Customer Reviews

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

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This is a beautifully written account of the meeting and connection of Leonardo and Machievelli which reveals facets of their lives and work heretofore unknown. It is based on punctilious and exhaustive scholarship and is given to the reader with warmth and clarity. It also underscores the practicality of Leonardo - who was after all a military engineer as well as remarkable artist - and Machiavelli who was an intense idealist about Florentine politics as well as a direct commentator on the human political condition.This is a wonderful book.

Da Vinci, Borgia, and Machiavelli. Could there be more different and yet fascinating people? This book has some rich details, but came across more as a lecture than a true history. Nonetheless, it is an insightful tour of the "intellectual depth of the Italian Renaissance."

The table of contents itself is instructive. 1-A Mysterious Friendship, 2-The Arno, 3-Leonardo Achieves Fame, 4-Niccolo Achieves Power, 5-The Meeting, 6-The Collaboration Begins, 7-The Arno diversion Fails, 8-The Aftermath, 9-Leonardo In The Courts Of Power, 10-Niccolo's Struggle, Victory, & Defeat, 11-The Legacy. The last chapter was the most informative to this reader. With notes, sources, credits, acknowledments, & Index it is 279 pages.

Its focus is on the joint attempt to divert the Arno river away from Florence's rival Pisa. The colorful complexities of life in Renaissance Italy was the main appeal. The author gives the reader a visual show of a turbulent and fascinating era. The main negative is the idea that DA Vinci & Machiavelli knew each other? I was told when I was in Italy that they did not. Still this was an entertaining read.

Starting from the unlikely perspective of a little known (perhaps because unsuccessful) collaboration between two of the greatest minds of the Renaissance to divert the course of the Arno River, Masters depicts the whole of 15th century Florentine life and unearths the themes that shaped Western Civilization. Besides the biographies of two fascinating men, he explores social mores, religious practice, hydraulic engineering, painting (fresco and canvas), music, literature, politics, the effect of illegitimacy on career opportunities and the economic, social, and psychological effects of the discovery of the New World. And that's only in the first two chapters! Painstakingly researched and beautifully written, this book should be read by anyone who wants to know how our culture came to be what it is. It suffers only from poor proofreading, and even that is compensated for by its magnificent typography. Don't be put off if I make it sound high-brow--it's not. It's highly readable, with fascinating, vivid characters who are amazingly similar to us, both in their lofty goals and in their all-too-human failings.

this book has been sitting on my shelf for months until I finally picked it up and started reading. I finished the book rather quickly as the content is very interesting. I found the chapters on Leonardo especially well written. Three quarters of the way through, though, I realized that I had finished the book and the remaining pages were actually notes and credits. It's a good read from start to finish and a good high level view of the topic for anyone interested in this period of Italian history. The notes are lengthy and would lead the reader into further depth if so desired. I found the book to be almost like a fiction in it's presentation and that kept my interest as history books in general do not.

This book is a fascinating study of some little known historical events. Even to those who have taken a keen interest in the life of Leonardo and/or Macchiavelli, there is plenty of obscure information to add to your body of knowledge. That is the main attraction of the book (apart from recounting its main event, the planned canal, of course), that it lingers over facts that other biographies largely ignore.
The anecdotes, trivial though some may think them, were a big bonus in my view - source material that is otherwise very hard to come by.
As icing to the cake, it is nicely written thus making it a pleasant read - a real page turner actually!

Fortune Is A River: Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli's Magnificent Dream to Change the Course of Florentine History by Roger D Masters, is an excellent non-fiction book.

Before I read this I'd had no idea they even knew each other. This is really two biographies in one volume, although it seemed to give more emphasis to Machiavelli, and deals for the most part with a small part of their lives.

The controversial part of this is the dispassionate approach taken to these characters, and showing them in a new light which may conflict with the usual tired old ways.

Yes, da Vinci was ahead of his time, yes, he was a master of many arts and sciences, but he was also a failure at almost everything he ever did.

Yes, Machiavelli was the quintessential politician, yes, he may have been an atheist for all practical purposes, but he acted in accordance with a system of political ethics (jumbo shrimp?) and tried to do his best for his city whether it was his beloved republic or some sort of aristocratic or oligarchic state.

Masters writes well about several difficult subjects in this one volume. I was very impressed with all of it.

After reading this book I felt that to a degree its central thesis barely held together. The title implies that there was a fascinating collaboration between the two men. Upon completing the book, I came away with the feeling that that was hardly the case. The connection between Da Vinci and Machiavelli seems tenuous. They hardly seemed to have met or talked to each other very much. It almost made me feel like the author was looking for a "hook" that would make the book more appealing. There was also an anecdote thrown in about a sexual liaison that Machiavelli had and a few ribald comments from the correspondence of his contemporaries which to me seemed unnecessary to include. There was no point being made by all this except, I guess, to show that Machiavelli and his mates were just as human as you or I. I kind of knew that anyway..... However, don't let me give you the impression that the book has nothing to offer. I found the material on Leonardo very interesting. People do tend to think of him only as an artist and Mr. Masters does an admirable job of also showing us the scientist, inventor, military engineer, etc. We also get to see the constant struggle Leonardo had to go through just to make a living. His patrons would be annoyed by his perfectionism and would threaten to cancel contracts and would be slow to hand over money. The author also puts a human face on Machiavelli and shows his efforts to keep his head above water in the treacherous and constantly shifting political landscape of Renaissance Florence. Some readers may find the book worth buying just for the many interesting sketches and drawings by Leonardo which are included. But if you are a lot more interested in Machiavelli than you are in Leonardo, or if you are looking for that quirky partnership promised in the title, you might be disappointed.

The archives of Western nations and modern ex-colonies are littered with records of utopian development schemes. Roger Masters shows that Renaissance Florence was truly modern, at least in its ability to devise idealistic projects designed to address political and environmental problems. From 1503-06 Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli had a mutual interest in changing the course of the Arno River to marginalize rival Pisa, reduce the hazards of periodic flooding and ensure Florentine economic dominance of Tuscany. This visionary scheme was problematic, perhaps hare-brained, because the Florentine Republic lacked the technology, manpower and financing to successfully divert a major river. The author fails to prove the collaboration of Leonardo and Machiavelli due to scanty sources; his arguments from negative evidence are plausible but not fully convincing. But he accomplishes the more modest goal of demonstrating convergence of their interests and outlook. Masters breaks new ground in bringing together some disparate but very important issues in early modern Italy, and the story itself is always engaging, at times scintillating. In showing two leading geniuses and their familiar city in an unexpected light, the Italian Renaissance once again appears fresh and exciting.

No historical scholar would mistake Masters's book for serious academic research. His thesis, while engaging, is never supported except by the most circumstantial of evidence. He failed to convince me the two men had even heard of each other, let alone concoct such a fantastic plot together.

Nonetheless, the book is a good overview of the politics of the Italian Renaissance for the layperson. You're introduced to the movers and shakers of the age and told what they did in a very accesible, narrative style.

The premise of Machiavelli and Da Vinci's collaboration, while likely fictional, does make for interesting reading. This book is great inspiration for a novel of alternative history, but look harder if you want the actual history.

Some of the Amazonian reviews get it right - this book is somewhat uneven. I expected the entire book to discuss the collaboration between Machiavelli and Da Vinci. What I got was a few chapters on the diversion of the Arno, multiple chapters on the biographies of the principal characters, and almost no indication that the two definitively worked together for an extended period of time on anything.

The story itself is minimal - at war with Pisa, Florence considered diverting the Arno to force Pisa to come to terms. Machiavelli oversaw the project and its financing. Da Vinci was instrumental in the project's overall design because he wished to alter the Arno to allow Florence to become a major seaport. The project failed due to overt incompetence at the construction level and the two men (who may or may not have worked together) went their separate ways.

The history surrounding the project is speculative (similar to the "who's to say it DIDN'T happen?" line of logic you would expect out of a lesser intellect that Roger Masters), but the history surrounding the biographies is very good. If nothing else, the book reminds us how interesting a period the Renaissance was. Simply consider how many people worked together at some point during their careers as evidenced in this book - Da Vinci, Vespucci, Machievelli, Borgia, various Medicis and Sforzas, Verocchio, Raphael, and so forth. It is difficult to imagine such a collective doing work together on a consistent basis these days.

As an overall impression - it is a quick read but somewhat boring.