Leonardo DaVinci looked at the wall and at his sketch. At the wall and at the sketch. His sketch, a work of art in itself, showed a section of the defensive wall. It had every last detail. The builders, Genoese Army engineers, had followed his plan down to the last detail.

The wall was intended to defend Genoa from Valencia. The wall was the main feature of the defense. The wall was absolutely perfect in every detail but one. DaVinci, naturally, drew only this one section. The Army engineers, naturally, built only this one section. DaVinci was furious.

“Are you that stupid?!”, he yelled. He yelled in Italian since that was what they spoke in Genoa, Italy.

“You drew these plans!”, the Chief Engineer responded.

“It was just a scale! Does this look like protection to you?!”

“Scale? You want scale go to the opera house. This is what you drew and this is what we built. Buzz off”.

The Genoa War Council met to discuss this problem.

“Let’s kill DaVinci. Let’s hang him and then burn him”, the Council leader said.

“Wait a minute”, DaVinci cried out. “I don’t think I’m to blame here”.

“No? So what? We have to blame someone. The army guys are armed. You’re not. All in favor?”

As they led DaVinci out to be hanged the Valencian army approached the city. They looked at the wall and a great shout of laughter went up from them. This was the dumbest thing they’d ever seen. One ten-foot section of wall to defend the city. The fighting was going to get pretty crowded. They’d have to stand in line to get into the fight. Come all this way and there’s no room to fight. To heck with that. The Valencians went home.

Genoa celebrated their victory. They were so happy they let DaVinci go. In fact, they made him go.

“Leo, you leave. You go to Valencia. I hear they need an architect there for their defense. You’d be perfect”, the leader told him.

“Yea? Guess I’ll scoot on along then”.

“Leo”, the leader called out to him as he began to leave, “don’t forget your plans”.