of Dante & Petrach
pg 58 Savonarola. "Bonfire of the Vanities"
pg 59 NM's role in government.
pg 60 NM came to power at a moment of political and economic crisis. Savonarola coincided with epidemics and poor harvests.
pg 61 Medici plots against Savonarola 1497. 5 leading Medici supporters arrested tortured and executed. Campaign against corruption, sodomy. Hostility of Alexander VI.
pg 62 NM identified as against Savonarola 1498
pg 63 Riots, Savonarola executed, Republican government. NM as second chancellor.
pg 64 evidence that NM was friendly with Medici. Book of poems published with NM, Lorenzo etc.
pg 67 NM relations with leading political families, Soderini, Salviati,
pg 68 re Pisa, negotiations with Caterina Sforza, France