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The History of Italy
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.
488 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1540
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About the author
Francesco Guicciardini
537 books31 followersFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances...
Francesco Guicciardini (Italian: [franˈtʃesko ɡwittʃarˈdiːni]; 6 March 1483 – 22 May 1540) was an Italian historian and statesman. A friend and critic of Niccolò Machiavelli, he is considered one of the major political writers of the Italian Renaissance. In his masterpiece, The History of Italy, Guicciardini paved the way for a new style in historiography with his use of government sources to support arguments and the realistic analysis of the people and events of his time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances...
Francesco Guicciardini (Italian: [franˈtʃesko ɡwittʃarˈdiːni]; 6 March 1483 – 22 May 1540) was an Italian historian and statesman. A friend and critic of Niccolò Machiavelli, he is considered one of the major political writers of the Italian Renaissance. In his masterpiece, The History of Italy, Guicciardini paved the way for a new style in historiography with his use of government sources to support arguments and the realistic analysis of the people and events of his time.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 7, 2013
An excellent (and reasonably unbiased) history of the early 16th Century (1494-1534), not just of Italy, but of Europe, the Ottoman Empire, the New World and northern Africa, viewed from a (Florentine) Italian point of view.
May 3, 2018
Guicciardini gets mentioned as a historian in the same rank as Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus and Gibbon, but I'd rank him slightly below those figures-- he's a fantastic narrative historian, who unlike Gibbon has no patience for grand theories, and instead remains fascinated by the capricious nature of humanity. That said, like Gibbon he's got no problem passing judgement on figures he finds morally bankrupt-- poor Popes Pius and Alexander!
October 19, 2025
Renaissance Statesman Francesco Guicciardini's History Of Italy Is A Grim, Expansive Account Of The Habsburg-Valois Wars.
At first glance, you might think that because both of these men were statesmen & politicians, that Francesco Guicciardini & Niccolò Machiavelli were very similar people. Niccolò Machiavelli was from a fairly well-to-do Florentine family, his father, Messer Bernardo Machiavelli, was a lawyer who had unfortunately inherited some financial debt; this made him ineligible to enroll in Florence's legal guild. The Machiavelli clan is believed to have in its ancestry twelve Gonfaloniere Di Giustizia (Standard-bearers of Justice) of Florence, & they were reputed to have been descended from the old blood of the Tuscan marquesses, who, in the time of Charlemagne, were called margraves. Niccolò studied under Paolo da Ronciglione in the areas of Latin, rhetoric, & grammar; the young man was highly inspired by classical Roman historians, such as Titus Livius, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, or Plutarch, & Cornelius Tacitus. Many of his writings reference copiously the written work of all three of these men. He served under the Florentine Gonfalonier Piero Soderini, as his Secretary To The Ten Of War, as well as leading Florence's citizen's militia, the Nove di Milizia in a decisive victory when they defeated Pisa in 1509. However, Florentine ruling family, the Medici, were not enamored with Niccolò, his kin, nor with those the Machiavelli associated with. They didn't possess sufficient prestige, or wealth, to be affiliated with the high-blooded princes of the Medici. Pope Clement VII, who before was the Cardinal Giulio de'Medici, commissioned Niccolò to write the Florentine Histories, as an afterthought, almost a slap in the face to the man after having shut him out of a career in political affairs, which was his life's passion. But as lowborn as Niccolò's family was perceived by Florence's lofty magnates & financiers, it's a bit ironic that etched upon his tomb in Florence at the Church of Santa Croce, there is a Latin inscription which reads, TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM. In English, this translates to, 'There Is No Praise Equal To So Great A Name'.
Francesco Guicciardini was also a Florentine statesman, but he was a politician of a completely different species. Born in 1483, he was the son of powerful oligarch Piero di Iacopo Guicciardini & his wife, Simona di Bongianni Ginafigliazzi. The Guicciardini were respected & also very influential in Florentine politics, & they were one of the families the Medici Princes favored above all others. Francesco had ten brothers & sisters, & he studied law at Ferrara & Padua before being selected by the Florentine Signoria in 1512 to serve as the embassy of King Ferdinand the Catholic in Spain. He complained about his assignment & eventually the Medici asked him to return to Florence two years later to serve on the Otto di Balìa, where he handled internal affairs within the republic. Guicciardini went on to become the advisor to two Medici Popes, Giovanni (Leo X), & Giulio (Clement VII). Clement made him governor of Bologna in 1531 after Francesco had garnered a ruthless reputation during the Siege of Florence for his brutal punishments of Florentine citizens who were found guilty of betraying the Medici clan. He wrote the Storia d'Italia during the time of his retirement from politics. Originally published in 1561, the first edition had only sixteen books even though Guicciardini had composed twenty. There were portions of the history that dealt with Church politics, personal appraisals of Popes, & concepts involving the spread of Christianity to the New World that reflected grim realities the individuals in power at the time did not wish the common people to be thinking about, so they were withheld. However, three years later in Venice, the complete edition of the Storia d'Italia was released in a twenty-book volume. Francesco also wrote a shorter collection consisting of 220 political, social, & religious maxims, the Ricordi Politici e Civili as well as a commentary on Machiavelli's Discoursi Sopra la Prima Deca di Tito Livio entitled, the Considerazioni. This edition of Guicciardini's history was originally published in 1969, introduced & translated by Sidney Alexander. The period it chronicles is from 1490 - 1534 A.D., which makes the Storia d'Italia a wonderful companion piece to Niccolò Machiavelli's Istorie Fiorentine whose timeline extends roughly from 382-1492 A.D. with the death of Lorenzo de'Medici, 'The Magnificent'.
The first book begins with Guicciardini diving into the intrigues of Piero de'Medici as he recklessly aligns himself with Ferdinando Trastámara d'Aragona, the King of Naples, & his son, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria. While Piero schemes to increase Florence's prestige & position, the cunning Milanese regent, Lodovico Sforza, orchestrates dangerous machinations with Charles VIII, King of France while plotting to replace his nephew Gian Galeazzo as Duke of Milan. Lodovico's dark olive complexion garners him the nickname, 'Il Moro', which means, 'The Moor'. He incites the king to invade Italy with a French army at his back, then while Charles is passing through Milanese territory Gian Galeazzo mysteriously dies, & Lodovico becomes the Duke. Lodovico's treachery earns him an odious reputation & eventually leads to his downfall in 1500 when he is imprisoned at Lyons' Tower of Loches for the next ten years, all the way up to his death. He was, according to Guicciardini : "..worthy of obtaining a name for mildness & clemency if the infamy come upon him as a result of his nephew's death had not blemished his reputation. But on the other hand he was so vain, & his mind full of ambitious, restless thoughts, & he violated his promises & pledges; always presuming so much on the basis of his own knowledge that being highly offended whenever the prudence & counsels of others were praised, he convinced himself that he could turn everyone's ideas in whatever direction he pleased by means of his own industry & manipulation."
Roderic Llançol i de Borja, or Rodrigo Borgia, is elected Pope Alexander VI in 1492, an event which terrifies the Italian people due to Borgia's infamous reputation. Guicciardini says of Borgia : "Alexander VI possessed singular cunning & sagacity, excellent judgment, a marvelous efficacy in persuading, & an incredible dexterity & attentiveness in dealing with weighty matters. But all these qualities were outweighed by his vices : the most obscene behavior, insincerity, shamelessness, lying, faithlessness, impiety, insatiable avarice, immoderate ambition, a cruelty more than barbaric & a most ardent cupidity to exalt his numerous children; & among these (in order that depraved instruments might not be lacking to carry out his depraved designs) there were several no less detestable than the father." Many people don't know that Rodrigo Borgia actually wasn't the only Borgian Pontiff. 40 years earlier, Alfonso de Borgia was elected to the office as Pope Callixtus III in 1455. Callixtus was Rodrigo's maternal uncle. His sister Isabel was Rodrigo's mother, & prior to being elected Pope, he, like his nephew, served the Church as Cardinal of Valencia, in Spain.
Political maneuvering, scheming, conspiracies & assassinations are a very large part of Guicciardini's history. I was enthralled by all of the subterfuge occurring during the Hapsburg-Valois Wars. It made me think of the high fantasy sagas I've read throughout my life, like the fictitious country of Cairhien & the 'Game of Houses' the nobles play with each other, Daes Dae'mar. In Book IX of the Storia d'Italia, Venitian ambassador Domenico Trevisan writes in a report describing Alexander's successor, Pope Julius II : "Il papa vuol essere il signore e maestro del giuoco del mondo." "The Pope wants to be lord & master of the world's game". When the Portuguese navy strongarms the Venetian Republic for control of the spice trade, I thought of the powerful Jamaillian Satrapy, far to the south of the Six Duchies, with its ancient order of Liveship Traders & exotic wares which are harvested from the Rain Wilds, much to the despair of the native inhabitants. There is a very interesting section of Francesco's history where he goes into detail regarding the history of the Swiss people, how their territory is divided into areas called cantons, such as the Valaisans who inhabit the Rhone Valley, & how the Grisons from the city of Coire are known by the other Swiss people as Lords Of The Three Leagues because they rule over three of these cantons.
Francesco Guicciardini's writing style is very distinct, he writes much of his history from a ruler's perspective. He's always trying to explain to his reader what motivates the person in power to make a particular decision, also he describes what feelings & emotions that person is feeling. It's very different from Machiavelli's style, which is caustic & abrasive with didactic undertones in much of it. Guicciardini is much more subtle, & he's also quite cynical. Much of the 'Historia d'Italia' has an element of sadness to it that never really goes away, it's a gloomy piece of writing. Guicciardini & Machiavelli were contemporaries, but I believe he looked down on Niccolò for his inferior social status so they weren't close friends. He also criticized Machiavelli's tendencies to idealize ancient Roman values to be unrealistic & out of touch with reality. Sidney Alexander's comment in Book X speaks to the relative similarity of the two men's writing styles, despite Guicciardini's best efforts to distance himself from his compeer: "It might be very revealing to investigate how many of Machiavelli's & Guicciardini's celebrated (or infamous) acerbities are, as Guicciardini declares above, merely echoings of Tuscan folk-sayings. The Florentines are famous all over Italy for speaking "without hair on their tongues" - that is, saying what they believe to be the truth without concern for accepted pieties. Guicciardini's & Machiavelli's notion of how the political animal, man will behave is frequently closer to peasants who cropped their olive trees than to the savants of antiquity." Overall, Guicciardini's writing is challenging & there is a lot for the reader to absorb, & because of the sentence structure he favors, it becomes necessary to study certain passages for details after reading them the first time.
This edition of the Storia d'Italia has a plethora of beautiful illustrations to accompany the text which are one of the reasons I enjoyed reading it as much as I did. Many of them are reproductions of Renaissance artwork originally done by the famous Arezzan painter, Giorgio Vasari. While it may take you a good two to three weeks of dedicated reading to get through Francesco Guicciardini's famous Renaissance history, it will very much be a worthwhile expenditure of your time in my opinion. There's a ton of exciting events that occur in this time period. I would suggest as supplemental reading Harvey C. Mansfield & Laura E. Banfield's translation of Machiavelli's Florentine Histories, as well as the I Tatti Renaissance Library translation of Pier Candido Decembrio's Lives Of The Milanese Tyrants, a pair of Suetonian-styled biographies chronicling the deeds of Fillipo Maria Visconti & Francesco I Sforza. If you are intrigued by the artwork of Giorgio Vasari, you may want to try the two Penguin selections from his written work : Lives Of The Artists Volume I & II. The two books are part of a much larger piece, entitled : Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Also, there is a duology of Machiavelli's Discoursi & Guicciardini's Considerazioni entitled, 'The Sweetness Of Power' & translated by James B. Atkinson & David Sykes, if you are interested in reading about what Francesco thought of Niccolò's writing. Finally, I'd suggest Professor Alessandro Campi's Machiavelli & Political Conspiracies: The Struggle For Power In The Italian Renaissance if you enjoy all the conspiracies & political intrigues of the Italian Renaissance.
At first glance, you might think that because both of these men were statesmen & politicians, that Francesco Guicciardini & Niccolò Machiavelli were very similar people. Niccolò Machiavelli was from a fairly well-to-do Florentine family, his father, Messer Bernardo Machiavelli, was a lawyer who had unfortunately inherited some financial debt; this made him ineligible to enroll in Florence's legal guild. The Machiavelli clan is believed to have in its ancestry twelve Gonfaloniere Di Giustizia (Standard-bearers of Justice) of Florence, & they were reputed to have been descended from the old blood of the Tuscan marquesses, who, in the time of Charlemagne, were called margraves. Niccolò studied under Paolo da Ronciglione in the areas of Latin, rhetoric, & grammar; the young man was highly inspired by classical Roman historians, such as Titus Livius, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, or Plutarch, & Cornelius Tacitus. Many of his writings reference copiously the written work of all three of these men. He served under the Florentine Gonfalonier Piero Soderini, as his Secretary To The Ten Of War, as well as leading Florence's citizen's militia, the Nove di Milizia in a decisive victory when they defeated Pisa in 1509. However, Florentine ruling family, the Medici, were not enamored with Niccolò, his kin, nor with those the Machiavelli associated with. They didn't possess sufficient prestige, or wealth, to be affiliated with the high-blooded princes of the Medici. Pope Clement VII, who before was the Cardinal Giulio de'Medici, commissioned Niccolò to write the Florentine Histories, as an afterthought, almost a slap in the face to the man after having shut him out of a career in political affairs, which was his life's passion. But as lowborn as Niccolò's family was perceived by Florence's lofty magnates & financiers, it's a bit ironic that etched upon his tomb in Florence at the Church of Santa Croce, there is a Latin inscription which reads, TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM. In English, this translates to, 'There Is No Praise Equal To So Great A Name'.
Francesco Guicciardini was also a Florentine statesman, but he was a politician of a completely different species. Born in 1483, he was the son of powerful oligarch Piero di Iacopo Guicciardini & his wife, Simona di Bongianni Ginafigliazzi. The Guicciardini were respected & also very influential in Florentine politics, & they were one of the families the Medici Princes favored above all others. Francesco had ten brothers & sisters, & he studied law at Ferrara & Padua before being selected by the Florentine Signoria in 1512 to serve as the embassy of King Ferdinand the Catholic in Spain. He complained about his assignment & eventually the Medici asked him to return to Florence two years later to serve on the Otto di Balìa, where he handled internal affairs within the republic. Guicciardini went on to become the advisor to two Medici Popes, Giovanni (Leo X), & Giulio (Clement VII). Clement made him governor of Bologna in 1531 after Francesco had garnered a ruthless reputation during the Siege of Florence for his brutal punishments of Florentine citizens who were found guilty of betraying the Medici clan. He wrote the Storia d'Italia during the time of his retirement from politics. Originally published in 1561, the first edition had only sixteen books even though Guicciardini had composed twenty. There were portions of the history that dealt with Church politics, personal appraisals of Popes, & concepts involving the spread of Christianity to the New World that reflected grim realities the individuals in power at the time did not wish the common people to be thinking about, so they were withheld. However, three years later in Venice, the complete edition of the Storia d'Italia was released in a twenty-book volume. Francesco also wrote a shorter collection consisting of 220 political, social, & religious maxims, the Ricordi Politici e Civili as well as a commentary on Machiavelli's Discoursi Sopra la Prima Deca di Tito Livio entitled, the Considerazioni. This edition of Guicciardini's history was originally published in 1969, introduced & translated by Sidney Alexander. The period it chronicles is from 1490 - 1534 A.D., which makes the Storia d'Italia a wonderful companion piece to Niccolò Machiavelli's Istorie Fiorentine whose timeline extends roughly from 382-1492 A.D. with the death of Lorenzo de'Medici, 'The Magnificent'.
The first book begins with Guicciardini diving into the intrigues of Piero de'Medici as he recklessly aligns himself with Ferdinando Trastámara d'Aragona, the King of Naples, & his son, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria. While Piero schemes to increase Florence's prestige & position, the cunning Milanese regent, Lodovico Sforza, orchestrates dangerous machinations with Charles VIII, King of France while plotting to replace his nephew Gian Galeazzo as Duke of Milan. Lodovico's dark olive complexion garners him the nickname, 'Il Moro', which means, 'The Moor'. He incites the king to invade Italy with a French army at his back, then while Charles is passing through Milanese territory Gian Galeazzo mysteriously dies, & Lodovico becomes the Duke. Lodovico's treachery earns him an odious reputation & eventually leads to his downfall in 1500 when he is imprisoned at Lyons' Tower of Loches for the next ten years, all the way up to his death. He was, according to Guicciardini : "..worthy of obtaining a name for mildness & clemency if the infamy come upon him as a result of his nephew's death had not blemished his reputation. But on the other hand he was so vain, & his mind full of ambitious, restless thoughts, & he violated his promises & pledges; always presuming so much on the basis of his own knowledge that being highly offended whenever the prudence & counsels of others were praised, he convinced himself that he could turn everyone's ideas in whatever direction he pleased by means of his own industry & manipulation."
Roderic Llançol i de Borja, or Rodrigo Borgia, is elected Pope Alexander VI in 1492, an event which terrifies the Italian people due to Borgia's infamous reputation. Guicciardini says of Borgia : "Alexander VI possessed singular cunning & sagacity, excellent judgment, a marvelous efficacy in persuading, & an incredible dexterity & attentiveness in dealing with weighty matters. But all these qualities were outweighed by his vices : the most obscene behavior, insincerity, shamelessness, lying, faithlessness, impiety, insatiable avarice, immoderate ambition, a cruelty more than barbaric & a most ardent cupidity to exalt his numerous children; & among these (in order that depraved instruments might not be lacking to carry out his depraved designs) there were several no less detestable than the father." Many people don't know that Rodrigo Borgia actually wasn't the only Borgian Pontiff. 40 years earlier, Alfonso de Borgia was elected to the office as Pope Callixtus III in 1455. Callixtus was Rodrigo's maternal uncle. His sister Isabel was Rodrigo's mother, & prior to being elected Pope, he, like his nephew, served the Church as Cardinal of Valencia, in Spain.
Political maneuvering, scheming, conspiracies & assassinations are a very large part of Guicciardini's history. I was enthralled by all of the subterfuge occurring during the Hapsburg-Valois Wars. It made me think of the high fantasy sagas I've read throughout my life, like the fictitious country of Cairhien & the 'Game of Houses' the nobles play with each other, Daes Dae'mar. In Book IX of the Storia d'Italia, Venitian ambassador Domenico Trevisan writes in a report describing Alexander's successor, Pope Julius II : "Il papa vuol essere il signore e maestro del giuoco del mondo." "The Pope wants to be lord & master of the world's game". When the Portuguese navy strongarms the Venetian Republic for control of the spice trade, I thought of the powerful Jamaillian Satrapy, far to the south of the Six Duchies, with its ancient order of Liveship Traders & exotic wares which are harvested from the Rain Wilds, much to the despair of the native inhabitants. There is a very interesting section of Francesco's history where he goes into detail regarding the history of the Swiss people, how their territory is divided into areas called cantons, such as the Valaisans who inhabit the Rhone Valley, & how the Grisons from the city of Coire are known by the other Swiss people as Lords Of The Three Leagues because they rule over three of these cantons.
Francesco Guicciardini's writing style is very distinct, he writes much of his history from a ruler's perspective. He's always trying to explain to his reader what motivates the person in power to make a particular decision, also he describes what feelings & emotions that person is feeling. It's very different from Machiavelli's style, which is caustic & abrasive with didactic undertones in much of it. Guicciardini is much more subtle, & he's also quite cynical. Much of the 'Historia d'Italia' has an element of sadness to it that never really goes away, it's a gloomy piece of writing. Guicciardini & Machiavelli were contemporaries, but I believe he looked down on Niccolò for his inferior social status so they weren't close friends. He also criticized Machiavelli's tendencies to idealize ancient Roman values to be unrealistic & out of touch with reality. Sidney Alexander's comment in Book X speaks to the relative similarity of the two men's writing styles, despite Guicciardini's best efforts to distance himself from his compeer: "It might be very revealing to investigate how many of Machiavelli's & Guicciardini's celebrated (or infamous) acerbities are, as Guicciardini declares above, merely echoings of Tuscan folk-sayings. The Florentines are famous all over Italy for speaking "without hair on their tongues" - that is, saying what they believe to be the truth without concern for accepted pieties. Guicciardini's & Machiavelli's notion of how the political animal, man will behave is frequently closer to peasants who cropped their olive trees than to the savants of antiquity." Overall, Guicciardini's writing is challenging & there is a lot for the reader to absorb, & because of the sentence structure he favors, it becomes necessary to study certain passages for details after reading them the first time.
This edition of the Storia d'Italia has a plethora of beautiful illustrations to accompany the text which are one of the reasons I enjoyed reading it as much as I did. Many of them are reproductions of Renaissance artwork originally done by the famous Arezzan painter, Giorgio Vasari. While it may take you a good two to three weeks of dedicated reading to get through Francesco Guicciardini's famous Renaissance history, it will very much be a worthwhile expenditure of your time in my opinion. There's a ton of exciting events that occur in this time period. I would suggest as supplemental reading Harvey C. Mansfield & Laura E. Banfield's translation of Machiavelli's Florentine Histories, as well as the I Tatti Renaissance Library translation of Pier Candido Decembrio's Lives Of The Milanese Tyrants, a pair of Suetonian-styled biographies chronicling the deeds of Fillipo Maria Visconti & Francesco I Sforza. If you are intrigued by the artwork of Giorgio Vasari, you may want to try the two Penguin selections from his written work : Lives Of The Artists Volume I & II. The two books are part of a much larger piece, entitled : Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Also, there is a duology of Machiavelli's Discoursi & Guicciardini's Considerazioni entitled, 'The Sweetness Of Power' & translated by James B. Atkinson & David Sykes, if you are interested in reading about what Francesco thought of Niccolò's writing. Finally, I'd suggest Professor Alessandro Campi's Machiavelli & Political Conspiracies: The Struggle For Power In The Italian Renaissance if you enjoy all the conspiracies & political intrigues of the Italian Renaissance.
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July 25, 2022A history of the Italian invasions by a man who helped cause some of them.
April 8, 2012
I found this to informative and entertaining to read
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