theworldjustgotlighter

“No need to panic,” said a fellow bassist. "I thought we might need some extra time, so I tied the last few pages of the conductor’s score together with string. It’ll take him a few minutes to get it untangled.“

A few moments later they staggered back to the concert hall and took their places in the orchestra. About this time, a member of the audience noticed the conductor seemed a bit edgy and said as much to her companion.

Niccolo Machiavelli and Leonardo Da Vinci, most likely at the behest of the Borgias, once conspired to steal a river.

That’s right folks. They planned to change the course of the Arno River so that they could steal it from Pisa and make Florence accessible by sea. 

Please take a moment to imagine that.

Their plan failed, at which point Machiavelli decided to quietly fade out of politics…and went on to write The Prince, one of the most (in)famous pieces of Western literature.

Da Vinci, meanwhile, never forgot the river that got away. In fact, he made it the background of one of his most famous paintings–hell, one of the most famous paintings, period.