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Guicciardini, Machiavelli, Valori on Lorenzo Magnifico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Felix Gilbert
Felix Gilbert*
Affiliation:
Bryn Mawr College
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Extract

In an appendix to his biography of Francesco Guicciardini published in 1862, Eugène Benoist printed a brief piece by Guicciardini which the editors of Guicciardini's Opere Inedite had overlooked. The piece is a ‘Portrait of Lorenzo Magnifico de' Medici’. About its authenticity there can be no doubt; the manuscript on which Benoist's publication was based, was written in Guicciardini's own hand. Thus Palmarocchi, the editor of the most recent critical edition of Guicciardini's works, printed it in the volume containing Guicciardini's Saitti Politici e Ricordi. In an explanatory note Palmarocchi tried to date the manuscript and suggested that it was written in Spain during the last months of the year 1512 and the first of 1513.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance News , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Summer 1958 , pp. 107 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1958

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References

1 Eugène, Benoist, Guichardin, historien et homme d'Etat Florentin au XVI*“* stick (Marseilles, 1862).Google Scholar

2 Francesco, Guicciardini, Saitti PoUtici e Ricordi, a cura di R. Palmarocchi (Ban, 1933). PP. 223–228.Google Scholar

3 Guicciardini, Scritti PoUtici, p. 368: ‘La finale allusione al cardinale de’ Medici fa ritenere che la sua composizione debba precedere di poco l'elezione di Leone x, se pure il Guicciardini non fece una specie di profezia post eventum.’ The election of Leo x took place on March 11,1513.

4 Francesco, Guicciardini, Stone Florentine, a cura di R. Palmarocchi (Bari, 1931), pp. 72–82.Google Scholar

5 See Francesco, Guicciardini, Carteggio, ed. R., Palmarocchi, vol. I,Google Scholar which contains the correspondence from Spain. The first letter of a member of the Medici family to Guicciardini is only dated February 18,1513.

6 Guicciardini, Scritti Politici, p. 228: ‘Rimase in tanto lutto una sola consolazione, e questa e della speranza che si aveva de’ figloli, massime del secondogenito messer Giovanni Cardinale, nel quale, benche’ allora fussi di eta molto tenera, si vedeva tale indole ed apparivano tali segni di probitd e di virtii, che e’ fussi insino a allora opinione che e’ non avessi a essere inferiore al padre, ed una espettazione ferma di tutti che avessi ad essere ornamento di quella degnita e della Chiesa di Dio, e che se venissi mai tempo che el sommo pontificato si dessi per virtii, non per ambitione e corruttele, che vivendo lui insino alia eti conveniente avessi sanzo alcuno dubio a essere eletto.'

7 Guicciardini left Spain in November 1513, and arrived in Florence on January 9, 1514.

8 The most recent treatment of the constitutional thinking of this period will be found in Rudolf von Albertini, Das Florentinische Staatsbewusstsein im Vbergang von derRepublikzumPrinzipat (Bern. 1955), pp. 74-107.

9 use Machiavelli's Istorie Florentine in the critical edition of Plinio Carli (Firenze, 1927), where the elogium will be found in vol. n, 218-221.

10 The Latin text of Valori's Vita is available in Philippi, Villani, Liber de civitatis Florentiae Famosis civibus, ed. G. C., Galletti (Florence, 1847), pp. 164–182;Google Scholar there are several Italian translations, but their text is inaccurate.

11 An exception is Guicciardini's mentioning of Bartolommeo Scala, whom he had already mentioned, however, in his Florentine Hutory as a particular favorite of Lorenzo; see Guicciardini, Storie Fiorentine, p. 79.

12 Or see their discussions of Lorenzo's relations to the Sultan, to Pico della Mirandola, to Lascaris.

13 Valori, p. 167; Guicciardini, Scritti Politici, p. 226.

14 Machiavelli, p. 220; Valori, pp. 167-168.

15 For the relations between Machiavelli and Valori see the passages indicated under 'Valori’ in R.Ridolfi, Vita di Niccold Machiavelli (Roma, 1954).

16 Ridolfi, p. 309.

17 Valori, p. 164.

18 He maintains this pretension in the text when he writes in referring to Giovanni Medici ‘quern nunc Sacrosanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem habemus', Valori, p. 181.

19 See Valori, p. 171: ‘Non eo, inquit, ventum est, ut cum periculo totius Italiae rebus nostris consulamus. Utinam Gallorum regibus nullo tempore in mentem veniat vires suas in hac terra experiri. Quotiescumque illud accident, actum est (mihi credite) de Italia universa'; also Valori, p. 182.

20 See P. O., Kristeller, Supplementum Ficinianum (Florence, 1937), vol. n, p. 353.Google Scholar

21 It would seem that in these years, attempts were made to get Valori back into the graces of the Medici; he became Florentine ambassador in Rome in 1522. It might not be by chance that in the same years attempts were made for the ‘rehabilitation’ of Machiavelli; he received the task of writing the Florentine History in 1520.

22 Burckhaidt, in the section on biography of his Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, mentions Valori among those ‘by whom European historical literature has probably been influenced [in the direction of biographical writing] as by the ancients.'