It could have been so different. Who knows, if Niccolo Machiavelli, military commissioner of the Republic of Florence, had not truly understood the scale of Leonardo da Vinci's genius, he might simply have wasted his time painting portraits of women and doodling. Instead, Florence's screwcopters, gun-turtles and organ-guns make it secure against the armies of the Pope, Milan, and the French, and a haven for radical thinkers, artists, and other inventors inspired by his example. Of course, though, success breeds jealousy amongst the city states of Renaissance Italy and beyond. The city's winding alleys and cobbled squares swarm with sinister Venetian spies, sour-faced priests bearing secret Papal instructions, Milanese mercenaries hoping to earn the king's ransom the Sforzas have promised for da Vinci's secrets and even emissaries from France, England and the Ottoman Empire' Exciting times, but dangerous ones, too.

What if all da Vinci's inventions had worked as he had hoped? What if they had been enthusiastically adopted and that their successes had sparked a different kind of industrial revolution? Gran Meccanismo is a roleplaying game of swashbuckling swordplay as an army of robot knights marches past on their way to the Vatican. Players are patricians, mercenaries, spies, and inventors amidst a Renaissance Italy where they may find themselves crossing wits with Machiavelli, avoiding the dangerous charms of Lucretia Borgia, and hearing Christopher Columbus tell you about the new world he has discovered'