Chapter V: The Florentine Historians (2)

BORN. DIED.
Machiavelli 1469 1527
Nardi 1476 1556
Guicciardini 1482 1540
Nerli 1485 1536
Giannotti 1492 1572
Varchi 1502 1565
Segni 1504 1558
Pitti 1519 1589

[2] Varchi, it is true, had Nardi's _History of Florence_ and
Guicciardini's _History of Italy_ before him while he was compiling
his _History of Florence_. But Segni and Nerli were given for the
first time to the press in the last century; Pitti in 1842, and
Guicciardini's _History of Florence_ in 1859.

The Storia Fiorentina of Varchi extends from the year 1527 to the year 1538; that of Segni from 1527 to 1555; that of Nardi from 1494 to 1552; that of Pitti from 1494 to 1529; that of Nerli from 1494 to 1537; that of Guicciardini from 1420 to 1509. The prefatory chapters, which in most cases introduce the special subject of each history, contain a series of retrospective surveys over the whole history of Florence extremely valuable for the detailed information they contain, as well as for the critical judgments of men whose acumen had been sharpened to the utmost by their practical participation in politics. It will not, perhaps, be superfluous to indicate the different parts played by these historians in the events of their own time. Guicciardini, it is well known, had governed Bologna and Romagna for the Medicean Popes. He too was instrumental in placing Duke Cosimo at the head of the republic in 1536. At Naples, in 1535, he pleaded the cause of Duke Alessandro against the exiles before Charles V. Nardi on this occasion acted as secretary and advocate for Filippo Strozzi and the exiles; his own history was composed in exile at Venice, where he died. Segni was nephew of the Gonfalonier Capponi, and shared the anxieties of the moderate liberals during the siege of Florence. Pitti was a member of the great house who contested the leadership of the republic with the Medici in the fifteenth century; his zeal for the popular party and his hatred of the Palleschi may still perhaps be tinctured with ancestral animosity. Giannotti, in whose critique of the Florentine republic we trace a spirit no less democratic than Pitti's, was also an actor in the events of the siege, and afterwards appeared among the exiles. In the attempt made by the Cardinal Salviati (1537) to reconcile Duke Cosimo and the adherents of Filippo Strozzi, Giannotti was chosen as the spokesman for the latter. He wrote and died in exile at Venice. Nerli again took part in the events of those troublous times, but on the wrong side, by mixing himself up with the exiles and acting as a spy upon their projects. All the authors I have mentioned were citizens of Florence, and some of them were members of her most illustrious families. Varchi, in whom the flame of Florentine patriotism burns brightest, and who is by far the most copious annalist of the period, was a native of Montevarchi. Yet, as often happens, he was more Florentine than the Florentines; and of the events which he describes, he had for the most part been witness. Duke Cosimo employed him to write the history; it is a credit both to the prince and to the author that its chapters should be full of criticisms so outspoken, and of aspirations after liberty so vehement. On the very first page of his preface Varchi dares to write these words respecting Florence--'divenne, dico, di stato piuttosto corrotto e licenzioso, tirannide, che di sana e moderata repubblica, principato';[1] in which he deals blame with impartial justice all round. It must, however, be remembered that at the time when Varchi wrote, the younger branch of the Medici were firmly established on the throne of Florence. Between this branch and the elder line there had always been a coldness. Moreover, all parties had agreed to accept the duchy as a divinely appointed instrument for rescuing the city from her factions and reducing her to tranquillity.[2]

[1] 'It passed, I say, from the condition of a corrupt and
ill-conducted commonwealth to tyranny, rather than from a healthy
and well-tempered republic to principality.'

[2] See _Arch. Stor._ vol. i. p. xxxv.

It would be beyond the purpose of this chapter to enter into the details of the history of Florence between 1527 and 1531--those years of her last struggle for freedom, which have been so admirably depicted by her great political annalists. It is rather my object to illustrate the intellectual qualities of philosophical analysis and acute observation for which her citizens were eminent. Yet a sketch of the situation is necessary in order to bring into relief the different points of view maintained by Segni, Nardi, Varchi, Pitti, and Nerli respectively.

At the period in question Florence was, according to the universal testimony of these authors, too corrupt for real liberty and too turbulent for the tranquil acceptance of a despotism. The yoke of the Medici had destroyed the sense of honor and the pride of the old noble families; while the policy pursued by Lorenzo and the Popes had created a class of greedy professional politicians. The city was not content with slavery; but the burghers, eminent for wealth or ability, were egotistical, vain, and mutually jealous. Each man sought advantage for himself. Common action seemed impossible. The Medicean party, or Palleschi, were either extreme in their devotion to the ruling house, and desirous of establishing a tyranny; or else they were moderate and anxious to retain the Medici as the chiefs of a dominant oligarchy. The point of union between these two divisions of the party was a prejudice in favor of class rule, a hope to get power and wealth for themselves through the elevation of the princely family The popular faction on the other hand agreed in wishing to place the government of the city upon a broad republican basis. But the leaders of this section of the citizens favored the plebeian cause from different motives. Some sought only a way to riches and authority, which they could never have opened for them under the oligarchy contemplated by the Palleschi. Others, styled Frateschi or Piagnoni, clung to the ideas of liberty which were associated with the high morality and impassioned creed of Savonarola. These were really the backbone of the nation, the class which might have saved the state if salvation had been possible. Another section, steeped in the study of ancient authors and imbued with memories of Roman patriotism, thought it still possible to secure the freedom of the state by liberal institutions. These men we may call the Doctrinaires. Their panacea was the establishment of a mixed form of government, such as that which Giannotti so learnedly illustrated. To these parties must be added the red republicans, or Arrabbiati--a name originally reserved for the worst adherents of the Medici, but now applied to fanatics of Jacobin complexion--and the Libertines, who only cared for such a form of government as should permit them to indulge their passions.

Amid this medley of interests there resulted, as a matter of fact, two policies at the moment when the affairs of Florence, threatened by Pope and Emperor in combination, and deserted by France and the rest of Italy, grew desperate. One was that of the Gonfalonier Capponi, who advocated moderate counsels and an accommodation with Clement VII. The other was that of the Gonfalonier Carducci, who pushed things to extremities and used the enthusiasm of the Frateschi for sustaining the spirit of the people in the siege.[1] The latter policy triumphed over the former. Its principles were an obstinate belief in Francis, though he had clearly turned a deaf ear to Florence; confidence in the generals, Baglioni and Colonna, who were privately traitors to the cause they professed to defend; and reliance on the prophecies of Savonarola, supported by the preaching of the Friars Foiano, Bartolommeo, and Zaccaria. Ill-founded as it was in fact, the policy of Carducci had on its side all that was left of nobility, patriotism, and the fire of liberty among the Florentines. In spite of the hopelessness of the attempt, we cannot now read without emotion how bravely and desperately those last champions of freedom fought, to maintain the independence of their city at any cost, and in the teeth of overwhelming opposition. The memory of Savonarola was the inspiration of this policy. Ferrucci was its hero. It failed. It was in vain that the Florentines had laid waste Valdarno, destroyed their beautiful suburbs, and leveled their crown of towers. It was in vain that they had poured forth their treasures to the uttermost farthing, had borne plague and famine without a murmur, and had turned themselves at the call of their country into a nation of soldiers, Charles, Clement, the Palleschi, and Malatesta Baglioni--enemies without the city walls and traitors within its gates--were too powerful for the resistance of burghers who had learned but yesterday to handle arms and to conduct a war on their own account.[2] Florence had to capitulate. The venomous Palleschi, Francesco Guicciardini and Baccio Valori, by proscription, exile, and taxation, drained the strength and broke the spirit of the state. Caesar and Christ's Vicar, a new Herod and a new Pilate, embraced and made friends over the prostrate corpse of sold and slaughtered liberty. Florence was paid as compensation for the insult offered to the Pontiff in the sack of Rome.

[1] Guicciardini, writing his _Ricordi_ during the first months of
the siege, remarks upon the power of faith (_Op. Ined._ vol. i. p.
83. Compare p. 134): 'Esemplo a' di nostri ne e grandissimo questa
ostinazione de' Fiorentini, che essendosi contro a ogni ragione del
mondo messi a aspettare la guerra del papa e imperadore, senza
speranza di alcuno soccorso di altri, disuniti e con mille
difficulta, hanno sostenuto in quelle mura gia sette mesi gli e
serciti, e quali non si sarebbe creduto che avessino sostenuti sette
di; e condotto le cose in luogo che se vincessino, nessuno piu se ne
maraviglierebbe, dove prima da tutti erano giudicati perduti; e
questa ostinazione ha causata in gran parte la fede di non potere
perire, secondo le predicazioni di Fra Jeronimo da Ferrara.'

[2] See above, p. 238, for what Giannotti says of the heroic
Ferrucci.

The part played by Filippo Strozzi in this last drama of the liberties of Florence is feeble and discreditable, but at the same time historically instructive, since it shows to what a point the noblest of the Florentines had fallen. All Pitti's invectives against the Ottimati, bitter as they may be, are justified by the unvarnished narrative we read upon the pages of Varchi and Segni concerning this most vicious, selfish, vain, and brilliant hero of historical romance. Married to Clarice de' Medici, by whom he had a splendid family of handsome and vigorous sons, he was more than the rival of his wife's princely relatives by his wealth. Yet though he made a profession of patriotism, Filippo failed to use this great influence consistently as a counterpoise to the Medicean authority. It was he, for instance, who advised Lorenzo the younger to make himself Duke of Florence. Distinguished, as he was, above all men of his time for wit, urbanity, accomplishments, and splendid living, his want of character neutralized these radiant gifts of nature. His private morals were infamous. He encouraged by precept and example the worst vices of his age and nation, consorting with young men whom he instructed in the arts of dissolute living, and to whom he communicated his own selfish Epicureanism. To him in a great measure may be attributed the corruption of the Florentine aristocracy in the sixteenth century. In his public action he was no less vacillating than unprincipled in private life. After prevailing upon Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici to leave Florence in 1527, he failed to execute his trust of getting Pisa from their grasp (moved, it is said, by a guilty fondness for the young and handsome Ippolito), nor did he afterwards share any of the hardships and responsibilities of the siege. Indeed, he then found it necessary to retire into exile in France, on the excuse of superintending his vast commercial affairs at Lyons. After the restoration of the Medici he returned to Florence as the courtier of Duke Alessandro, whom he aided and abetted in his juvenile debaucheries. Quarreling with Alessandro on the occasion of an insult offered to his daughter Luisa, and the accusation of murder brought against his son Piero, he went into opposition and exile, less for political than for private reasons. After the murder of Alessandro, he received Lorenzo de' Medici, the fratricide, with the title of 'Second Brutus' at Venice. Meanwhile it was he who paid the dowry of Catherine de' Medici to the Duke of Orleans, helping thus to strengthen the house of princes against whom he was plotting, by that splendid foreign alliance which placed a descendant of the Florentine bill-brokers on the throne of France. After all these vicissitudes Filippo Strozzi headed an armed attack upon the dominions of Duke Cosimo, was taken in the battle of Montemurlo, and finally was murdered in that very fortress, outside the Porto a Faenza, which he had counseled Alessandro to construct for the intimidation of the Florentines.[1] The historians with the exception of Nerli agree in describing him as a pleasure-loving and self-seeking man, whose many changes of policy were due, not to conviction, but to the desire of gaining the utmost license of disorderly living. At the same time we cannot deny him the fame of brilliant mental qualities, a princely bearing, and great courage.

[1] See Varchi, vol. iii. p. 61, for the first stone laid of this
castle. It should be said that accounts disagree about Filippo's
death. Nerli very distinctly asserts that he committed suicide.
Segni inclines to the belief that he was murdered by the creatures
of Duke Cosimo.

The moral and political debility which proved the real source of the ruin of Florence is accounted for in different ways by the historians of the siege. Pitti, whose insight into the situation is perhaps the keenest, and who is by far the most outspoken, does not refer the failure of the Florentines to the cowardice or stupidity of the popular party, but to the malignity of the Palleschi, the double-dealing and egotism of the wealthy nobles, who to suit their own interests favored now one and now another of the parties. These Ottimati--as he calls them, by a title borrowed from classical phraseology--whether they professed the Medicean or the popular cause, were always bent on self-aggrandizement at the expense of the people or their princes.[1] The sympathies of Pitti were on the side of the plebeians, whose policy during the siege was carried out by the Gonfalonier Carducci. At the same time he admitted the feebleness and insufficiency of many of these men, called from a low rank of life and from mechanical trades to the administration of the commonwealth. The state of Florence under Piero Soderini--that 'non mai abbastanza lodato cavaliere,' as he calls him--was the ideal to which he reverted with longing eyes. Segni, on the other hand, condemns the ambition of the plebeian leaders, and declares his opinion that the State could only have been saved by the more moderate among the influential citizens. He belonged in fact to that section of the Medicean party which Varchi styles the Neutrals. He had strong aristocratic leanings, and preferred a government of nobles to the popular democracy which flourished under Francesco Carducci. While he desired the liberty of Florence, Segni saw that the republic could not hold its own against both Pope and Emperor, at a crisis when the King of France, who ought to have rendered assistance in the hour of need, was bound by the treaty of Cambray, and by the pledges he had given to Charles in the persons of his two sons. The policy of which Segni approved was that which Niccolo Capponi had prepared before his fall--a reconciliation with Clement through the intervention of the Emperor, according to the terms of which the Medici should have been restored as citizens of paramount authority, but not as sovereigns. Varchi, while no less alive to the insecurity of Carducci's policy, was animated with a more democratic spirit. He had none of Segni's Whig leanings, but shared the patriotic enthusiasm which at that supreme moment made the whole state splendidly audacious in the face of insurmountable difficulties. Both Segni and Varchi discerned the exaggerated and therefore baneful influence of Savonarola's prophecies over the populace of Florence. In spite of continued failure, the people kept trusting to the monk's prediction that, after her chastisement, Florence would bloom forth with double luster, and that angels in the last resort would man her walls and repel the invaders. There is something pathetic in this delusion of a great city, trusting with infantine pertinacity to the promises of the man whom they had seen burned as an impostor, when all the while their statesmen and their generals were striking bargains with the foe. Nardi is more sincerely Piagnone than either Segni or Varchi. Yet, writing after the events of the siege, his faith is shaken; and while he records his conviction that Savonarola was an excellent Nomothetes, he questions his prophetic mission, and deplores the effect produced by his vain promises. Nerli, as might have been expected from a noble married to Caterina Salviati, the niece of Leo and the aunt of Cosimo, who had himself been courtier to Clement and privy councilor to Alessandro, sustains the Medicean note throughout his commentaries.

[1] He goes so far as to assert that Leo X. and Clement VII. wished
to give a liberal constitution to Florence, but that their plans
were frustrated by the avarice and jealousy of the would-be
oligarchs. See _Arch. Stor_. vol. i. pp. 121,131. The passages
quoted from his 'Apologia de' Cappucci,' relative to Machiavelli,
Filippo Strozzi, and Francesco Guicciardini (_Arch. Stor_. vol. i.
pp. xxxix. xxxviii.), are very instructive; with such greedy
self-seeking oligarchs, it was impossible for the Medicean Popes to
establish any government but a tyranny in Florence.

Thus from these five authors, writing from different points of view, we gain a complete insight into the complicated politics of Florence, at a period when her vitality was still vigorous, but when she had lost all faculty for centralized or concerted action. In sagacity, in the power of analysis with which they pierce below the surface, trace effects to causes, discern character, and regard the facts of history as the proper subject-matter of philosophical reflection, they have much in common. He who has seen Rembrandt's painting of the dissecting-room might construct for himself another picture, in which the five grave faces of these patient observers should be bent above the dead and diseased body of their native city. Life is extinct. Nothing is left for science but, scalpel in hand, to lay bare the secret causes of dissolution. Each anatomist has his own opinion to deliver upon the nature of the malady. Each records the facts revealed by the autopsy according to his own impressions.

The literary qualities of these historians are very different, and seem to be derived from essential differences in their characters. Pitti is by far the most brilliant in style, concentrated in expression to the point of epigram, and weighty in judgment. Nardi, though deficient in some of the most attractive characteristics of the historian, is invaluable for sincerity of intention and painstaking accuracy. The philosophical, rhetorical, and dramatic passages which add so much splendor to the works of Guicciardini are absent from the pages of Nardi. He is anxious to present a clear picture of what happened; but he cannot make it animated, and he never reflects at length upon the matter of his history. At the same time he lacks the _naiivete_ which makes Corio, Allegretti, Infessura, and Matarazzo so amusing. He gossips as little as Machiavelli, and has no profundity to make up for the want of piquancy. The interest of his chronicle is greatest in the part which concerns Savonarola, though even here the peculiarly reticent and dubitative nature of the man is obvious. While he sympathizes with Savonarola's political and moral reforms, he raises a doubt about his inner sincerity, and does not approve of the attitude of the Piagnoni.[1] In his estimation of men Nardi was remarkably cautious, preferring always to give an external relation of events, instead of analyzing motives or criticising character.[2] He is in especial silent about bad men and criminal actions. Therefore, when he passes an adverse judgment (as, for instance, upon Cesare Borgia), or notes a dark act (as the _stuprum_ committed upon Astorre Manfredi), his corroboration of historians more addicted to scandal is important. Segni is far more lively than Nardi, while he is not less painstaking to be accurate. He shows a partisan feeling, especially in his admiration for Niccolo Capponi and his prejudice against Francesco Carducci, which gives the relish of personality that Nardi's cautiously dry chronicle lacks. Rarely have the entangled events of a specially dramatic period been set forth more lucidly, more succinctly, and with greater elegance of style. Segni is deficient, when compared with Varchi, only perhaps in volume, minuteness, and that wonderful mixture of candor, enthusiasm, and zeal for truth which makes Varchi incomparable. His sketches of men, critiques, and digressions upon statistical details are far less copious than Varchi's. But in idiomatic purity of language he is superior. Varchi had been spoiled by academic habits of composition. His language is diffuse and lumbering. He lacks the vivacity of epigram, selection, and pointed phrase. But his Storia Fiorentina remains the most valuable repertory of information we possess about the later vicissitudes of the republic, and the charm of detail compensates for the lack of style. Nerli is altogether a less interesting writer than those that have been mentioned; yet some of the particulars which he relates, about Savonarola's reform of manners, for example, and the literary gatherings in the Rucellai gardens, are such as we find nowhere else.

[1] Book ii. cap. 16.

[2] See lib. ii. cap. 34: 'Nel nostro scrivere non intendiamo
far giudizio delle cose incerte, e massimamente della
intenzione e animo segreto degli uomini, che non apparisce
chiara se non per congettura e riscontro delle cose esteriori.
E pero stando termo il primo proposito, vogliamo raccontare
quanto piu possibile ci sia, la verita delle cose fatte, piu
tosto che delle pensate o immaginate.' This is dignified and
noble language in an age which admired the brilliant falsehoods
of Giovio.

Many of my readers will doubtless feel that too much time has been spent in the discussion of these annalists of the siege of Florence. Yet for the student of history they have a value almost unique. They suggest the possibilities of a true science of comparative history, and reveal a vivacity of the historic consciousness which can be paralleled by no other nation. How different might be our conception of the vicissitudes of Athens between 404 and 338 B.C. if we possessed a similar Pleiad of contemporary Greek authors!

Having traced the development of historical research and political philosophy in Florence from the year 1300 to the fall of the Republic, it remains to speak of the two greatest masters of practical and theoretical statecraft--Francesco Guicciardini and Niccolo Machiavelli. These two writers combine all the distinctive qualities of the Florentine historiographers in the most eminent perfection. At the same time they are, not merely as authors but also as men, mirrors of the times in which they both played prominent parts. In their biographies and in their works we trace the spirit of an age devoid of moral sensibility, penetrative in analysis, but deficient in faith, hope, enthusiasm, and stability of character. The dry light of the intellect determined their judgment of men, as well as their theories of government. On the other hand, the sordid conditions of existence to which they were subjected as the servants of corrupt states, or the instruments of wily princes--as diplomatists intent upon the plans of kings like Ferdinand or adventurers like Cesare Borgia, privy councilors of such Popes as Clement VII. and such tyrants as Duke Alessandro de' Medici--distorted their philosophy and blunted their instincts. For the student of the sixteenth century they remain riddles, the solution of which is difficult, because by no strain of the imagination is it easy to place ourselves in their position. One half of their written utterances seem to be at variance with the other half. Their actions often contradict their most brilliant and emphatic precepts; while contemporaries disagree about their private character and public conduct. All this confusion, through which it is now perhaps impossible to discern what either Guicciardini or Machiavelli really was, and what they really felt and thought, is due to the anomaly of consummate ability and unrivaled knowledge of the world existing without religious or political faith, in an age of the utmost depravity of public and private morals. No criticism could be more stringent upon the contemporary disorganization of society in Italy than is the silent witness of these men, sublimely great in all mental qualities, but helplessly adrift upon a sea of contradictions and of doubts, ignorant of the real nature of mankind in spite of all their science, because they leave both goodness and beauty out of their calculations.

Francesco Guicciardini was born in 1482. In 1505, at the age of twenty-three, he had already so distinguished himself as a student of law that he was appointed by the Signoria of Florence to read the Institutes in public. However, as he preferred active to professorial work, he began at this time to practice at the bar, where he soon ranked as an able advocate and eloquent speaker. This reputation, together with his character for gravity and insight, determined the Signoria to send him on an embassy to the Court of Ferdinand of Aragon in 1512. Thus Guicciardini entered on the real work of his life as a diplomatist and statesman. We may also conclude with safety that it was at the court of that crowned hypocrite and traitor to all loyalty of soul that he learned his first lessons in political cynicism. The court of Spain under Ferdinand the Catholic was a perfect school of perfidy, where even an Italian might discern deeper reaches of human depravity and formulate for his own guidance a philosophy of despair. It was whispered by his enemies that here, upon the threshold of his public life, Guicciardini sold his honor by accepting a bribe from Ferdinand.[1] Certain it is that avarice was one of his besetting sins, and that from this time forward he preferred expediency to justice, and believed in the policy of supporting force by clever dissimulation.[2] Returning to Florence, Guicciardini was, in 1515, deputed to meet Leo X. on the part of the Republic at Cortona. Leo, who had the faculty of discerning able men and making use of them, took him into favor, and three years later appointed him Governor of Reggio and Modena. In 1521 Parma was added to his rule. Clement VII. made him Viceroy of Romagna in 1523, and in 1526 elevated him to the rank of Lieutenant-General of the Papal army. In consequence of this high commission, Guicciardini shared in the humiliation attaching to all the officers of the League who, with the Duke of Urbino at their head suffered Rome to be sacked and the Pope to be imprisoned in 1527. The blame of this contemptible display of cowardice or private spite cannot, however, be ascribed to him: for he attended the armies of the League not as general, but as counselor and chief reporter. It was his business not to control the movements of the army so much as to act as referee in the Pope's interest, and to keep the Vatican informed of what was stirring in the camp. In 1531 Guicciardini was advanced to the governorship of Bologna, the most important of all the Papal lord-lieutenancies. This post he resigned in 1534 on the election of Paul III., preferring to follow the fortunes of the Medicean princes at Florence. In this sketch of his career I must not omit to mention that Guicciardini was declared a rebel in 1527 by the popular government on account of his well-known Medicean prejudices, and that in 1530 he had been appointed by Clement VII. to punish the rebellious citizens. On the latter occasion he revenged himself for the insults offered him in 1527 by the cruelty with which he pushed proscription to the utmost limits, relegating his enemies to unhealthy places of exile, burdening them with intolerable fines, and using all the indirect means which his ingenuity could devise for forcing them into outlawry and contumacy.[3] Therefore when he returned to inhabit Florence, he did so as the creature of the Medici, sworn to maintain the bastard Alessandro in his power. He was elected a member of the Senate of eighty; and so thoroughly did he espouse the cause of his new master, that he had the face to undertake the Duke's defense before Charles V. at Naples in 1535. On this occasion Alessandro, who had rendered himself unbearable by his despotic habits, and in particular by the insults which he offered to women of all ranks and conditions in Florence, was arraigned by the exiles before the bar of Caesar. Guicciardini won the cause of his client, and restored Alessandro with an Imperial confirmation of his despotism to Florence. This period of his political career deserves particular attention, since it displays a glaring contradiction between some of his unpublished compositions and his actions, and confirms the accusations of his enemies.[4] That he should have preferred a government of Ottimati, or wealthy nobles, to a more popular constitution, and that he should have adhered with fidelity to the Medicean faction in Florence, is no ground for censure.[5] But when we find him in private unmasking the artifices of the despots by the most relentless use of frigid criticism, and advocating a mixed government upon the type of the Venetian Constitution, we are constrained to admit with Varchi and Pitti that his support of Alessandro was prompted less by loyalty than by a desire to gratify his own ambition and avarice under the protective shadow of the Medicean tyranny.[6] He belonged in fact to those selfish citizens whom Pitti denounces, diplomatists and men of the world, whose thirst for power induced them to play into the hands of the Medici, wishing to suck the state[7] themselves, and to hold the prince in the leading-strings of vice and pleasure for their own advantage.[8] After the murder of Alessandro, it was principally through Guicciardini's influence that Cosimo was placed at the head of the Florentine Republic with the title of Duke. Cosimo was but a boy, and much addicted to field sports. Guicciardini therefore reckoned that, with an assured income of 12,000 ducats, the youth would be contented to amuse himself, while he left the government of Florence in the hands of his Vizier.[9] But here the wily politician overreached himself. Cosimo wore an old head on his young shoulders. With decent modesty and a becoming show of deference, he used Guicciardini as his ladder to mount the throne by, and then kicked the ladder away. The first days of his administration showed that he intended to be sole master in Florence. Guicciardini, perceiving that his game was spoiled, retired to his villa in 1537 and spent the last years of his life in composing his histories. The famous Istoria d' Italia was the work of one year of this enforced retirement. The question irresistibly rises to our mind, whether some of the severe criticisms passed upon the Medici in his unpublished compositions were the fruit of these same bitter leisure hours.[10] Guicciardini died in 1540 at the age of fifty-eight, without male heirs.

[1] See the 'Apologia de' Cappucci,' _Arch. Stor._ vol. iv.
part 2, p. 318.

[2] For the avarice of Guicciardini, see Varchi, vol. i. p.
318. His _Ricordi Politici_ amply justify the second, though
not the first, clause of this sentence.

[3] See Varchi, book xii. (and especially cap. xxv.), for these
arts; he says, 'Nel che messer Francesco Guicciardini si
scoperse piu crudele e piu appassionato degli altri.'

[4] Knowing what sort of tyrant Alessandro was, and remembering
'hat Guicciardini had written (_Ricordi_, No. ccxlii.): 'La
calcina con che si murano gli stati de' tiranni e il sangue de'
cittadini: pero doverebbe sforzarsi ognuno che nella citta sua
non s'avessino a murare tali palazzi,' it is very difficult to
approve of his advocacy of the Duke.

[5] Though even here the selfish ambition of the man was
apparent to contemporaries: 'egli arebbe voluto uno stato col
nome d' Ottimati, ma in fatti de' Pochi, nel quale larghissima
parte, per le sue molte e rarissime qualita, meritissimamente
gli si venia.'--Varchi, vol. i. p. 318.

[6] Guicciardini's _Storia Fiorentina_ and _Reggimento di
Firenze_ (_Op. Ined._ vols. i, and iii.) may be consulted for
his private critique of the Medici. What was the judgment
passed upon him by contemporaries may be gathered from Varchi,
vols. i. pp. 238, 318; ii. 410; iii. 204. Segni, pp. 219, 332.
Nardi, vol. ii. p. 287. Pitti, quoted in _Arch. Stor._ vol. i.
p. xxxviii., and the 'Apologia de' Cappucci' (_Arch. Stor._
vol. iv. pt. 2). It is, however, only fair to Guicciardini to
record here his opinion, expressed in _Ricordi_, Nos. ccxx. and
cccxxx., that it was the duty of good citizens to seek to guide
the tyrant: 'Credo sia uficio di buoni cittadini, quando la
patria viene in mano di tiranni, cercare d'avere luogo con loro
per potere persuadere il bene, e detestare il male; e certo e
interesse della citta che in qualunque tempo gli uomini da bene
abbino autorita; e ancora che gli ignoranti e passionati di
Firenze l' abbino sempre intesa altrimenti, si accorgerebbono
quanta pestifero sarebbe il governo de' Medici, se non avessi
intorno altri che pazzi e cattivi.'

[7] See Varchi, vol. iii. p. 204. 'Che Cosimo ... _succiarsi lo
stato_.'

[8] Pitti dips his pen in gall when he describes these
citizens: 'Cotesti vogliosi Ottimati; i quali non hanno saputo
mai ritrovare luogo che piaccia loro, sottomendosi ora al
Medici per l'ingorda avarizia; ora gittandosi al popolo, per
non potere a modo loro tiraneggiare; ora rivendendolo a'
Medici, vedutisi scoperti e raffrenati da lui; e sempre mai con
danno della Repubblica, e di ciascuna parte, inquieti,
insaziabili e fraudolenti.'--'Apologia de' Cappucci,' _Arch.
Stor._ xv. pt. ii. p. 215.

[9] Here is a graphic touch in Varchi's _History_, vol. iii. p.
202. Guicciardini is discussing the appointment of Cosimo de'
Medici: 'Gli dovessero esser pagati per suo piatto ogn' anno
12,000 fiorini d' oro, e non piu, avendo il Guicciardino,
_abbassando il viso e alzando gli occhi_, detto: "Un 12,000
fiorini d' oro e--un bello spendere."'

[10] Pitti seems to have taken this view: see 'Apologia de'
Cappucci' (_Arch. Stor._ vol. iv. part ii. p. 329): 'Tosto che
'l duca Cosimo lo pose a sedere insieme con certi altri suoi
colleghi, si adiro malamente; e se la disputa della provvisione
non l' avesse ritenuto, sarebbe ito a servire papa Pagolo
terzo. Onde, restato confuso e disperato, si tratteneva alla
sua villa di Santa Margarita a Montici; dove transportato dalla
stizza ritocco in molte parti la sua Istoria, per mostrare di
non essere stato della setta Pallesca; e dove potette, accatto
l' occasione di parere istrumento della Repubblica.'
Guicciardini's own apology for his treatment of the Medici, in
the proemio to the treatise _Del Reggimento di Firenze_,
deserves also to be read.

Turning now from the statesman to the man of letters, we find in Guicciardini one of the most consummate historians of any nation or of any age. The work by which he is best known, the Istoria d' Italia, is one that can scarcely be surpassed for masterly control of a very intricate period, for subordination of the parts to the whole, for calmness of judgment and for philosophic depth of thought. Considering that Guicciardini in this great work was writing the annals of his own times, and that he had to disentangle the raveled skein of Italian politics in the sixteenth century, these qualities are most remarkable. The whole movement of the history recalls the pomp and dignity of Livy, while a series of portraits sketched from life with the unerring hand of an anatomist and artist add something of the vivid force of Tacitus. Yet Guicciardini in this work deserves less commendation as a writer than as a thinker. There is a manifest straining to secure style, by manipulation and rehandling, which contrasts unfavorably with the unaffected ease, the pregnant spontaneity, of his unpublished writings. His periods are almost interminable, and his rhetoric is prolix and monotonous. We can trace the effort to emulate the authors of antiquity without the ease which is acquired by practice or the taste that comes with nature.

The transcendent merit of the history is this--that it presents us with a scientific picture of politics and of society during the first half of the sixteenth century. The picture is set forth with a clairvoyance and a candor that are almost terrible. The author never feels enthusiasm for a moment: no character, however great for good or evil, rouses him from the attitude of tranquil disillusioned criticism. He utters but few exclamations of horror or of applause. Faith, religion, conscience, self-subordination to the public good, have no place in his list of human motives; interest, ambition, calculation, envy, are the forces which, according to his experience, move the world. That the strong should trample on the weak, that the wily should circumvent the innocent, that hypocrisy and fraud and dissimulation should triumph, seems to him but natural. His whole theory of humanity is tinged with the sad gray colors of a stolid, cold-eyed, ill-contented, egotistical indifference. He is not angry, desperate, indignant, but phlegmatically prudent, face to face with the ruin of his country. For him the world was a game of intrigue, in which his friends, his enemies, and himself played parts, equally sordid, with grave faces and hearts bent only on the gratification of mean desires. Accordingly, though his mastery of detail, his comprehension of personal motives, and his analysis of craft are alike incomparable, we find him incapable of forming general views with the breadth of philosophic insight or the sagacity of a frank and independent nature. The movements of the eagle and the lion must be unintelligible to the spider or the fox. It was impossible for Guicciardini to feel the real greatness of the century, or to foresee the new forces to which it was giving birth. He could not divine the momentous issues of the Lutheran schism; and though he perceived the immediate effect upon Italian politics of the invasion of the French, he failed to comprehend the revolution marked out for the future in the shock of the modern nations. While criticising the papacy, he discerned the pernicious results of nepotism and secular ambition: but he had no instinct for the necessity of a spiritual and religious regeneration. His judgment of the political situation led him to believe that the several units of the Italian system might be turned to profit and account by the application of superficial remedies,--by the development of despotism, for example, or of oligarchy, when in reality the decay of the nation was already past all cure.

Two other masterpieces from Guicciardini's pen, the _Dialogo del Reggimento di Firenze_ and the _Storia Fiorentina_, have been given to the world during the last twenty years. To have published them immediately after their author's death would have been inexpedient, since they are far too candid and outspoken to have been acceptable to the Medicean dynasty. Yet in these writings we find Guicciardini at his best. Here he has not yet assumed the mantle of the rhetorician, which in the _Istoria d' Italia_ sits upon him somewhat cumbrously. His style is more spontaneous; his utterances are less guarded. Writing for himself alone, he dares to say more plainly what he thinks and feels. At the same time the political sagacity of the statesman is revealed in all its vigor. I have so frequently used both of these treatises that I need not enter into a minute analysis of their contents. It will be enough to indicate some of the passages which display the literary style and the scientific acumen of Guicciardini at their best. The _Reggimento di Firenze_ is an essay upon the form of government for which Florence was best suited. Starting with a discussion of Savonarola's constitution, in which ample justice is done to the sagacity and promptitude by means of which he saved the commonwealth at a critical juncture (pp. 27-30), the interlocutors pass to an examination of the Medicean tyranny (pp. 34-49). This is one of the masterpieces of Guicciardini's analysis. He shows how the administration of justice, the distribution of public honors, and the foreign policy of the republic were perverted by this family. He condemns Cosimo's tyrannical application of fines and imposts (p. 68), Piero the younger's insolence (p. 46), and Lorenzo's appropriation of the public moneys to his private use (p. 43). Yet while setting forth the vices of this tyranny in language which even Sismondi would have been contented to translate and sign, Guicciardini shows no passion. The Medici were only acting as befitted princes eager for power, although they crushed the spirit of the people, discouraged political ardor, extinguished military zeal, and did all that in them lay to enervate the nation they governed. The scientific statist acknowledges no reciprocal rights and duties between the governor and the governed. It is a trial of strength. If the tyrant gets the upper hand, the people must expect to be oppressed. If, on the other side, the people triumph, they must take good care to exterminate the despotic brood: 'The one true remedy would be to destroy and extinguish them so utterly that not a vestige should remain, and to employ for this purpose the poignard or poison, as may be most convenient; otherwise the least surviving spark is certain to cause trouble and annoyance for the future'(p. 215). The same precise criticism lays bare the weakness of democracy. Men, says Guicciardini, always really desire their own power more than the freedom of the state (p. 50), and the motives even of tyrannicides are very rarely pure (pp. 53-54). The governments established by the liberals are full of defects. The Consiglio Grande, for example, of the Florentines is ignorant in its choice of magistrates, unjust in its apportionment of taxes, scarcely less prejudiced against individuals than a tyrant would be, and incapable of diplomatic foreign policy (pp. 58-69). Then follows a discussion of the relative merits of the three chief forms of government--the Governo dell' Uno, the Governo degli Ottimati, and the Governo del Popolo (p. 129). Guicciardini has already criticised the first and the third.[1] He now expresses a strong opinion that the second is the worst which could be applied to the actual conditions of the Florentine Republic (p. 130). His panegyric of the Venetian constitution (pp. 139-41) illustrates his plan for combining the advantages of the three species and obviating their respective evils. In fact he declares for that Utopia of the sixteenth century--the Governo Misto--a political invention which fascinated the imagination of Italian statesmen much in the same way as the theory of perpetual motion attracted scientific minds in the last century.[2] What follows is an elaborate scheme for applying the principles of the Governo Misto to the existing state of things in Florence. This lucid and learned disquisition is wound up (p. 188) with a mournful expression of the doubt which hung like a thick cloud over all the political speculations of both Guicciardini and Machiavelli: 'I hold it very doubtful, and I think it much depends on chance whether this disorganized constitution will ever take new shape or not ... and as I said yesterday, I should have more hope if the city were but young; seeing that not only does a state at the commencement take form with greater facility than one that has grown old under evil governments, but things always turn out more prosperously and more easily while fortune is yet fresh and has not run its course,' etc.[3] In reading the Dialogue on the Constitution of Florence it must finally be remembered that Guicciardini has thrown it back into the year 1494, and that he speaks through the mouths of four interlocutors. Therefore we may presume that he intended his readers to regard it as a work of speculative science rather than of practical political philosophy. Yet it is not difficult to gather the drift of his own meaning.

[1] Cf. _Ricordi_, cxl.: 'Chi disse uno popolo, disse veramente
uno animale pazzo, pieno ni mille errori, di mille confusioni,
sanza gusto, sanza diletto, sanza stabilita.' It should be
noted that Guicciardini here and elsewhere uses the term Popolo
in its fuller democratic sense. The successive enlargements of
the burgher class in Florence, together with the study of Greek
and Latin political philosophy, had introduced the modern
connotation of the term.

[2] A lucid criticism of the three forms of government is
contained in Guicciardini's Comment on the second chapter of
the first book of Machiavelli's _Discorsi_ (_Op. Ined._ vol. i.
p. 6): 'E non e dubio che il governo misto delle tre spezie,
principi, ottimati e popolo, e migliore e piu stabile che uno
governo semplice di qualunque delle tre spezie, e massime
quando e misto in modo che di qualunque spezie e tolto il buono
e lasciato indietro il cattivo.' Machiavelli had himself, in
the passage criticised, examined the three simple governments
and declared in favor of the mixed as that which gave stability
to Sparta, Rome, and Venice. The same line of thought may be
traced in the political speculations of both Plato and
Aristotle. The Athenians and Florentines felt the superior
stability of the Spartan and Venetian forms of government, just
as a French theorist might idealize the English constitution.
The essential element of the Governo Misto, which Florence had
lost beyond the possibility of regaining it, was a body of
hereditary and patriotic patricians. This gave its strength to
Venice; and this is that which hitherto has distinguished the
English nation.

[3] Compare _Ricordi Politici e Civili_, No. clxxxix., for a
lament of this kind over the decrepitude of kingdoms, almost
sublime in its stoicism.

The _Istoria Fiorentina_ is a succinct narrative of the events of Italian History, especially as they concerned Florence, between the years 1378 and 1509. In other words it relates the vicissitudes of the Republic under the Medici, and the administration of the Gonfalonier Soderini. This masterpiece of historical narration sets forth with brevity and frankness the whole series of events which are rhetorically and cautiously unfolded in the Istoria d' Italia. Most noticeable are the characters of Lorenzo de' Medici (cap. ix.), of Savonarola (cap. xvii.), and of Alexander VI. (cap. xxvii.). The immediate consequences of the French invasion have never been more ably treated than in Chapter xi., while the whole progress of Cesare Borgia in his career of villany is analyzed with exquisite distinctness in Chapter xxvi. The wisdom of Guicciardini nowhere appears more ripe, or his intellect more elastic, than in the _Istoria Fiorentina_. Students who desire to gain a still closer insight into the working of Guicciardini's mind should consult the 403 _Ricordi Politici e Civili_ collected in the first volume of his _Opere Inedite_. These have all the charm which belongs to occasional utterances, and are fit, like proverbs, to be worn for jewels on the finger of time.

The biography of Niccolo Machiavelli consists for the most part of a record of his public services to the State of Florence. He was born on May 3, 1469, of parents who belonged to the prosperous middle class of Florentine citizens. His ancestry was noble; for the old tradition which connected his descent with the feudal house of Montespertoli has been confirmed by documentary evidence.[1] His forefathers held offices of high distinction in the Commonwealth; and though their wealth and station had decreased, Machiavelli inherited a small landed estate. His family, who were originally settled in the Val di Pesa, owned farms at San Casciano and in other villages of the Florentine dominion, a list of which may be seen in the return presented by his father Bernardo to the revenue office in 1498.[2] Their wealth was no doubt trivial in comparison with that which citizens amassed by trade in Florence; for it was not the usage of those times to draw more than the necessaries of life from the Villa: all superfluities were provided by the Bottega in the town.[3] Yet there can be no question, after a comparison of Bernardo Machiavelli's return of his landed property with Niccolo Machiavelli's will,[4] that the illustrious war secretary at all periods of his life owned just sufficient property to maintain his family in a decent, if not a dignified, style. About his education we know next to nothing. Giovio[5] asserts that he possessed but little Latin, and that he owed the show of learning in his works to quotations furnished by Marcellus Virgilius. This accusation, which, whether it be true or not, was intended to be injurious, has lost its force in an age that, like ours, values erudition less than native genius. It is certain that Machiavelli knew quite enough of Latin and Greek literature to serve his turn; and his familiarity with some of the classical historians and philosophers is intimate. There is even too much parade in his works of illustrations borrowed from Polybius, Livy, and Plutarch: the only question is whether Machiavelli relied upon translations rather than originals. On this point, it is also worthy of remark that his culture was rather Roman than Hellenic. Had he at any period of his life made as profound a study of Plato's political dialogues as he made of Livy's histories, we cannot but feel that his theories both of government and statecraft might have been more concordant with a sane and normal humanity.

[1] See Villani's _Machiavelli_, vol. i. p. 303. Ed. Le
Monnier.

[2] See vol. i. of the edition of Machiavelli, by Mess. Fanfani
and Passerini, Florence, 1873; p. lv. Villani's Machiavelli,
ib. p. 306. The income is estimated at about 180_l._

[3] See Pandolfini, _Trattato del Governo della Famiglia_.

[4] Fanfani and Passerini's edition, vol. i. p. xcii.

[5] Elogia, cap. 87.