Francesco Guicciardini Gives Examples For Study of History of Italian Wars

Francesco Guicciardini (1483 - 1540) was born of a well-off connected family in Florence. He was a diplomat, governed Reggio and Modena for the papacy, was a member of Florence's Signoria and wrote a great number of books. Much more about his life, experience, works, the criticism on that, etc. will come later. Here he is, late in life where he gives a kind of prospectus at the beginning of his twenty volume History of the Wars in Italy.

"... Italy for a longSeries of Years having laboured under all such Calamities as the Almighty is wont, in his Displeasure, to inflict on wretched Mortals for their Impieties and Wickedness. From the Knowledge of so many, so various, and so important Incidents, every one may draw Instructions of some sort or other, conducive both to his own and to the Public Good. By numberless Examples it will evidently appear, that human Affairs are as subject to Change and Fluctuation as the Waters of the Sea, agitated by the Winds: and also how pernicious, often to themselves, and ever to their People, are the precipitate Measures of our Rulers, when actuated only by the allurement of some vain Project, or present Pleasure and Advantage. Such Princes never allow themselves Leisure to reflect on the Instability of Fortune ; but, perverting the Use of that Power which was given them to do good, become the Authors of Disquiet and Confusion by their Misconduct and Ambition. " [p. 2]

This is from a 1763 published translation by Austin Parke Goddard into English, compleat with its own period's Capitalization of specific Nouns. The author a man in his 50's, wrote it probably in the late 1530's in Italian. The translator, a man in his 20's, translated it in the 1750's for an English audience. This huge undertaking was also shipped to the Americas and this work used by people like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, collecting and keeping them in their homes and reading them. Which just goes to show a bit of how widely these have gone on to be read and how they can be read. 

It needs to be mentioned again that Guiccciardini was, as a statesman, a politician as well as a Florentine partisan who, as a family member served also the allied de' Medici clan as partisans in his times, in all manner of Florentine and Italian affairs. It is safe to say that we have a Florentine point of view here when we read Guicciardini describing the Italian wars of his period, and much else and that he lived through them and even played some part in them, later on.

But for the start of the Italian Wars, and the advancement of the French King Charles in 1494 over the Alps, into Italy, Guicciardini places much of the blame on Ludovico Sforza as is commonly accepted in modern times. What he does do that is more surprising, since he was so Florentine and such a servant to Leo X, and Clement VII, is how much blame he puts into the lap of Piero de'Medici, the son of the great Lorenzo. This son Piero led affairs for Florence in the period of the French invasion.

There is no need for citation for this huge amazing, revealing source. It's online at archive.org.