Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 7, 2025
The whole defense is a good piece of specious pleading, and might be used to illustrate the chapter on the Faith of Princes in the Principe. By far the most striking passage in Vettori's Sommario is the description of the march of Frundsberg's and De Bourbon's army upon Rome. He makes it clear to what extent the calamity of the sack was due to the selfishness and cowardice of the Italian princes.
He had therefore, like Machiavelli and Guicciardini, the best opportunities of forming a correct judgment of the men whose characters he weighed in his Sommario, and of obtaining a faithful account of the events which he related.
In the dedication to the Sommario he apologized in express terms for the high opinion recorded of this Pope. Yet the impression which he leaves upon our mind by what he writes is so unfavorable as to make it clear what Clement's foes habitually said against him. He remarks, as one excuse for his ill-success in office, that he succeeded to a Papacy ruined by the prodigality in war and peace of Leo.
We can only wonder that, in many cases, he obtained so complete an ascendency in the political world. All this is as true of Savonarola as it is of S. Bernardino. It is this which removes him so immeasurably from Huss, from Wesley and from Luther. The 'Sommario della Storia d'Italia dal 1511 al 1527, by Francesco Vettori.
The greater part of what remains of the Sommario is occupied with the wars and intrigues of Francis, Charles, and Clement. Vettori, it may be said in passing, records a very unfavorable opinion of the Marquis of Pescara, who was, he hints, guilty of first turning a favorable ear to Moroni's plot and then of discovering the whole to his master.
In the dedication of the Sommario della Storia d' Italia to Francesco Scarfi, Vettori says that he composed it at his villa, whither he retired in 1527.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking