GUICCIARDINI, FRANCESCO

Italian historian and statesman; b. Florence, 1483; d. Arcetri, May 22, 1540. From his parents, Piero di Jacopo and Simona Gianfigliazzi, he inherited an attachment to the Medici party. He studied law in Ferrara and Padua and gained his doctor's degree at Pisa. He married Maria Salviati in 1508, established a lucrative law practice, and wrote the Storie fiorentine dal 1378 al 1509, showing wisdom and judgment beyond his years. Early in 1512, before reaching the statutory age of 30, he was named ambassador to the court of Ferdinand V of Castile, whose portrait he so deftly drew. Upon his return to Italy in 1514, he entered the service of the Medici, who had become rulers of Florence in 1512. In 1516 Leo X appointed him governor of Modena and later of Reggio and Parma, which he successfully defended against the French in 1521. Leo X also named him commissioner general of the papal army, a post Clement VII confirmed. In 1523 he was made president of the Romagna. He fulfilled these offices conscientiously and with ability and firmness. After the battle of Pavia (1525), he was instrumental in forming the League of Cognac against Charles V, and became lieutenant-general of the papal forces. His desire to save Italy was hindered by the dilatory tactics of the Duke of Urbino, commander of the League's troops. During the siege of Florence by Charles V, Guicciardini

kept to his villa at Finocchieto to study and write. But after the Medici returned to power in 1530, he served as adviser to Alessandro and even defended him against the Florentine exiles at Naples. His efforts assured the independence of Florence from Charles V, but they did not prevent the assassination of Alessandro by Lorenzino in January 1537. Guicciardini was instrumental in the election of Cosimo de Medici, but his later attempts to check the duke's absolutism led to his political decline. He retired to his villa in Arcetri, spending the leisure of his last years in the composition of the Storia d' Italia.

This work, translated into all Western European languages, is an eyewitness account of the period from Charles VIII's expedition (1494) to Clement VII's death (1534). Guicciardini is noteworthy for having broken away from the narrow concept of local municipal chronicles. The era that Guicciardini treated—the time of the Borgias, Leo X, Clement VII, Ferdinand of Spain, Luther, Columbus, Francis I, and Charles V—was also the period of Italy's greatest political intrigues and a time of war.

Guicciardini's attempt at dispassionate narration does not conceal his sorrow at Italy's fate. To him it was clear that the events of history were subordinated to a conflict of interests, in which la cupidità was the sole motivating force of the individual protagonists. Emphasis is therefore on political rather than social, cultural, or religious factors. The Storia d' Italia was esteemed by Ronsard, Bacon, Raleigh, and others.

Among his other writings in the ten volumes of the Opere inedite, ed. G. Canestrini (Florence 1857–67) are many letters; the Ricordi, 403 maxims, some duplicated; the Considerazioni intorno ai discorsi del Machiavelli sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio, notes that illustrate the ideological differences between Guicciardini and his contemporary; 16 Discorsi politici; the Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze, revealing his theory of rule vested in a senate composed of an aristocracy of merit rather than one of class; nine Discorsi intorno alle mutazioni e riforme del governo fiorentino; the Storie fiorentine; the Relazione di Spagna; the Istruzioni delle cose di Romagna; and minor works, mostly of an autobiographical nature. Many letters have since been published, as well as his Diario del viaggio in Spagna (1932), and Le cose fiorentine (1945), a eulogy of the Florentine oligarchy.

Bibliography: Scrittori d'Italia (Bari 1910–). r. ridolfi, Vita di Francesco Guicciardini (Rome 1960). u. spirito, Machiavelli e Guicciardini (2d ed. Rome 1945). r. palmarocchi, Studi Guicciardiniani (Letteraria 6; Florence 1947). v. de. caprariis, Francesco Guicciardini (Bari 1950). v. luciani, Francesco Guicciardini and His European Reputation (New York 1936). f. gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in 16th-Century Florence (Princeton 1964). r. ridolfi, Studi Guicciardiani (Florence 1978). p. bondanella, Francesco Guicciardini (Boston 1976). g. sasso, Franceso Guicciardini, 1483–1983 (Florence 1984).

[v. luciani]