The three statues of David that I began my last post with are important to this one, too, for they represent the always unresolved problem of ‘influence’ within the history of ideas and of political philosophy in particular. Flights of fancy and tenuous links may lead the far-too-interested observer to think that Verocchio’s David is the translation of a young da Vinci into bronze, a representation of a great artist as a boy. If one is prone to the sordid affliction of busying oneself with the cheap thrills of Dan Brown, one may even be led to think that Gian Lorenzo Bernini was some sort of ‘Illuminati’ master who hid clues all around Rome of the four elements. The first claim — that da Vinci is, in fact, Verocchio’s muse for the David — is as spurious and fantastical as the second, but this has not prevented in any way, shape, or form the spread and popularity of these views in the vox populi and academic discourse. It is the sort of tenuous claim that would give credence even to the sore misgiving that SPQR stood not for Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Senate and the People of Rome, but for the ‘Senile, Poor Quacks of Reykjavik’.