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Waterway of Destiny Quoting poet Lord Byron, "I have always believed that all things depended upon Fortune, and nothing upon ourselves." Leonardo da Vinci and Niccoló Machiavelli’s lives and legacies were molded by events that were mostly out of their control. Their childhoods set the stage for their positions in life, the uncertainties of patronage left them jobless and money less at times, and the torrent of the political scene in Italy greatly influenced the course of their lives. Masters tells the life stories of these men and how they cross paths while trying to change the path of the Arno River. If they could successfully move the path of the Arno away from Pisa and closer to Florence, they could defeat their greatest rival and transform Florence into a seaport, which in turn would make them one of the most powerful cities in the world. Masters focuses on this little known historical event and shows how it forever changed the lives of these two famous men. To understand a person as an adult, we must explore what affected them as children. Machiavelli and da Vinci had two very different upbringings that greatly influenced the paths their lives would take. Leonardo was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero da Vinc