"La historia d'Italia" (c. 1592): Navigating New Political Realities
Angelo Serrentino
An Introduction to the Text
La historia d’Italia (known in English as “The History of Italy”) was written by the Florentine statesman Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540). This edition of Guicciardini’s text was published in 1592 by the Venetian printer Paulo Ugolino. La historia d’Italia encompasses the history of Italy between the years 1490-1534, a period characterized by widespread military conflict and political unrest in the peninsula. In the text, Guicciardini asserts that history is driven by Fortune and particolare, which refers to a person’s inherent desire to pursue individual selfish ambitions and interests.[1] To Guicciardini, an individual’s particolare should be realized at any cost to ensure personal survival in the tumultuous world of sixteenth-century Italy.
Guicciardini’s new brand of humanism, which is centred on understanding and exploiting the individual, is framed within contemporary advancements in print culture, which in this instance are focused on ease of navigation and reader-friendliness. The index of notes, table of contents and running header are also complemented by printed annotations by the editor Tommaso Porcacchi visible in the margins. This edition of La historia d’Italia was thus intended to function as a guidebook for understanding and documenting the volatile political realities of sixteenth-century Italy, which is accomplished by the intersection of print culture and humanism.
[1] Peter E. Bondanella, Francesco Guicciardini (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 51.
Historical Context
Italy in the sixteenth century was host to waves of foreign armies bent on carving out the peninsula’s immense wealth. The French invasion of Italy, initiated by King Charles VIII de Valois (r. 1483-1498), began a series of conflicts that became known as the Italian Wars (1494-1559). Prior to the French invasion of 1494, the politically disparate Italian states were flourishing under the intellectual movement of humanism. Humanism permeated the lives of the affluent citizen-elite and aristocracy alike in Italy, a sliver of the peninsula’s overall population. At its core, humanism advocated for the application of ancient Greco-Roman ideas and morals to the resolution of contemporary issues in society, foremost among which was the understanding of the individual and one’s role in society. French and Habsburg ambition both worked to undermine the balance of power in Italy, ravaging the land with warfare and sowing widespread civic unrest. It is thus within the context of a tumultuous Italy that La historia d’Italia emerges.
Guicciardini’s La historia d’Italia was produced within a society embroiled in crisis. Florence, the cradle of Renaissance civilization, was not exempt from the consequences of the foreign invasions. Following a short-lived resurgence of the republican political system, Florence was transformed into a Duchy ruled first by Alessandro de’ Medici from 1532-1537. After the assassination of Alessandro, the seventeen-year-old Cosimo I de’ Medici (r. 1537-1574) was made Duke. Guicciardini was one of Florence’s leading political magnates during the initial rise of Duke Cosimo I, believing he could manipulate the young Duke as the real power behind the throne.[2] La historia d’Italia thus not only existed within an Italy transformed by foreign invasions, but also within a Florence wracked by political change and instability.
La historia d’Italia is a text reflective of contemporary transformations in the Italian and Florentine realities, with Guicciardini approaching the study of Italian history through the lens of someone who has been forced to adapt to change as he navigated new political realities. The advances of print culture and the intellectual tenets of humanism are repurposed by La historia d’Italia in a unique manner, making use of book architecture and humanist understanding of the world toward the question of survival in the hostile Italy of the sixteenth century.
[2] Kenneth R. Bartlett, A Short History of the Italian Renaissance (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 256.
Navigating the New Political Realities of Sixteenth-Century Italy: The Book and Humanism
La historia d’Italia by Francesco Guicciardini provides valuable insight into the relationship between print culture and the intellectual movement of humanism, demonstrating the extent to which they functioned in conjunction to convey a particular message. La historia d’Italia is indicative of the transformed political and cultural landscape of sixteenth-century Italy, which slowly slipped into the control of Northern Europe’s leading territorial monarchies. The transformations wrought by the Italian Wars are made evident by the nature of Guicciardini’s message in La historia d’Italia, which is focused on the bleak realities of adjusting to life under the influence of more powerful foreign powers. Humanism thus becomes a tool used by Guicciardini to understand the particolari present in Italian society, focusing on the exploitation of the individual for selfish gain, which Guicciardini equates to survival. The book and its architecture work in conjunction with Guicciardini’s conception of humanism to disseminate his message in an effective manner.
The Book as an Artefact
As an artefact, La historia d’Italia is replete with features that speak to its purpose as a tool for educating a politically-involved citizen who wishes to remain afloat in the new realities of sixteenth-century Italian society. The three tables featured within the book are designed to assist the reader in navigating the lengthy text; the first table (Sententie Sparse per L’historia del Guicciardino) is a index of notes intended to clarify certain terms or concepts contained within the text for the reader, while the second table (di tutti gli auttori) contains a comprehensive list of key historical figures and individuals referenced by Guicciardini in his text. The third table (delle cose piu notabili) functions as a more conventional table of contents.
The book’s architecture is thus decidedly reader-friendly, a theme continued in the structure of each chapter. Before the start of each chapter, a brief summary (printed in roman font) of that given chapter’s contents is visible, for the convenience of the reader. Additionally, a running header located at the top-left hand corner of each page in a chapter contains the year of the events that the author discusses on the given page.
La historia d’Italia thus demonstrates a fascinating interaction between print culture and the intellectual movement of humanism. The architecture of the book facilitates ease of navigation for the reader, featuring three tauole (“tables”) located near the beginning of the book; the first functions as an index of notes that clarify certain concepts, with the second containing key individuals referenced by Guicciardini in his text, and the third acting as a more conventional table of contents. A running header with a year is visible in each chapter, to provide the corresponding date for the events discussed on a given page for the reader. Here, contemporary printing innovations are used to disseminate a new form of humanist thought.
