In the autumn of 1502 three giants of the Renaissance period - Cesare Borgia, Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavelli - set out on one of the most treacherous military campaigns of the period. Cesare Borgia was a ferocious military leader whose name was synonymous with brutality and whose reputation was marred with the suspicion of incest. Niccolò Machiavelli was a witty and subversive intellectual, more suited to the silken diplomacy of royal courts than the sodden encampments of a military campaign. And Leonardo da Vinci was a visionary master and the most talented military engineer in Italy. What led him to work for the monstrous Borgia? And what attracted him to the cunning Machiavelli?
In his extraordinary new book acclaimed historian Paul Strathern...
Paul Strathern has lectured in philosophy and mathematics and is a Somerset Maugham Prize–winning novelist. He is the author of two series—Philosophers in 90 Minutes and The Big Idea: Scientists Who Changed the World—Napoleon in Egypt, and the Sunday Times bestseller The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance. He lives in London.
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