Francesco Guicciardini

Francesco Guicciardini ( born March 6, 1483 Florence, † May 22 1540 in Montici ) was an Italian politician and historian. His " Storia d' Italia " is the leading piece of history for the things of Italy 1492-1534. Beyond this large self-weight is Guicciardini known as a friend and companion of Niccolò Machiavelli.

Life

Guicciardini was descended from old established family of the oligarchy of Florence. At the universities of Florence, Ferrara and Padua, he studied jurisprudence; a longed for him ecclesiastical career was denied to him by his father Piero. Already in January 1512 he was sent by the Signoria as ambassador to the court of Ferdinand the Catholic of Aragon, less than the tottering in the alliance decision between France and Spain, the Republic of Florence wanted to try the king as alternative ally, citing a 1509 agreed protection. Accordingly, he was ambassador to Spain, as the Florentine Republic fell and the Medici returned in the late summer of the year. His " Discorso di Logrogno " commented to a foreign place, the difficulty of Florence under Piero Soderini and was randomly on 31 August, with the final touches on the day of the fall of it.

From 1516 Guicciardini was (pp. 1523-1534 ) and has held high positions, first the governor of Modena in the service of the Medici Popes Leo X (pp. 1513-1521 ) and Clement VII. Soon he was the president or governor in the Romagna and 1526/27 in War of the League of Cognac against the threat posed by Charles V of Habsburg- Spanish universal rule of the papal lieutenant general. In its functions Guicciardini experienced by his own admission enough abuse of papal power in order to convert him to Lutheranism. However, he was not only an obedient son of the Catholic Church, but also his papal bread donors loyal.

A similar discrepancy between private opinion and public action he showed in his work for the Medici as despots of Florence: though he looked a Council rule along the lines of Venice as the best possible form of government, and she could see indicated in the order of the years before 1512, he sat their utmost for the infamous Medici a tyrant. During his lifetime earned him the reputation of a cynical opportunist one. In the turmoil of the year 1527, the year of the sack of Rome, his hometown rebelled against the rule of the Medici Sprouts Alessandro and Ippolito de ' Medici and Cardinal Silvio Passerini and against the reetablierte the Republic. Guicciardini as a known supporter of the Medici had also fled to escape later. Under the new fall of the Republic in 1530, he was charged with the punishment of the population, which he carried out with cruel severity.

After the murder of Alessandro in 1537 hoped Guicciardini, an adviser to the under-age Cosimo de Medici to exercise the real power in Florence. His expectations were disappointed, for Cosimo dismissed him from all his offices. The last years of his life, the aging ex- diplomat at his country home in Arcetri, where he earned by writing his major work lasting fame: He wrote the " Storia d' Italia ".

A nephew Francesco Guicciardini was the cartographer Lodovico Guicciardini.

" Storia d' Italia ": history of Italy from 1492 onwards

Objectively cool, detailed and precise the extensive historical work was written that related to the span of 1492 to the thirties of the 16th century " Storia d' Italia ". Guicciardini described the events as a political insider, but distant and impartial amazing for its time. He also drew from the few years earlier events in the political torn Italy by a cross-regional, national standpoint. The work was long regarded as incontestable; until the 19th century it by Leopold von Ranke fundamental errors were detected.

Works

• Storie fiorentine (first " History of Florence" ) ( 1508-1510 )
• Diario di Spagna ( 1512) (Spanish Diary )
• Discorso di Logrogno ( 1512)
• Relazione di Spagna ( 1514)
• Consolatoria (1527 )
• Oratio accusatoria (1527 )
• Oratio defensive soria (1527 )
• Del Reggimento di Firenze or e Dialogo del discorsi Reggimento di Firenze ( " Dialogue on the Government of Florence" ) ( 1527)
• Considerazioni intorno ai " Discourses " sopra la prima deca del Machiavelli di Tito Livio ( " Comments on Machiavelli's discourses " ) ( 1528 or frgl. 1530)
• Ricordi Ricordi politici or ( as noted in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica published ) or Ricordi politici e civili ( as Giuseppe Canestrini published in 1857 ) or Ricordi politici e civili ( in the Catholic Encyclopedia so called ) and " Maxims and Reflections" in Translation ( 1512 -1530 )
• Le cose fiorentine (second " History of Florence" ) ( 1528-1531 )
• Storia d' Italia ( " History of Italy " ) ( 1537-1540 )