Francesco Guicciardini (historian)
Francesco Guicciardini (born March 6, 1483 in Florence , † May 22, 1540 in Montici ) was an Italian politician and historian. His Storia d'Italia is the leading piece of history for the things of Italy between 1492 and 1534. Beyond this great weight, Guicciardini is known as a friend and companion of Niccolò Machiavelli .
Life
Guicciardini came from an established family of the Florence oligarchy. He studied law at the universities of Florence, Ferrara and Padua ; An ecclesiastical career longed for by him was denied him by his father Piero. As early as January 1512 he was sent by the Signoria as ambassador to the court of Ferdinand the Catholic in Aragón , when the Republic of Florence, wavering in the alliance decision between France and Spain, wanted to use the king as an alternative ally, citing a protection agreed in 1509. Accordingly, he was envoy to Spain when the Republic of Florence fell and the Medici returned in late summer of the year. His Discorso di Logrogno commented on the difficulties of Florence under Piero Soderini in a strange place and was touched by him for the last time on August 31, the day of the fall.
From 1516 Guicciardini was in the service of the Medici Popes Leo X (pp. 1513–1521) and Clement VII. (Pp. 1523 to 1534) and held high positions, initially that of the governor of Modena . Soon he was the president or governor in Romagna and in 1526/27 the papal lieutenant general in the war of the League of Cognac against Charles V 's threat of universal rule by the Habsburgs and Spain. According to his own admission, Guicciardini experienced enough abuse of papal power in his functions that he converted to Lutheranism. Nevertheless, he remained not only an obedient son of the Catholic Church, but also loyal to his papal employers.
He showed a similar discrepancy between private opinion and public work in his work for the Medici as despots of Florence: although he regarded council rule based on the example of Venice as the best possible form of government and could see it hinted at in the order of the years before 1512, he continued to the best of his ability for the unpopular Medici tyrant. This earned him the reputation of a cynical opportunist during his lifetime .
Since France withdrew from aid to the Italians in 1526/27, the war of the League of Cognac led to disaster: German soldiers under Frundsberg gathered in Tyrol from autumn 1526. In the spring of 1527, south of Milan, they united with the Spanish under Charles de Bourbon - and finally marched against Rome amid wages and plunder.
In the turmoil of the summer of 1527, the year Rome was sacked, the hometown of Florence rebelled against the regiment of the Medici offspring Alessandro and Ippolito de 'Medici and against Cardinal Silvio Passerini and re-established the republic. Guicciardini, a well-known supporter of the escaped Medici, later also had to flee. After the new overthrow of the republic in 1530, he was charged with punishing the population, which he carried out with cruel severity.
After Alessandro's assassination in 1537, Guicciardini hoped to be able to exercise true power in Florence as an advisor to the underage Cosimo de 'Medici . However, his expectations were disappointed because Cosimo dismissed him from all offices. The aging ex-diplomat spent the last years of his life on his country estate in Arcetri , where he earned lasting fame by writing his main work: he wrote the “Storia d'Italia”.
A nephew of Francesco Guicciardini was the cartographer Lodovico Guicciardini .
"Storia d'Italia": History of Italy from 1492
The extensive historical work was written in a cool, factual, detailed and precise manner, the "Storia d'Italia", which covers the span from 1492 to the 1630s. Guicciardini described the events as a political insider, but aloof and surprisingly impartial for the time. In addition, he distinguished the events in politically torn Italy a few years ago from a supraregional, national point of view. For a long time the work was considered incontestable; It was not until the 19th century that Leopold von Ranke identified him with fundamental errors.
The circumstances of the death of Pope Alexander VI are incorrectly noted . The false claim that he died of his own poison was common property.
For the period from December 1503 to summer 1504, the report is non-chronological, jerking through the events, so to speak.
Works
- Storie fiorentine (first "story of Florence") (1508–1510)
- Diario di Spagna (1512) (Spanish diary)
- Discorso di Logrogno (1512)
- Relazione di Spagna (1514)
- Consolatoria (1527)
- Oratio accusatoria (1527)
- Oratio defensoria (1527)
- Del reggimento di Firenze or Dialogo e discorsi del reggimento di Firenze ("Dialogues on the Government of Florence") (1527)
- Considerazioni intorno ai “Discorsi” del Machiavelli sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio (“Comments on Machiavelli's Discourses”) (1528, or frgl. 1530)
- Ricordi (also Ricordi politici , Ricordi civili e politici , Ricordi politici e civili , in translations "Maximen und Reflexionen" or "On political and bourgeois life"; 1512-1530)
- Le cose fiorentine (second "story of Florence") (1528–1531)
- Storia d'Italia ("History of Italy") (1537–1540)
Editions and translations
- Carlo Celli (editor and translator): The Defeat of a Renaissance Intellectual: Selected Writings of Francesco Guicciardini. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park 2019, ISBN 978-0-271-08348-3 .
- Ernesto Grassi , Karl Josef Partsch (translator): Francesco Guicciardini: From political and civil life. "Ricordi". Helmut Küpper, Berlin 1942
literature
- Volker Reinhardt : Francesco Guiccardini (1483-1540). The discovery of the contradiction. Wallstein, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89244-805-1 .
- Jürgen Huber: Guicciardini's criticism of Machiavelli. Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-8244-4603-0 .
- Pierre Jodogne, Gino Benzoni : Guicciardini, Francesco. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 61: Guglielmo Gonzaga-Jacobini. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2003.
- Tobias Daniels: Francesco Guicciardini (historian). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 32, Bautz, Nordhausen 2011, ISBN 978-3-88309-615-5 .
- Nicolai Rubinstein : Francesco Guicciardini. In: Hartmut Boockmann, Bernd Moeller , Karl Stackmann (eds.): Life lessons and world designs in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age. Politics - Education - Natural History - Theology. Report on colloquia of the commission to research the culture of the late Middle Ages 1983 to 1987 (= treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen: philological-historical class. Volume III, No. 179). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1989, ISBN 3-525-82463-7 , pp. 141-159.
Web links
- Works by and about Francesco Guicciardini in the German Digital Library
- Overview of digitized copies of Guicciardini's writings on rete indaco .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Guicciardini, Francesco |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian historian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 6, 1483 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Florence |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 22, 1540 |
| Place of death | Montici |