Guicciardini: Dialogue on the Government of Florence
(This is the first English translation of Guicciardini's D...)
This is the first English translation of Guicciardini's Dialogue on the Government of Florence, written in the 1520s. Like Machiavelli, his more famous contemporary and friend, Guicciardini rejects classical republican arguments in the name of the new political realism and acknowledges the important role of patronage and graft in contemporary politics and the illegitimacy of nearly all forms of political power, arguing for the priority of state interest over private morality and religion.
(A scholarly edition of works by Francesco Guicciardini. T...)
A scholarly edition of works by Francesco Guicciardini. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.
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In 1537 Francesco Guicciardini, adviser and confidant t...)
In 1537 Francesco Guicciardini, adviser and confidant to three popes, governor of several central Italian states, ambassador, administrator, military captain--and persona non grata with the ruling Medici after the siege of Florence--retired to his villa to write a history of his times. His Storia d'Italia became the classic history of Italy--both a brilliant portrayal of the Renaissance and a penetrating vision into the tragedy and comedy of human history in general. Sidney Alexander's readable translation and abridgment of Guicciardini's four-volume work earned the prestigious 1970 P.E.N. Club translation award. His perceptive introduction and notes add much to the understanding of Guicciardini's masterpiece.
Francesco Guicciardini was an Italian historian and statesman.
Background
Francesco Guicciardini was born on March 6, 1483, in Florence, Italy. He was the third of eleven children of Piero di Iacopo Guicciardini and Simona di Bongianni Gianfigliazzi. The Guicciardini were well-established members of the Florentine oligarchy as well as supporters of the Medici.
Education
Francesco Guicciardini received the standard education of boys of his time and class: Latin, some rudiments of Greek, the study of classical authors, and the practical mathematics.
He attended university, studying law, at Florence 1498-1505 before transferring to Ferrera 1502-1505, and then Padua, obtaining a degree from the University of Pisa in 1505.
Career
After graduating in civil law from the University of Pisa, he began a successful practice with clients drawn from the leading Florentine families, merchant organizations, and monastic orders. His first political appointment, the important one of ambassador to Spain, came to him at the early age of 28. After the return to power of the Medici in Florence and the elevation to the papacy of Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici as Leo X, Guicciardini insisted upon being recalled, arriving home in January 1514. Two years later he was appointed governor of Modena, beginning a career of Church service that endured until the triumph of imperial forces in Italy and the occupation of Rome by troops of Charles V in 1527.
Under Pope Clement VII, his close friend, Guicciardini's power in Romagna was extended. An able governor, he resolutely established order and instituted fiscal reforms and a program of public works. He played a key role in the formation of the anti-imperial League of Cognac in 1526. The third and last Florentine Republic condemned him in absentia on trumped-up charges in 1530, shortly before it fell. When Guicciardini opposed absolute power for the reinstated Medici regime, Clement VII sent him away to be governor of Bologna. When Cosimo I de' Medici reached an accord with Charles V, Guicciardini, still an anti-imperialist, lost favor and retired to his villa of Santa Margherita in Montici. He wrote his most important works during a period of political disgrace.
Guicciardini's masterpiece, the Storia d'Italia (History of Italy), was written from 1537 to 1540. Published in 1561, the work met with great success, spreading throughout Europe in translation. The Storia d'Italia was a history not just of Italy but of Europe. Among the famous passages, sometimes anthologized for literary verve, are his delineation of conditions in Italy upon the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in 1492 and his portrait of Clement VII.
His other works include Storia fiorentina (1509), Relazione di Spagna (ca. 1514; Report on Spain), Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze (1525; Dialogue on the Government of Florence), Ricordi politici e civili (1529; Political and Civil Memoirs), and Considerazioni sui Discorsi del Machiavelli (1529; Considerations on Machiavelli's Discourses). Of these works the last two are the most important. Guicciardini's Ricordi fails to make the clear distinction between public and private morality, but it combines shrewd personal observation with fragmentary political analysis.