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Updated: May 18, 2025
The Pitti approached from the Via Guicciardini is far liker a prison than a palace. It was commissioned by Luca Pitti, one of the proudest and richest of the rivals of the Medici, in 1441.
Amid this general perturbation of the old political order the year 1494, marked in its first month by the death of King Ferdinand, began 'a year, to quote from Guicciardini, 'the most unfortunate for Italy, the very first in truth of our disastrous years, since it opened the door to numberless and horrible calamities, in which it may be said that a great portion of the world has subsequently shared. The expectation and uneasiness of the whole nation were proportioned to the magnitude of the coming change.
Francesco Guicciardini, the first statesman and historian of his age, had undertaken his defence, and was ready to support him by advice and countenance in the conduct of his government. Within the lute of this prosperity, however, there was one little rift.
The very nature of its alleged action was such as utterly to conceal the hand that had administered it; yet here, on the first recorded occasion of its alleged use, it was more or less common knowledge if Giovio and Guicciardini are to be believed!
Of this we are ourselves the witness, by reason of things they have done and attempted against us through their inborn ambition; and of the many misfortunes which have happened of late in Italy it is clear that the Popes are authors. It is not so much however with the political as with the moral aspect of the Church that we are at present concerned: and on the latter point Guicciardini may once more be confronted with his illustrious contemporary.
Considering that Guicciardini in this great work was writing the annals of his own times, and that he had to disentangle the raveled skein of Italian politics in the sixteenth century, these qualities are most remarkable.
So that, when all is said, Ferrante shed his kingly tears to his wife in private, and to her in private he delivered his opinion of the new Pontiff. How, then, came Guicciardini to know of the matter? True, he says, "It is well known" meaning that he had those tears upon hearsay.
I padri vi concedevano le figliuole, i mariti le mogliere, i fratelli le sorelle; e per sifatto modo senz' alcun riguardo molti concorreano all' amoroso ballo, che cosa stupendissima era riputata per qualunque l' intendeva. Guicciardini, Storia d' Italia, lib. iii. p. 35, sums up the character of Lodovico with masterly completeness.
On this occasion Alessandro, who had rendered himself unbearable by his despotic habits, and in particular by the insults which he offered to women of all ranks and conditions in Florence, was arraigned by the exiles before the bar of Cæsar. Guicciardini won the cause of his client, and restored Alessandro with an Imperial confirmation of his despotism to Florence.
Meanwhile, he wrote a history of Italy, from 1789 to 1814, which was received with great enthusiasm through Italy, and for which the Academy della Crusca, in 1830, granted to him a pecuniary reward. This was followed by the "History of Italy," in continuation of Guicciardini, from the fall of the Florentine Republic to 1789, a gigantic work, with which he closed his historical career.
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