Francesco Guicciardini - Publication of His Writings

Publication of His Writings

None of Francesco Guicciardini's works were published during his lifetime. It was not until 1561 that the first sixteen of the twenty books of his History of Italy were published. The first English "translation" by Sir Geffray Fenton was published in 1579. Until 1857 only the History and a small number of extracts from his aphorisms were known. In that year his descendents opened the Guicciardini family archives, and committed to Giuseppe Canestrini the publication of his memoirs in ten volumes. These are some of his works recovered from the archives:

• Ricordi politici e civili, already noted, consisting of about 220 maxims on political, social, and religious topics;
• Observations on Machiavelli's Discorsi, which bring into relief the views of Italy's two great theorists on statecraft in the 16th century, and show that Guicciardini regarded Machiavelli somewhat as an amiable visionary or political enthusiast;
• Storia Fiorentina, an early work of the author, distinguished by its animation of style, brilliancy of portraiture, and liberality of judgment;
• Dialogo del reggimento di Firenze, also in all probability an early work, in which the various forms of government suited to an Italian commonwealth are discussed with subtlety, contrasted, and illustrated from the vicissitudes of Florence up to the year 1494.

To these may be added a series of short essays, entitled Discorsi politici, composed during Guicciardini's Spanish legation.
Taken in combination with Machiavelli's treatises, the Opere inedite offer a comprehensive body of Italian political philosophy before Fra Paolo Sarpi.