LA HISTORIA D'ITALIA

Di M. Francesco Guicciardini

Ed. T. Porcacchi

by Guicciardini, Francesco

 Venice, P. Ugolino, 1592

Size 6 1/2 by 8 1/2"

 2 parts in one volume.

(36),(17),488; 112 lvs.

 3 woodcut printer's marks (incl. 1 on div. title)


Original overlapping vellum with manuscript title to the spine

Several quires sl. waterstained in upper/ lower margins; occasional browning,  upper endpaper and first few leaves slightly wormholed in inner margin.

Text in Italian


Rare enlarged edition of Porcacchi's commentary.

The Historia d'Italia "is the most successful work of Guicciardini (1483-1540), who, in the footsteps of Machiavelli, reconstructed the historical events of Italy between the death of the Magnificent (1492) and 1534, year of the death of Clement VII. "

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Guicciardini is best known as the author of the Storia d'Italia (History of Italy), which provides a detailed account of politics in the Italian Peninsula between 1490 and 1534. Written during the last years of his life, this work contains the historian's observations collected over his entire lifetime and was a work intended for posterity. As Gilbert writes: "The History of Italy stands apart from all his writings because it was the one work which he wrote not for himself, but for the public."

In his research, Guicciardini drew upon material that he gathered from government records as well as from his own extensive experience in politics. His many personal encounters with powerful Italian rulers serves to explain his perspective as a historian: “Francesco Guicciardini might be called a psychological historian—for him the motive power of the huge clockwork of events may be traced down the mainspring of individual behavior. Not any individual, be it noted, but those in positions of command: emperors, princes and popes who may be counted on to act always in terms of their self-interest—the famous Guicciardinian particolare.”
In the following excerpt, the historian records his observations on the character of Pope Clement VII:

“And although he had a most capable intelligence and marvelous knowledge of world affairs, yet he lacked the corresponding resolution and execution. For he was impeded not only by his timidity of spirit, which was by no means small, and by a strong reluctance to spend, but also by a certain innate irresolution and perplexity, so that he remained almost always in suspension and ambiguous when he was faced with those deciding those thing which from afar he had many times foreseen, considered, and almost revealed."

Moreover, what sets Guicciardini apart from other historians of his time is his understanding of historical context. His approach was already evident in his early work The History of Florence (1509): “The young historian was already doubtlessly aware of the meaning of historical perspective; the same facts acquiring different weight in different contexts, a sense of proportion was called for.”

In the words of one of Guicciardini's severest critics, Francesco de Sanctis: "If we consider intellectual power [the Storia d'Italia] is the most important work that has issued from an Italian mind."
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