Guicciardini

Guicciardini, FRANCESCO, an Italian statesman and historian, was born of noble parentage at Florence in 1483. The combined studies of law and literature engrossed his attention at first; and at the age of twenty-three he was elected professor of Law at Florence, where he also practised as an advocate. But his real field was diplomacy and statesmanship, as understood at that time in Italy—the diplomacy and statesmanship of Macchia-velli. His apprenticeship served in Spain (1512-14), he became papal ruler of Modena and Reggio (from 1515) under Leo X. and Clement VII., and afterwards of Parma (1521), the Romagna (1523), and Bologna (1531). Retiring from the service of the pope in 1534, he was mainly instrumental in securing the election of Cosmo de' Medici as duke of his native city, Florence. But, being disappointed in his ambitious design of acting as mayor of the palace to this young prince, Guicciardini withdrew to Arcetri, and busied himself, till his death in 1540, with the composition of a great work, Storia d' Italia, a dispassionate and coldly analytical history of Italy between 1494 and 1532. This work was edited by Rosini in 10 vols. (Pisa, 1819). In 1557-67 there appeared at Florence, in 10 vols., the Opere Inedite of Guicciardini, containing Ricordi Politici, a series of aphorisms on political philosophy; Reggimento di Firenze, a discourse on the forms of government suited for an Italian state; and Storia Fiorentina. See Edinburgh Review (1869); and Giòda, Guicciardini e le sue opere inedite (Milan, 1880). His Maxims were translated into English by N. H. Thomson in 1890.