The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: The Intersecting Lives of Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped (Paul Strathern)

A mouthful of a title, to say the least. It reflects the author's ambition, since he meant to write a book about the brief period--less than a year--in which Leonardo Da Vinci worked for Cesare Borgia, while Niccolo Machiavelli served as Florence's envoy to Borgia's court.

Of course, most people know something about these three men. Strathern doesn't make any big revelations about these three men, but for someone that hasn't read much about this time period, this book will be very interesting.

One statement he does make that I hadn't considered before referred to Leonardo's influence on the world. The man that made drawings of helicopters and tanks, who painted the famed Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, had little to no influence on science. In part, this happened because Leonardo decided to keep many of his ideas secret. Strathern posits that this happened in part because of the horrors that Leornardo saw while working for Cesare Borgia.

Few historical figures stir such sinister feelings as does the Borgia family. Really, they didn't do anything that most powerful families wouldn't do back in those days (even nowadays). Yet they did do it openly, which came as a surprise. I went to Catholic school when I was little, so reading about the Borgias comes with a few shocks. Although I don't necessarily think that some of the allegations about them are true, I wouldn't put it passed them. Cesare Borgia took advantage, schemed and plotted, and he succeeded for as long as his father lived. Like Strathern, I agree that he may not have imploded if he hadn't been at death's door when Alexander VI died. Would Italy become a unified country 300 years earlier than it did if Cesare Borgia had triumphed? Who know. In the end, nothing that he built outlasted him. And at his death, he was only 31 years old.

Strathern does more for Machiavelli than for his other two subjects. Maybe this is because I knew less about him than about Leonardo and Cesare, but I think this may be the case for most people. Strathern quotes many of Machiavelli's letters to his friends and gives a pretty good idea of Machiavelli would have been like. Indeed, I think he would have been a lot more interesting to talk to than Borgia or Leonardo. (Borgia might try to maim or kill you, while Leonardo might have been too smart for me to understand.) Despite his fame for writing a manual for dictators, Machiavelli doesn't like the type of person that would have put people in harms way for no reason. If anything, he understood the world around him and pointed out truths that plenty of people didn't want to hear.

Sometimes Strathern repeats himself a little too often. Each chapter reads almost as if you didn't have to read the ones before. I would understand that if it were a book of essays on these three men, but it isn't. Other than that, Strathern writes in a straightforward, smart, yet accessible manner. Quite enjoyable.

Next up: Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff. And I'm super excited that it finally came in at the library for me. I've read plenty about her, but reviewers sang Schiff's praises for her writing so I'll give this one a go.