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1 This, incidentally, is another misstatement. Valentinois had with him, besides the thousand foot levied by the Pope and the hundred lances under Morgante Baglioni, an army some thousands strong led for him by Yves d'Allegre. Guicciardini's aim is, of course, to shock you; he considers it necessary to maintain in Cesare the character of ravenous wolf which he had bestowed upon him.
True, however, is it that since there was a Court at Florence, first that of Giulio, the Cardinal de' Medici, then that of the Cardinal of Cortona, which enjoyed more license than the former, the manners of the city have become more refined or shall I say more corrupt? The Character of Alexander VI., from Guicciardini's Story, Fiorentina, cap. 27. See Chap. vii. p. 412 above.
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.
It is first mentioned by Guicciardini; and there is no logical conclusion to be formed other than that Guicciardini invented it. Another story which owes its existence mainly, and its particulars almost entirely, to Guicciardini's libellous pen the story of the death of Alexander VI, which in its place shall be examined provoked the righteous anger of Voltaire.
The dread of this catastrophe rendered Venice odious to her sister commonwealths at the close of the fifteenth century, and justified, according to Guicciardini's views of history, the action taken by Cosimo de' Medici in 1450, when he rendered Milan strong by supporting her despot, Francesco Sforza. In a word republican freedom, as the term is now understood, was unknown in Italy.
Guicciardini's Dialogo del Reggimento di Firenze (Op. Ined. vol. ii. p. 94) sets forth the state of internal anarchy and external violence which followed the departure of Charles VIII., with wonderful acuteness. 'Se per sorte l' uno Oltramontano caccer
It was an ugly, unscrupulous deed; but there is no need to exaggerate its heinousness, as is constantly done, upon no better authority than Guicciardini's, who wrote that the murder had been committed "saziata prima la libidine di qualcuno."
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 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.
His liberality was inconsiderate, immoderate, promiscuous. When he displayed inflexibility of purpose, it was more often an ill-founded obstinacy than firmness, and that which many people called his goodness of nature rather deserved the name of coldness and feebleness of spirit. This is Guicciardini's portrait.
Let the shame that must eternally attach to him for it brand also those subsequent writers who repeated and retailed that abominable and utterly unsupported accusation, and more particularly those who have not hesitated to assume that Guicciardini's "qualcuno" was an old man in his seventy-second year Pope Alexander VI.
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