Sublime

The bribe bought Florence peace for a year, but in June 1502 Borgia was back. As his army sacked more surrounding towns, he commanded the leaders in Florence to send a delegation to hear his latest demands. Two people were selected to try to deal with him. The elder was Francesco Soderini, a wily Church leader who led one of the anti-Medici faction

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church of Santa Maria del Fiore. It had once been a magnificent piece of raw stone, but an unskillful sculptor had mistakenly bored a hole through it where there should have been a figure’s legs, generally mutilating it. Piero Soderini, Florence’s mayor, had contemplated trying to save the block by commissioning Leonardo da Vinci to work on it, or

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Florence had controlled the town of Pisa, just over fifty miles down the Arno River toward the coast of the Mediterranean, for much of the fifteenth century. This was critical for Florence, which had no other outlet to the sea. But in 1494 Pisa managed to wriggle away and become a free republic. Florence’s middling army was incapable of breaching P

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Borgia next set his sights on Florence, which cowered in dread. Its treasury was depleted, and it had no military to defend it. In May 1501, as his forces neared Florence’s walls, the ruling Signoria of the city capitulated by agreeing to pay Borgia 36,000 florins a year as protection money and…

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The Florentine authorities reluctantly let him leave at the end of May 1506 partly for diplomatic reasons. Florence had been protected from Borgia and then other potential invaders by the French king, Louis XII, who then controlled Milan and admired The Last Supper and its artist. Louis expressed his desire to have Leonardo return to Milan, at leas

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What made Leonardo finally leave Milan was the news that his former patron Ludovico was plotting a comeback. In late December, Leonardo made arrangements to transfer 600 florins from his Milanese bank to an account in Florence, then left with his retinue of assistants and his friend the mathematician Luca Pacioli. Eighteen years after he had arrive

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Lorenzo de’ Medici, eager to navigate the swirling rivalries and alliances among the Italian city-states, saw Florence’s artistic culture as a source of influence. Botticelli and some of his other favorite artists went to Rome to please the pope, Verrocchio and others to Venice. Leonardo and Atalante were probably part of a February 1482 diplomatic

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