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GUICCIARDINI, FRANCESCO (1483-1540)
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See also: GUICCIARDINI, See also:FRANCESCO (1483-1540) , the celebrated See also:Italian historian and statesman, was See also:born at See also:Florence in the See also:year 1483, when Marsilio See also:Ficino held him at the See also:font of See also:baptism. His See also:family was illustrious and See also:noble; and. his ancestors for many generations had held the highest posts of See also:honour in the See also:state, as may be seen in his own genealogical Ricordi autobio= grafici e di famiglia (Op. ined. vol. x.). After the usual See also:education of a boy in See also:grammar and elementary classical studies, his See also:father, See also:Piero, sent him to the See also:universities of See also:Ferrara and See also:Padua, where he stayed until the year 1505. The See also:death of an See also:uncle, who had occupied the see of See also:Cortona with See also:great pomp, induced the See also:young 'Guicciardini to hanker after an ecclesiastical career. He already saw the See also:scarlet of a See also:cardinal awaiting him, and tothis See also:eminence he would assuredly have risen. His father, how-ever, checked this ambition, declaring that, though he had five sons, he would not suffer one of them to enter the See also:
His conduct upon that See also: legation was afterwards severely criticized; for his political antagonists accused him of betraying the true interests of the See also:commonwealth, and using his See also:influence for the restoration of the exiled See also:house of See also:Medici to See also:power. His See also:Spanish See also:correspondence with the Signoria (Op. fined. vol. vi.) reveals the extra-See also:ordinary power of observation and See also:analysis which was a See also:chief quality of his mind; and in Ferdinand, hypocritical and profoundly dissimulative, he found a proper See also:object for his scientific study. To suppose that the young statesman learned his frigid statecraft in See also:Spain would be perhaps too See also:simple a See also:solution of the problem offered by his See also:character, and scarcely See also:fair to the Italian proficients in perfidy. It is clear from Guicciardini's autobiographical See also:memoirs that he was ambitious, calculating, avaricious and power-loving from his earliest years; and in Spain he had no more than an opportunity of studying on a large See also:scale those political vices which already ruled the See also:minor potentates of See also:Italy. Still the school was pregnant with instructions for so See also:apt a See also:pupil. Guicciardini issued from this first trial of his skill with an assured reputation for See also:diplomatic ability, as that was understood in Italy. To unravel plots and weave counterplots; to meet treachery with See also:fraud; to See also:parry force with sleights of See also:hand; to See also:credit human nature with the basest motives, while the blackest crimes were contemplated with See also:cold See also:enthusiasm for their cleverness, was reckoned then the height of political sagacity. Guicciardini could See also:play the See also:game to perfection. In 1515 See also:Leo X. took him into service, and made him See also:governor of Reggio and See also:Modena. In 1521 See also:Parma was added to his See also:rule, and in 1523 he was appointed viceregent of Romagna by See also:Clement VII. These high offices rendered Guicciardini the virtual See also:master of the papal states beyond the See also:Apennines, during a See also:period of great bewilderment and difficulty. The copious correspondence See also:relating to his See also:administration has recently been published (Op. See also:tined. vols. vii., viii.).In 1526 Clement gave him still higher See also: rank as See also:lieutenant-See also:general of the papal See also:army. While holding this See also:commission, he had the humiliation of witnessing from a distance the See also:sack of See also:Rome and the imprisonment of Clement, without being able to rouse the perfidious See also:duke of See also:Urbino into activity. The blame of Clement's downfall did not See also:rest with him; for it was merely his See also:duty to attend the See also:camp, and keep his master informed of the proceedings of the generals (see the Correspondence, Op. tined. vols. iv., v.). Yet Guicciardini's See also:conscience accused him, for he had previously counselled the See also:pope to declare See also:war, as he notes in a curious See also:letter to himself written in 1527 (Op. fined., x. 104). Clement did not, however, withdraw his confidence, and in 1531 Guicciardini was advanced to the governorship of See also:Bologna, the most important of all the papal See also:lord-lieutenancies ( Correspon dence,O p. ined. vol. ix.). This See also:post he resigned in 1534 on the See also:election of See also:Paul III., preferring to follow the fortunes of the Medicean princes. It may here be noticed that though Guicciardini served three popes through a period of twenty years, or perhaps because of this, he hated the papacy with a deep and frozen bitterness, attributing the woes of Italy to the ambition of the church, and declaring he had seen enough of sacerdotal abominations to make him a Lutheran (see Op. ined. i. 27, 104, 96, and 1st. d' It., ed. See also:Ros., ii. 218). The same discord betweep his private opinions and his public actions may be traced in his conduct subsequent to 1534.As a political theorist, Guicciardini believed that the best See also: form of See also:government was a commonwealth administered upon the type of the Venetian constitution (Op. fined. i 6; ii. 130 sq.); and we have ample See also:evidence to prove that he had judged the tyranny of the Medici at its true See also:worth (Op. fined. i. 171, on the See also:tyrant; the whole See also:Scoria Fiorentina and Reggimento di Firenze, fib. i. and iii., on the Medici). Yet he did not hesitate to See also:place his See also:powers at the disposal of the most vicious members of that house for the enslavement of Florence. In 1527 he had been declared a See also:rebel by the Signoria on See also:account of his well-known Medicean prejudices; and in 1530, deputed by Clement to punish the citizens after their revolt, he revenged himself with a See also:cruelty and an avarice that were See also:long and bitterly remembered. When, therefore, he returned to inhabit Florence in 1534, he did so as the creature of the dissolute Alessandro de' Medici. Guicciardini pushed his servility so far as to defend this in-famous See also:despot at See also:Naples in 1535, before the bar of See also:
The wily old diplomatist hoped to rule Florence as See also: grand See also:vizier under this inexperienced princeling. He was mistaken, however, in his schemes, for Cosimo displayed the See also:genius of his family for politics, and coldly dismissed his would-be lord-See also:protector. Guicciardini retired in disgrace to his See also:villa, where he spent his last years in the See also:composition of the Storia d'Italia. He died in 1540 without male heirs. Guicciardini was the product of a cynical and selfish age, and his See also:fife illustrated its sordid influences. Of a cold and worldly temperament, devoid of See also:passion, blameless in his conduct as the father of a family, faithful as the servant of his papal patrons, severe in the administration of the provinces committed to his See also:charge, and indisputably able in his conduct of affairs, he was at the same See also:time, and in spite of these qualities, a See also:man whose moral nature inspires a sentiment of liveliest repugnance. It is not merely that he was ambitious, cruel, revengeful and avaricious, for these vices have existed in men far less antipathetic than Guicciardini. Over and above those faults, which made him odious to his See also:fellow-citizens, we trace in him a meanness that our See also:century is less willing to condone. His phlegmatic and persistent egotism, his See also:sacrifice of truth and honour to self-See also:interest, his acquiescence in the worst conditions of the See also:world, if only he could use them for his own See also:advantage, combined with the glaring discord between his opinions and his practice, form a character which would be contemptible in our eyes were it not so sinister. The social and political decrepitude of Italy, where patriotism was unknown, and only selfishness survived of all the motives that rouse men to See also:action, found its representative and exponent in Guicciardini. When we turn from the man to the author, the decadence of the age and See also:race that could develop a political See also:philosophy so arid in its cynical despair of any See also:good in human nature forces itself vividly upon our See also:notice. Guicciardini seems to See also:glory in his disillusionment, and uses his vast intellectual ability for the analysis of the corruption he had helped to make incurable.If one single See also: treatise of that century should be chosen to represent the spiritof the Italian See also:people in the last phase of the See also:Renaissance, the historian might hesitate between the Principe of Machiavelli and the Ricordi politici of Guicciardini. The latter is perhaps preferable to the former on the See also:score of comprehensiveness. It is, moreover, more exactly adequate to the actual situation, for the Principe has a divine spark of patriotism yet lingering in the cinders of its frigid See also:science, an idealistic enthusiasm surviving in its moral aberrations; whereas a great Italian critic of this See also:decade has justly described the Ricordi as " Italian corruption codified and elevated to a rule of life." Guicciardini is, however, better known as the author of the Storia d'Italia, that vast and detailed picture of his country's sufferings between the years 1494 and 1532. Judging him by this masterpiece of scientific See also:history, he deserves less See also:commendation as a writer than as a thinker and an See also:analyst. The See also:style is wearisome and prolix, attaining to precision at the expense of circumlocution, and setting forth the smallest particulars with the same distinctness as the See also:main features of the narrative. The whole tangled skein of Italian politics, in that involved and stormy period, is unravelled with a See also:patience and an insight that are above praise. It is the crowning merit of the author that he never ceases to be an impartial spectator—a cold and curious critic. We might compare him to an anatomist, with See also:knife and scalpel dissecting the dead See also:body of Italy, and pointing out the symptoms of her manifold diseases with the indifferent analysis of one who has no moral sensibility. This want of feeling, while it renders Guicciardini a See also:model for the scientific student, has impaired the interest of his history. Though he lived through that agony of the Italian people, he does not seem to be aware that he is See also:writing a great See also:historical tragedy. He takes as much pains in laying See also:bare the trifling causes of a See also:petty war with See also:Pisa as in probing the deep-seated See also:ulcer of the papacy. Nor is he capable of See also:painting the events in which he took a See also:part, in their totality as a See also:drama.Whatever he touches, lies already dead on the dissecting table, and his skill is that of the See also: analytical pathologist. Consequently, he fails to understand the essential magnitude of the task, or to appreciate the vital vigour of the forces contending in See also:Europe for mastery. This is very notice-able in what he writes about the See also:Reformation. Notwithstanding these defects, inevitable in a writer of Guicciardini's temperament, the Storia d' Italia was undoubtedly the greatest historical work that had appeared since the beginning of the See also:modern era. It remains the most solid See also:monument of the Italian See also:reason in the 16th century, the final See also:triumph of that Florentine school of philosophical historians which included Machiavelli, Segni, Pitti, Nardi, Varchi, Francesco Vettori and Donato Giannotti. Up to the year 1857 the fame of Guicciardini as a writer, and the estimation of him as a man, depended almost entirely upon the History of Italy, and on a few See also:ill-edited extracts from his aphorisms. At that date his representatives, the See also:counts Piero and See also:Luigi Guicciardini, opened their family archives, and cornmitted to Signor Giuseppe Canestrini the publication of his hitherto inedited MSS. in ten important volumes. The vast See also:mass of documents and finished See also:literary work thus given to the world has thrown a See also:flood of See also:light upon Guicciardini, whether we consider him as author or as See also:citizen. It has raised his reputation as a political philosopher into the first rank, where he now disputes the place of intellectual supremacy with his friend Machiavelli; but it has coloured our moral See also:judgment of his character and conduct with darker dyes. From the stores of valuable materials contained in those ten volumes, it will be enough here to cite (r) the Ricordi politici, already noticed, consisting of about 400 aphorisms on political and social topics; (2) the observations on Machiavelli's Discorsi, which bring into remarkable See also:relief the views of Italy's two great theorists on statecraft in the 16th century, and show that Guicciardini regarded Machiavelli somewhat as an amiable visionary or political enthusiast; (3) the Storia Fiorentina, an See also:early work of the author, distinguished by its animation of style, brilliancy of See also:portraiture, and liberality of judgment; and (4) the Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze, also in all See also:probability an early work, in which the various forms of government suited to an Italian commonwealth are discussed with See also:infinite subtlety, contrasted, and illustrated from the vicissitudes of Florence up to the year 1494. To these may be added a See also:series of See also:short essays, entitled Discorsi polilici, composed during Guicciardini's Spanish legation. It is only after a careful perusal of these minor See also:works that the student of history may claim to have comprehended Guicciardini, and may feel that he brings with him to the See also:consideration of the Scoria d' Italia the requisite knowledge of the author's private thoughts and jealously guarded opinions.Indeed, it may be confidently affirmed that those who See also: desire to gain an insight into the true principles and feelings of the men who made and wrote history in the 16th century will find it here far more than in the work designed for publication by the writer. Taken in See also:combination with Machiavelli's See also:treatises, the Opere inedile furnish a comprehensive body of Italian political philosophy anterior to the date of Fra See also:Paolo See also:Sarpi. (J. A. S.) See Rosini's edition of the Scoria d' Italia (10 vols., Pisa, 1819), and the Opere inedite, in 10 vols., published at Florence, 1857. A See also:complete and initial edition of Guicciardini's works is now in preparation in the hands of Alessandro Gherardi of the Florence archives. Among the many studies on Guicciardini we may mention See also:Agostino See also:Rossi's Francesco Guicciardini e it governo Fiorentino (2 vols., Bologna, 1896), based on many new documents; F. de See also:Sanctis's See also:essay " L'Uomo del Guicciardini," in his Nuovi Saggi critici (Naples, 1879), and many passages in See also:Professor P. See also:Villari's Machiavelli (Eng. trans., 1892); E. Benoist's Guichardin, historien et homme See also:ducat ilalien an X See also:VIe siecle (See also:Paris, 1862), and C. Gioda's Francesco Guicciardini e le See also:sue opere inedile (Bologna, 188o) are not without value, but the authors had not had See also:access to many important documents since published. See also See also:Geoffroy's See also:article Une Autobiographie de Guichardin d'apres ses oeuvres in6dites," in the Revue See also:des deux mondes (1st of See also:February 1874).Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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