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    The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped
    The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped
    The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped
    Audiobook15 hours

    The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped

    Written by Paul Strathern

    Narrated by Nigel Patterson

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Cesare Borgia-three iconic figures whose intersecting lives provide the basis for this astonishing work of narrative history. They could not have been more different, and they would meet only for a short time in 1502, but the events that transpired when they did would significantly alter each man's perceptions-and the course of Western history.

    In 1502, Italy was riven by conflict, with the city of Florence as the ultimate prize. Machiavelli, the consummate political manipulator, attempted to placate the savage Borgia by volunteering Leonardo to be Borgia's chief military engineer. That autumn, the three men embarked together on a brief, perilous, and fateful journey through the mountains, remote villages, and hill towns of the Italian Romagna-the details of which were revealed in Machiavelli's frequent dispatches and Leonardo's meticulous notebooks.

    Superbly written and thoroughly researched, The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior is a work of narrative genius-whose subject is the nature of genius itself.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateNov 20, 2018
    ISBN9781977389343
    The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped
    Author

    Paul Strathern

    Paul Strathern is a Somerset Maugham Award-winning novelist, and his nonfiction works include The Venetians, Death in Florence, The Medici, Mendeleyev's Dream, The Florentines, Empire, and The Borgias, all available from Pegasus Books. He lives in England.

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    Reviews for The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior

    3.5/5

    75 ratings20 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A very excellent combination of characters that intertwine and create a unique and extremely entertaining read. I haven’t read anything quite like it. Highly recommend
    • 3/5
      I can't believe it. ! I thought this book was never going to arrive! I was to receive my advance copy in 2009, and just found out that my elderly neighbor had taken it to her home. Her daughter thinks she may have more of my mail as well! This explains a lot. Anyway I read some of this book last night (five years too late!), and was not super impressed with what I read. The interconnection of the biographies to me did not seem to flow naturally. The format was interesting, although the content which could have been spectacular reading was just okay. I didn't really have time to go through everything, so I may revisit the book to read more closely some of the parts I kinda skimmed over. At that point I will readdress my review.
    • 2/5
      I had a hard time getting through this one, though I was enthusiastic about both the subject matter and the genre of multiple intersecting biographies. It's obvious that a lot of work went into writing the book, so I feel bad giving it less than two stars, but I was not able to finish it with enthusiasm.
    • 4/5
      Loved it - highly readable and hard to put down. Fascinating individuals in a fascinating period of history.
    • 2/5
      This book took me nearly 2 years to read from start to finish. Of course I read about 150 other books in between starting and finishing it so I want to decipher why.For me, it really was that this was a poorly written book. It wanted to be one thing and failed at it, then tried to be another, and was terrible in its effort. First I thought the author wanted us to be presented with a great piece of history, beyond what you would find in a textbook, or a dissertation.As I read this though, we hear too much of the author's opinions, and his prose is too often evident to show that we have a scholarly work. We have something that jumps to conclusions of the authors own presumptions, and then turning back to a text based history, cites other historians who have written about our three characters we are studying. That confusion, along with the introduction of a tremendous amount of supporting characters with little context and little mapping as we read along, left me so confused that I put down the book again and again. By our title, I would have expected to have seen closer how Da Vinci, Michiavelli, and Borgia influenced one another. What I am left with is that Borgia is the glue, and far too little is there for the author to tell us how they did interact.He surmises from the lives of the artist and philosopher after Borgia's fall, that Borgia gave them a reason to change in their lives. But from my interpretation of this work, Borgia gave everyone a reason to change. Perhaps 350 years too soon, he tried to reunify Italy, and in hindsight was the best man for the job. Cesare comes off to me in all this more heroic then either of the other two, and yet he falls from power the quickest and much sooner is off to the grave then the other two men. I shall never reread this work, and do not know that I got much from it. I think instead of, like a bell shaped curve, telling us the three biographies, concentrating on the years that their lives intersected, making that the only focus of the piece, with much more supporting material, would have been a better work.
    • 3/5
      I was very excited to get this book from the Early Reviewers program because the comparison between these three figures sounded intriguing. However, I let it sit around in my "to be read" pile for a long time and when I did finally remember to start reading it, it didn't keep my attention the way I'd hoped it would. I'm only partially through with it now and hopefully will finish it sometime this summer, but for now I have to say it's been a bit of a disappointment.
    • 2/5
      I got this book through the Early Reviewers Program. I was very excited to get a chance to read it, however, I have been struggling to get through it. It just hasn't grabbed me the way I had expected it to, it's currently sitting in my husband's "to be read" pile since he was also interested in reading it. I may try to pick it up and start over after the holidays.
    • 3/5
      Although there are three fascinating persons in this book, the book itself is tedious at best and irritating at worst. After the first hundred pages or so it becomes bogged down by the author's inability to create a convincing account of the crucial points he was trying to make. A lot of the attempts to link the subjects come across as mere speculation. what could have been a fascinating account instead becomes a tiresome attempt to link people who may have had limited interaction in real life.
    • 4/5
      Strathern attempts to weave together the combined fortunes of da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia. And while he provides a great many fascinating details about each man -- and perhaps a more illuminating picture of da Vinci than the other two -- the use of one to illuminate the other is of limited success. This is partly because of the limited facts about the crucial points of intersection (at least crucial for Strathern's method) between da Vinci and the other two (especially between da Vinci and Machiavelli). These limitations lead to a rather forced conjunction, instead of a convincing account. If one can focus on the information at hand, and the sometimes lively storytelling, and leave the forced conjunctions problem aside, it's a fascinating book. If one cannot, it becomes increasing irritating.
    • 5/5
      Warfare, Terror, Murder and da Vinci: Paul Strathern's "The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior"Leonardo da Vinci is an artist whose name is instantly recognizable but whose artwork can seem so familiar to 21st century eyes that the actual paintings feel lost behind a veil of cultural expectations. Paul Strathern's new book, "The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: The Intersecting Lives of da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped", allows us to see Leonardo as a living man and artist shaped by his time, friendships and experiences. Strathern's book opens with an epigraph spoken by Orson Welles' character, Harry Lime, in "The Third Man". From the vantage point of a ferris wheel high above Vienna, Orson Welles surveys the battered post-war city beneath him and says:"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."A Brief ConvergencePaul Strathern who has a background in philosophy, and writes often on the subject, approaches the brief convergence of Leonardo, Borgia and Machiavelli as a sort of biographical/philosophical thought experiment. Like a good professor, Strathern asks questions:"What was it precisely that made Leonardo agree to work for Borgia?"What were Leonardo's "real intentions"?How did Leonardo "become involved with Machiavelli?" Paul Strathern defines his terms with background and analysis of the three major characters. Like Orson Welles, Paul Strathern uses a keen eye and a sense of humor to survey the events surrounding Machiavelli's Florentine diplomatic mission in 1502 which put Leonardo in the service of Cesare Borgia. Strathern vividly describes Renaissance Italy in the 1500's, which was not a unified country under the banner of Italy but instead a collection of constantly battling city states and principalities dominated by Milan, Venice, Naples, Florence and the pope in Rome. The book's narrative introduces us to da Vinci, Machiavelli and Borgia and then weaves, in a Rashomon view, their lives and the events surrounding them from three different vantage points. Strathern helps us see the vibrance and struggle of Renaissance Italy from the viewpoints of the artist, the philosopher, and the warrior. A Visual Realm of IdeasIn a way that I find new to biographies of Leonardo, Paul Strathern concerns himself not only with the events in da Vinci's life, but especially in how Leonardo learned to think, ponder and dream. Leonardo da Vinci was born as the illegitimate son of Piero da Vinci. Because of the circumstances around his birth, Leonardo was not allowed to receive a classical education and so did not learn Latin as a youth. How did the young da Vinci grow into such a deep thinker?Strathern clearly shows that Leonardo's artistic and scientific investigations were prompted by his own curiosity and massive intelligence. Without having learned Latin, Leonardo was able to read the classics in translation. Through his study of the Roman author Lucretius, whose epic poem "De Rerum Natura" (On the Nature of Things) sought to explain the world in scientific terms, Leonardo learned that accurate understanding derives from investigation and experience. "Reflect that the most wicked act of all is to take the life of a man. For if his external form appears to be a marvelously subtle construction, realize that this is nothing compared with the soul which dwells within this structure."- Leonardo da Vinci, from his notebooksLeonardo cherished life so much that he became a vegetarian but at the same time he devised weapons and instruments of war. This conflict runs throughout Leonardo's adult life and Paul Strathern addresses this paradox throughout his book:Leonardo "served with no apparent show of unwillingness (even in the privacy of his notebooks), as military engineer to the ruthless murderer Cesare Borgia, a monster whose name would enter history as a byword for infamy." Perhaps an answer can be found in the zeitgeist of the era. As Strathern explains, the Renaissance prompted a more rational humanist outlook in the worlds of art and literature, but medieval fears and prejuidices remained strong. In troubled times, a collective mania could take hold. A similar, collective mania, took hold in the United States after the terrible events of September 11, 2001. This collective mania was hidden in the richly nuanced shadows in Leonardo's paintings. Caught in the sfumato in "The Adoration of the Magi", now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, warriors on horseback battle. Lost to time, but remembered in Peter Paul Rubens' restoration and reworking of an Italian 16th-century drawing, horses lock forelegs and armored soldiers scream as they battle for the standard in Leonardo's "Battle of Anghiari." LegaciesLike a figure from da Vinci's "Battle of Anghiari", Cesare Borgia died on a battlefield.After the Medici returned to power in Florence in 1510, Machiavelli was stripped of his Florentine citizenship, kicked out of his political office, fined 1,000 florins which left him almost penniless, banned from the city of Florence, and cast into an early forced retirement at his tiny family farm seven miles outside the city walls. At 43, Machiavelli had lost his career and his wealth. But he still could write:"For four hours, I forget all my worries and boredom. I am afraid neither of poverty nor death. I am utterly absorbed in this world of my mind. And because Dante says that no one understands anything unless he remembers what he has understood, I have noted down what I have learned from these conversations. The result is a short book, called 'The Prince', in which I delve as deeply as I can into the subject of how to rule." Leonardo da Vinci left a legacy of unpublished volumes, uncast sculptures, unrealized engineering projects, and unfinished paintings. Strathern theorizes that Leonardo's time with Cesare Borgia was brutish and caused Leonardo to doubt that humans were essentially good. Among diagrams and plans for weapons and machines, Leonardo wrote, "I will not publish or divulge such things." Leonardo saw the evil nature in men and did not trust humanity with his genius. A weapon, elegantly realized with a quill pen on a sheet of costly paper, becomes horrible when realized in the physical world and used to tear flesh and bone. Ultimately, Leonardo's discoveries lay hidden for centuries. Leonardo's inability to finish his projects had aesthetic reasons as well. Since the classical age, unfinished artworks were cherished because they seemed to reveal the living thoughts of the artist. Leonardo da Vinci saw that an initial sketch captured the very instant of inspiration. Inspiration was valued as being more urgent and vital than a finished work of art itself. The initial idea or conception is what truly mattered to da Vinci. Once Leonardo had grasped the artistic idea, a finished work of art already existed in his mind. Strathern's "The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: The Intersecting Lives of da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped" lights a darkened era. From the smoky depths of sfumato glazes we peer into da Vinci's world of nuance and suggestion. In Leonardo's artistic legacy and Strathern's satisfying book we are left with existential questions, mere hints about our time on earth and the threads of history and influence that link us to the past.
    • 4/5
      Borgia, Machiavelli, DaVinci. Who could ask for a more interesting trio of Medieval personalities than these guys? And who knew, at least among those of us who have a non-academic interest in all things middle ages, of the relationship which existed between them?Paul Strathern succeeds in his detailed and well-researched account of those turbulent times. Context is always important to an historian; the backgrounds of not only the three icons but of the history leading up to Borgia's despotism is not ignored. I'll leave any criticism of Strathern's conclusions to others who are qualified to do so.The proof copy does not include color plates; these are a nice addition to the published edition. This may not be the book for the younger or unfamiliar reader of Medieval history. I would recommend as an introduction to this fascinating time William Manchester's A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age, and Clemente Fusero's The Borgia's.
    • 4/5
      The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior by Paul Strathern is a history of the period in the early 1500s when the lives of Leonardo Da Vinci, Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia intersected. Leonardo worked as Borgia’s chief military engineer during the same period that Machiavelli was Florence’s envoy to the Borgia court. The book provides mini-biographies of the three main players as well as other minor players in European history of the period as a back-story to the central theme of intersecting lives. This is what makes the book worth reading. The “intersecting lives” theme is too speculative and takes away from the historical facts in the book. The speculation about possible meetings between Machiavelli and Da Vinci were the weakest parts of the book. There is no doubt that Machiavelli’s observations of Borgia influenced the development of his political philosophy, but imagining what Da Vinci and Machiavelli might have talked about during a possible final meeting in 1516 and other such speculative descriptions detracted from the value of the book.The first hundred or so pages held my interest very well, but then the narrative started to get bogged down in detail and several instances of speculation about possible meetings. The last 50 pages or so again held my interest, especially the section on Da Vinci’s last few years.The biographical details about the three main players and how their associations with each other led to some of the later decisions made by Da Vinci and Machiavelli make this an interesting history. There is little to no description of how Machiavelli and Da Vinci influenced Borgia, but overall, I like the book enough to give it 3.5 stars.
    • 4/5
      Leonardo da Vinci is world reknown as an inventor and artist. Niccolo Machiavelli, a strategist and philosopher. Cesare Borgia, illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI, built a reputation for himself as a brilliant military strategist and commander.One would think these 3 individuals had nothing in command, but what this book describes is an intriguing relationship between the 3, after Borgia took Romagna in Italy. Machiavelli was sent as an envoy from Florence to observe Borgia but not to concede to any sort of an alliance with him. During this time, Borgia met with with Leonardo, and impressed with his innovative engineering ideas, engaged the inventor to design military weapons that could be easily used to defend as well as to attack.If you've read any history of these 3 individuals on their own, some of the information in this book will be familiar. But what makes this an interesting book is the angle with which the author has tied in not just the beginnings of each of them as an individual, but also the intersection of their lives, and how they were each affected by the other.The author does a good job of bringing history alive.
    • 4/5
      Paul Strathern's account of the intersecting lives of Cesare Borgia, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Leonardo da Vinci is well researched and interesting. While each individual affected the Italian Renaissance in different ways, Strathern's thesis is that the three men influenced each other and their subsequent careers: Leonardo as Borgia's military engineer, Machiavelli as a friend and political supporter of Leonardo's state commissions, and Borgia as a general influence on Machiaelli's later political writings. The book proceeds in a chronological account of the three individuals lives and the circumstances that brought them together. With the majority of attention paid to the years of Borgia's military campaigns, in which Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat and Leonardo employed as Borgia's chief military engineer, the author discusses the various influences and consequences of this time. If nothing else, it is an enjoyable narrative describing the relationship between three Renaissance icons. An interesting story of Italian politics, papal power and ambition, with a motif of artistic brilliance. While some may disagree with the degree of influence of Borgia toward Leonardo in many respects, Strathern supports his claim with logical arguments; however, I found a few instances to be a bit of a stretch. The thing I most enjoyed about this book is the way Strathern lectures on such a detailed historic topic without sounding boring and dry. The writing and explanations are easy to understand, and he rightly provides background information when necessary. Someone who isn't familiar with the nuances of the Italian Renaissance could easy read this book and not be lost. I also felt that the tone of the work was upbeat and interested. One could tell that that author not only was knowledgeable about the subject, but was intellectually stimulated by it. The way he weaves the three lives together, yet still maintaining a forward chronology was well handled. While it does not read as a substantial academic thesis, I found the book enjoyable, educational, and stimulating.
    • 3/5
      Paul Strathern's goal in The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior is to analyze the influence of Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Cesare Borgia on each other from the time that they were together in 1502. Although he does allude to these influences from time to time, the better part of the book is spent in a textbook narrative detailing the events of the Borgias' attempt to unite Italy under their family control. In fact, Pope Alexander VI, Cesare's father, should probably have been included in the title as an equally important driver of events. For persons interested and ignorant of this period, this is a good straightforward account of events. As a ground-breaking analysis of three of the most intriguing figures in history, it falls short. None of the characters is allowed to come to life.
      Borgia is more the instigator of action than a personality influenced by the other two. His ruthlessness and cruelty apparently ended Da Vinci's passion for designing war machines and gave Machiavelli a point of departure for describing the perfect political man. Strathern's main thesis seems to be that both Da Vinci and Machiavelli depended on their own observations and experience rather than on authority as medieval thinkers had.
      Some recent scholarship is fascinating. For instance, fingerprints thought to be Leonardo's have been lifted from his notebooks. They show many common points with prints typical of near Eastern natives, leading Strathern to posit that his mother was a slave from the near East. Supporting this theory is her name, "Caterina," a name often used for women slaves.
      This is an uncorrected proof, but the writing is pedestrian at best and depressingly bad at worst. Surely a man of Paul Strathern's stature knows the difference between "imply" and "infer," but the latter is used for the former in this text. Anyone who expects serious scholarship to be seriously written will be disappointed. A typical sentence, "Ancient vendettas were reactivated, while once more footpads (robbers)roamed the highways and byways," demonstrates his dependence on cliche, poor word choice, and ignorance of his audience. In fact, I could never determine what audience he expected. I found it too dull for popular history and too insubstantial for academic history.
    • 5/5
      An extraordinary account of the intertwined lives of Da Vinci, Machiavelli and Borgia during the Renaissance in the year 1502. Individual chapters are devoted to each individual to set the stage of the circumstances leading up to their encounters with each other. These different unique point of views illustrates the complexities and richness of this period. The political situation in Italy is described with several maps of the major campaigns. Of particular interest are the various notes, such as the news that permission has been given for the Medici tombs in Florence to be opened for DNA testing to investigate the theories surrounding the deaths of members of this powerful family. This book is highly recommended for those historians fascinated by not only these three individuals but the world they shaped.
    • 5/5
      [this review applies to the advance uncorrected proof; LT early reviewer] Well, i thoroughly enjoyed this one. 400 pages of history could be a tough slog, but Strathern does a remarkable job of keeping it moving, keeping it interesting, and keeping a large cast of characters from getting all confused. This book is essentially a Venn diagram of worlds of da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Cesare Borgia, and their individual stories are interesting enough. But from where they intersect, Strathern has coaxed some great insights, and intriguing possibilities regarding the mutual influence these three giants may have had on each other and on the events swirling around them.The way Strathern keeps track of the threads of these three lives is a major victory. As I mentioned above, a lot of characters move across this stage. Fortunately, a 'dramatis persona' is provided, as well as a timeline, to help keep track. This ones a winner.Os.
    • 4/5
      This book is an account of the interactions between three of the most well-known Renaissance figures: Leonardo DaVinci (the artist), Niccolo Macchiavelli (the philosopher), and Cesar Borgia (the warrior). The book follows the lives of these three men and discusses how they were influenced by one another. In particular, Macchiavelli's best-known work, The Prince, is based on his experiences with some of the most powerful political and military leaders of the period, including Borgia and his father, Pope Alexander VI.I found this book to be highly interesting, although it does get bogged down at times. However, it really does make some interesting connections between these three men and how their influence shaped the world around them, and indeed the future.
    • 4/5
      I received this book through the ER program, and I was surprised how interesting this book was. I knew a little about da Vinci's life before I read the book, but didn't know many details about Machiavelli or the Borgia's. Machiavelli definitely came through as the most "normal" of the group, his letters to his friends sound like normal guy talk you would hear in a locker room or the golf course. The debauchery of the Popes was quite shocking, I had known there was corruption in the Church, but didn't realize how brazen they were. My only criticism of the book is that sometimes it felt like the author speculated a little too much on how these three men interacted with each other, even when there was no documentation.
    • 4/5
      Have not read it yet, was given it at Christmas.