Florentine Histories

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Florentine Histories (

political philosopher and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, first published posthumously in 1532.[1]

Background

After the crisis of 1513, with arrests for conspiracy, torture and after being sentenced to house arrest, Machiavelli's relationship with the

Lorenzo II de' Medici
had not any effect, part of the then dominant faction of Florence was not against him, and instead granted him an appointment.

In his letter he deplores his idle state, offering his precious political experience to the new lord. To sustain that timid request Machiavelli, with a considerably courtier-like spirit, set his

florins
per year, later increased to 100).

The finished work was presented officially to Giulio de' Medici, now

The Art of War, in the preparations for the War of the League of Cognac. However, after the Sack of Rome (1527)
and the fall of the Medici government in Florence, Machiavelli's hopes were dashed. Machiavelli would die soon afterwards.

The work

The composition of the work presented a problem, for it was clear that the commission was not meant to give him the opportunity to eulogize the Republic of Florence, of which Machiavelli had been titled "il segretario" (the secretary) par excellence. What was expected of him, if not a glorification of the Medici family, was a treatise without polemics and tending to show the present state of things as a natural evolution. The perplexities of the author leaked through from some letters of his rich collection (to Francesco Guicciardini on August 30, 1524).

The structure of the work, quite contorted, illustrates the difficulty of the author. The first of the eight books is a general picture of the history of Europe from the fall of the

Cosimo il Vecchio
and Lorenzo il Magnifico.

Scipione Ammirato, was highly critical of Machiavelli's Florentine Histories; he said that Machiavelli «altered names, twisted facts, confounded cases, increased, added, subtracted, diminished and did anything that suited his fancy without checking, without lawful restraint and what is more, he seems to have done so occasionally on purpose!»[2]

The first edition was printed in the year 1532.

References

  1. ^ "Niccolo Machiavelli | Biography, Books, Philosophy, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-05-28.
  2. ^ Ammirato's Istorie fiorentine, ed., F. Ranalli (Florence, 1846), cited in Eric W. Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance, pp. 269-70.

External links

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