SOURCE: "Guicciardini and the Humanist Historians," Annali d'Italianistica, Vol. 2, 1984, pp. 19-33.

[In the following essay, Wilcox places Guicciardini within the tradition of Renaissance humanist historians but stipulates that Guicciardini's writings differ from the rest thanks to his understanding both of individual psychology and of the complex, changing connections between historical events.]

Guicciardini's relation to the tradition of humanist historiography remains problematic despite considerable study over the past thirty years. Early attempts to dissociate Guicciardini were flawed by misunderstanding of the fundamental traits of humanist historiography. In 1950, Vittorio De Caprariis accepted a longstanding interpretation of the humanists when he saw them as pale and inaccurate reflections of the vernacular chroniclers, lacking interest in detail or critical method that would make them good sources for modern historians.¹ De Caprariis stressed Guicciardini's departure from the humanists and saw in the Storia d'Italia the qualities of careful research and attention to detail that have given the work such a reputation among positivist historians. De Caprariis acknowledged that some of Guicciardini's earlier works, such as his first history of Florence, resembled the humanist histories, but he felt that they were works of political theory rather than true history.

De Caprariis' tendency to evaluate the humanists from the perspective of modern historical standards made their relation to Guicciardini's work intrinsically hard to grasp. In 1965, with Felix Gilbert's Machiavelli and Guicciardini, we come to a new perspective. Gilbert asked what the humanists themselves regarded as the important goals of historical writing. Basing his analysis partly on the humanist historians but more directly on such writings as Pontano's Actius, which formulated a theoretical basis for historical writing, Gilbert showed that the differences between humanist histories and modern ones lay in a different conception of the goals of history. Pontano, who drew on such classical authors as Cicero, saw history as moral and literary in its aims. He saw the historian primarily as an artist and a teacher, not a researcher. History should entertain, teach, and inspire its readers to right conduct.²

Because of these goals the humanists were only secondarily interested in the detailed analysis and comparison of primary sources that constitute the basis of modern historiography. Most chose to follow one source at a time, adding details from other sources or public records only when necessary to strengthen a particular moral lesson or to create a certain literary effect. Their interest in classical models was thus not an unfortunate diversion from true history; it was an essential ingredient in the fulfillment of their aims. As part of their desire to entertain and inspire, they looked to classical models to organize and present their material. In light of Gilbert's understanding of the humanists, many of Guicciardini's characteristic traits, such as his adoption of annalistic form, his use of set battle pieces, and his inclusion of orations, were all consonant with humanist historical theory.

These similarities of approach notwithstanding, Gilbert found that in many ways the Storia d'Italia departed from humanist canons of historical writing. Instead of the straightforward and clear moral lessons that Pontano prescribed, Guicciardini presented a complex and paradoxical picture of the events in which the traditional moral virtues were no longer valid supports to a successful political life. Where the humanists had used these virtues and vices to characterize individuals, Guicciardini considered self-interest to be so important that it over-powered all other considerations and became the primary characteristic of human nature (Gilbert 292). Gilbert did not argue that Guicciardini abandoned the moral function of history. On the contrary, he felt that the Storia d'Italia raised it to a new plane. Aware that self-interest had introduced a calculating and analytical element into any description of the past, Guicciardini at the same time acknowledged the power of fortune, of unpredictable and uncontrollable circumstances that brought the schemes of self-interested princes to naught. This realization produced not despair but a reaffirmation of the individual's value. Guicciardini sought to give his readers perspective on the ambitions and temptations of the world: "Thus although Guicciardini did not share the humanist view that history exemplifies general rules or guides man's behavior, he returned to the humanist concept of the moral value of history: history appeals to man to become conscious of his own intrinsic value" (Gilbert 300).

Gilbert assessed Guicciardini largely on the basis of humanist historical theory, but practicing historians during the fifteenth century implemented this theory in distinctive ways. My own study of the Florentine humanist histories of Bruni, Poggio, and Scala confirmed their compliance with the theories they found among classical authors, but it also revealed certain aspects of their work that could not be deduced from the theory. In particular, the inclusion of moral lessons did not lead to explicit moralizing or to a reliance on traditional moral categories. In fact they adopted a less moralizing tone than their chronicle sources and tried more often than not to avoid direct condemnation of personal vice.³ To make history morally didactic the humanists did not moralize; instead they introduced an analytical element that was largely absent from their chronicle sources. They explained the political consequences of different types of behavior through an analysis of the psychological realities that underlay the political process. By this analysis they showed that all acts had consequences. Moral decisions depended on an awareness of all significant historical factors. Thus for the humanists all actions became morally significant, not just those that illustrated traditional virtues and vices.

Since the moral purpose of history was fulfilled by political analysis, that aspect of Guicciardini's work does not separate him from the humanists. It is instead the later historian's refusal to fix on a single analytical perspective that distinguishes him, a refusal that gives prominence in his narrative to sensory details and concrete images. Mark Phillips studied Guicciardini in light of this complex perspective that weakens the didacticism. Acknowledging the affinities between the analytical perspective of the Storia d'Italia and that of the humanist histories, Phillips saw less confidence in the moral lessons of history than did Gilbert and less of that concern for the individual dignity that redeemed him in Gilbert's eyes:

The humanists bring to history a more sophisticated morality [than the chronicles] as well as more classical techniques of narrative. In a sense narrative was freed to respond to its own needs because human events no longer were required to mirror a nonhistorical world. Nonetheless, their didacticism was as strong as Villani's and this very didacticism, located now within history rather than cutting across it, helped to confer additional clarity on events. The moral and political lessons that humanist history teaches tie events together into well-understood units and give the reader a core of meaning to follow. But in Guicciardini the vestiges of didacticism have no such effect, and a multiplicity of overlapping explanations attaches to events. There are, of course, lessons in the Storia d'Italia, the wickedness of princes and the instability of human affairs being the most explicit. But the meaning of these "salutiferi document" is meditative rather than didactic, passive rather than active. They enlighten the reader but do not arm him.⁴

Gilbert and Phillips effectively documented the profound and complex influence of the humanist tradition on Guicciardini's Storia d'Italia. They showed that the influence cannot be dismissed as a purely formal or superficial one. It permeated his analysis, narrative technique, and deepest conceptions of his craft, and yet its results did not bring universal assent. The very complexity and paradoxical quality of his relationship with the humanists have preserved among many scholars a skepticism about the role of humanism in determining the structure and substance of the Storia d 'Italia. Emanuella Lugnani Scarano argued in a recent study that Guicciardini's significance lay in the rejection of humanist norms of historical writing. She quoted with approval Fueter's characterization of him as the first analytical historian and saw the humanistic traits as stylistic elements that interfered with the important features of the work.⁵ Furthermore, this interpretation appeared in the most recent general work on Italian Renaissance historiography, Eric Cochrane's Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance. Cochrane minimized the influence of humanism, limiting it to the most formal of rhetorical devices. He even considered the format of the work—a study of all the political and military events in the various parts of Italy during a given period of time—to be without precedent, ignoring Flavio Biondo's Decades, which had so deeply influenced the later Florentine humanists, including Machiavelli.⁶

All these interpretations treat the Florentine humanist tradition in more or less static terms. This approach has the effect of exaggerating the role of Bruni, undoubtedly the most important and widely read of the Florentine humanist historians. The histories of Scala and Poggio lack the analytical rigor, the breadth of research, the interest in public documents, and the republican fervor that characterize Bruni's work. To look at the three works without regard for their context is to make such a judgment inevitable. Yet the context should not be ignored. The subsequent histories of Florence were not simply pale imitations of Bruni's; their authors had other goals and sought to modify his work in such a way as to achieve them. In the process they created a dynamic tradition of Florentine history, one whose coherence is not entirely clear from the histories themselves. That coherence becomes evident, however, in light of the achievements of Machiavelli, who wrote explicitly in the tradition of Bruni and Poggio and whose work represents a synthesis of trends clearly perceptible in fifteenth-century humanism.

Poggio and Scala departed from Bruni's historical method in two major ways. First, they introduced into the analytical structure questions and perspectives not part of Bruni's political-psychological approach. Second, they added to the res gestae sensory details and tangible elements which Bruni had excluded.⁷ These changes were carried on by Machiavelli to produce a narrative in which personalities played a greater role than they had in Bruni's history and in which the narrative became more dynamic and expressive of real change.

With great single-mindedness Bruni had interrelated the psychological and political elements of the past into a single explanation of the roots of Florence's strength. His concern sprang from his commitment to republican institutions and his conviction that these institutions could be defended intellectually through constructing a picture of Florence's past. To teach these political lessons Bruni excluded other ones, especially those associated with traditional morality or with divine judgment. Later humanists were more concerned with these traditional virtues and vices. They tried to combine them with Bruni's political analysis to produce a narrative that would be useful and morally didactic to a readership less imbued with republican values.

Poggio's treatment of the Ciompi revolt shows clearly this difference. Bruni described the Ciompi revolt in purely political and psychological terms, tracing the spread of discontent and rebellion down through Florence's social classes. He sought to use the revolt to draw lessons about the difficulty of controlling rebellions once they begin.⁸ When Poggio described the Ciompi revolt, he addressed that element of civil dissension, but he also expanded his analytical framework to include the issue of divine judgment, thus suggesting that the revolt may have been punishment for Florence's war with the papacy. He adduced in support of his point of view the fact that the eight in charge of the war all died in a brief time.⁹

Poggio did not intend these interpretations to exclude one another. He offered them as alternative views in the minds of those who lived through the revolt. Each view had a distinctive didactic effect, and both served the historian in putting his narrative to a variety of uses. He may have been unable to resolve the alternatives into one coherent picture, but that is less important than his accepting this ambivalence. He felt that the story took on added depth and richness—and thus greater truth—through the variety of views that it comprehended. This variety in turn led to the second major way in which Poggio departed from Bruni's model, the inclusion of sensory details and tangible features.

Bruni subordinated all other considerations to his analysis, excluding from his account any tangible details which might detract from its dignity or blur in the reader's mind the theoretical picture of the past. He thus ignored myriad details in the chronicle sources that were available to subsequent historians, should they wish to include them. Poggio told his story in more concrete terms. He gave detailed accounts of minor troop movements and foraging expeditions where Bruni was only interested in issues of strategy and tactics.¹⁰

Yet Poggio's narrative, while including tangible details that were not strictly necessary to convey the analytical lessons, exhibited little sensory value. It concentrated on the psychological and moral impact of events. When Giangaleazzo sent a flotilla of burning ships against a bridge on the Po, Poggio ignored the visual aspects of the event to concentrate on the spectators' impressions,27 and his battle descriptions used indirect and general language to portray the actual clash of the troops (214). It is the third chancellor-historian of Florence, Bartolommeo Scala, who extended the attention Poggio payed to tangible elements into a genuine concern with the sensory impact of historical events. He evoked the odor of lilies to describe the origin of Florence's name, the sight of corpses floating in the cistern where Totila had thrown them, and even the visual effects of an eclipse.¹¹

The elements in the development of Florentine humanist historiography during the fifteenth century—new didactic interests and more tangible subject matter—seem to lack focus when seen in themselves. It is easy to see how they are related, but not to grasp the overall effect. That becomes clear when Machiavelli is seen as a part of this tradition. His history of Florence carried on both these trends. More stongly committed to Bruni's political analysis than the late fifteenth-century humanists, he nevertheless added several other perspectives, highlighted by the prefaces he wrote for the early books.¹² He took from the chronicle sources many details ignored by the humanists and integrated them into the narrative, giving his account a vitality and immediacy that theirs lacked.

In Machiavelli's work these characteristics produced an important result that constituted a major event in Western historiography. Machiavelli presented a new approach to change, one that expressed change through concrete events in the narrative and tied it with the personalities in the historical drama.¹³ This achievement had remained embryonic in former humanist historical writing. The humanists avoided the simple moral characterization of the chronicles, but their concentration of psychological realities left the personalities one-dimensional, without deep interaction with the historical events. The character traits and the events remained on separate planes, without any real influence on one another. Poggio, for instance, characterized individuals by dominant traits which rose and fell with events but suffered no real change in relation to one another. He defined Giovanni Visconti, for instance, by ambition, and treated specific events by describing their effects on this trait. The conquest of Genoa increased it; the realization that he could conquer no more decreased it (Poggio 198, 207). Even Visconti's death is described as a decrease in ambition.¹⁴ But Poggio portrayed no dynamic relation between the Milanese leader's character and the events, which, in the narrative, did not cause Visconti to take on other traits and feelings, nor did his feelings give new directions or important dimensions to the events.

Bruni achieved a higher degree of subtlety in portraying Giangaleazzo as a devious character with hidden motives, but the greed that underlay his conduct overshadowed the subtlety, and the motives themselves did not take on specific substance. Nor did Giangaleazzo undergo change. Fraud and deceit remained his basic political tools, from his first usurpation of Milan by tricking his uncle (9:239) to the final oration of Bruni's history, where the Florentines stressed to the Venetians the dangerous contrast between Giangaleazzo's deed and words (12:285-87).

Machiavelli added complexity to his humanist presentation of character. He saw both a greater variety of motives and a more intricate relation between historical events and personal character. Where Bruni and Poggio saw constant states of character behind Visconti policy, Machiavelli saw change: "Costui [Giangaleazzo] credette potere divenire re di Italia con la forza, come gli era diventato duca di Milano con lo inganno."¹⁵ Where Bruni found in Michele di Lando's virtus the cause of the city's salvation from the tumult of the Ciompi, Machiavelli gave to this virtue such specific traits as prudence, kindness, and goodness (3.17:152), but described his specific behavior in ways that seem more illustrative of cruelty or unrestrained anger than of virtue.¹⁶

This interplay between character and events gave to Machiavelli's narrative a dynamic quality that the humanists' lacked, since it allowed him to portray a meaningful interrelationship between the events and the psychological states that underlay them. Machiavelli, however, did not present his individuals developmentally. Though events had a definite impact on their psychological states in the sense that a given character had meaning only through specific acts, the character itself did not change. That was the achievement of Guicciardini, whose narrative built upon the previous development of Florentine historical writing to create individuals who experienced real change and whose character was meaningfully enmeshed with the events. For the humanists, constancy and change were real parts of the narrative only at the level of general events, where psychological states changed in such a way as to reflect general historical patterns. For Guicciardini constancy and change permeated the individuals; only through them did the events become dynamic.

Discussions of Guicciardini's treatment of individuals have tended to focus on his description of the Medici. The characterization of Lorenzo, which begins the Storia d'Italia, provides insight into Guicciardini's changing interpretation of politics, as he moves from the Lorenzo of his earlier works. The two Medici popes interacted with one another during their own lives; consequently, they gave Guicciardini an opportunity to explore the differences among characters and show how these differences affected the historical process in different ways.¹⁷ The following analysis will focus on his treatment of Alexander VI and Julius II. With those popes he was first of all confronted with characters more historical than the later ones, more removed from his own time and without the degree of personal contact he enjoyed with the Medici. At the same time, they were directly involved in the story, unlike Lorenzo, whom he used as a symbol of a more peaceful time.

The popes' status as elected princes was important to Guicciardini as he endowed individuals with the psychological dimensions the humanist had found in political realities. Their elections depended on the perceptions of the electors and thus connected them more immediately than hereditary monarchs with general characteristics of the time in which they were elected. But as princes they made personal decisions that effected change directly. To explain their elections Guicciardini brought together these personal and political factors; he combined inherent psychological characteristics, the memory of past events, and the reputation created by their previous behavior.

In Alexander's case Guicciardini introduced the historical context by observing that Alexander could not have succeeded in his simony without help from such corrupt members of the curia as Ascanio Sforza.¹⁸ He raised the issue of reputation by describing the effect of Alexander's election on others. King Ferdinand of Naples, who did not even cry at the death of his children, shed tears at the election of such a pope, who would bring ruin to Italy and Christendom. Only after raising these issues of historical context and reputation did the historian present the inherent character of the new pope. "Perche in Alexandro sesto … fu solerzia e sagacita singolare, consiglio eccellente, efficacia a persuadere meravigliosa, e a tutte le faccende gravi sollecitudine e destrezza incredibili; ma erano queste virtii avanzate di grande intervallo da' vizi: costumi oscenissmi, non sincerita non vergogna non verita non fede non religione, avarizia insaziabile, ambizione immoderata, crudelta più che barbara e ardentissima cupidita di esaltare in qualunque modo i figliuoli i quali erano molti" (1.2:12). This mixture of political virtues and private vices would hardly fit into any conventional schema of character. Because he already grounded the traits in their historical context and indicated the reputation they had produced, they remained attached to the events. Alexander's virtues and vices are not simply external means to explain what happens—as Bruni had used Giangaleazzo's viciousness—nor are they mere grounds for moral condemnation. They are part of the story as a whole, as real as the events themselves.

But Alexander is not simply a collection of general traits wedded to historical circumstances. He is also an individual, whose reality cannot be fully explained by what has happened to him, and whose personality possesses inherited traits. One of the most important precipitating factors in the quarrels which eventually brought the French into Italy was Fernando's attempt to secure control over some castles that had been in the possession of one of Innocent VIII's children. Fernando sought these castles partly because he remembered the long history of troubles with the papacy over the border between his land and theirs, but he was also moved by "il timore che in Alessandro non fusse ereditaria la cupidita e l'odio di Calisto terzo pontefice, suo zio" (1.3:16).

Guicciardini used a similar technique to introduce Julius II, describing first the election and singling out its salient feature, in this case the rapidity and near unanimity of the decision (6.5:565). As with Alexander, Guicciardini then gave concrete form to this peculiarity by describing the impression other people had of the new pope. Although many were surprised at the easy election of a pope reputed to be so difficult and restless, Julius had during his long cardinalate displayed a magnificence and a greatness of spirit which accumulated for him a reputation not only as a man of great power and authority but also as a defender of the dignity of the Church. This reputation made more effective the promises he made to his supporters. Just as Alexander's greed and obscenity took on historical substance in the reaction of his enemy Ferrante, so Guicciardini validated the picture of Julius by quoting his most bitter enemy, Alexander: "Perche [Julius] aveva lungamente avuto nome tale d'uomo libero e veridico che Alessandro sesto, inimico suo tanto acerbo, mordendolo nell'altre cose, confessava lui essere uomo verace" (6.5:566).

Two features are particularly significant in Guicciardini's use of individuals. First, he brought the process of real change into the substance of the personality of his individuals. By contrast, in Machiavelli's history men work real change through personal intervention in the course of events, but they themselves do not undergo important changes. Secondly, through the description of individuals, Guicciardini integrates moral and political elements into a single narrative. Both features arise from his initial integration of psychological traits with historical contexts, and both carry on developments within the humanist historical tradition.

The humanists took emotions the vernacular chroniclers had limited to individuals and ascribed them to groups, thus giving a new explanation and pattern to political change. Especially useful in this regard were the emotions of fear and hatred. Bruni explained the overthrow of Walter of Brienne in 1343 as a change among the Florentines of fear into hatred.¹⁹ Machiavelli followed Bruni in interpreting the overthrow through the same change in psychological states, although he embedded this change more fully into the context of concrete events (2.26-27:108-15). In the Prince Machiavelli wrote on the relation of these two emotions, and showed that a prince should be feared but not hated. But with both Bruni and Machiavelli the change remained generalized in the sense that its most fundamental psychological aspects were not connected to specific people. The individuals did not change, only the political unit did.

Guicciardini returned these psychological states to the individuals, but by fully integrating their emotions and motives in the historical context he maintained the reality of change at both levels. His technique can best be seen in his explanation for changes during the pontificate of Julius II, a pope whose dramatic political reversals, especially his abandonment of the League of Cambrai, startled his contemporaries and fundamentally upset the diplomatic order of Italy. In the Storia d'Italia Julius' policy is not inexplicable; it revolves around changing states of feeling, each responding to historical circumstances. Constancy and change become inseparable parts of a single personality, whose mutation reinforces integrity and whose identity transcends any abstract collection of traits or specific set of historical circumstances.

The foundation of Julius' personality lies in that greatness of soul with which Guicciardini explained his election to the papacy. By avoiding the specific vices and virtues he had ascribed to Alexander, Guicciardini made it possible to include within this greatness of soul a number of conflicting feelings, in particular hatred and fear, which were particularly useful. Since fear and hatred have specific objects, he could attach them directly to actual historical situations. In this manner Guicciardini created a dynamic picture of Julius' soul in which changes are real but comprehensible within a specific context. At one point early in his pontificate, Julius, after long negotiations, finally agreed to release Caesar Borgia from prison and openly proclaimed the release in consistory. One would expect him to observe his promise. "Ma altra era la mente del pontefice; il quale … avea in animo di prolungare la sua liberazione, o per timore che, liberato, operasse che 'I castellano di Furli negasse di dare la rocca o per la memoria delle ingiurie ricevute dal padre e da lui o per l'odio che ragionevolmente gli portava ciascuno" (6.10:597).

Three factors take shape within the animo of Julius to produce the emotion of fear which directly explains his conduct. First, his fear is stimulated by an immediate danger—the loss of Forli. Second, it is grounded in memories of events that are unspecified in this passage but remain fixed in the reader's mind from the previous narrative of Alexander's reign. Third, he fears another psychological state in the animi of others, a hatred that is a reasonable response to the relationship between the Borgia and the Della Rovere.

Julius' greatness of soul constitutes his basic reality, never changing and always providing the integrity and constancy of his personality. Apparent departures from this trait are explained by specific historical circumstances which hid or delayed it, but never destroyed it. All marvelled when Julius, with such a reputation for ambition and restlessness, proved so passive in hesitating to join Louis' attack on the Venetians: "Ma in Giulio era intenzione molto diversa; e deliberato di superare l'espettazione conceputa, aveva atteso e attendeva, contro alla consuetudine della sua pristina magnanimita, ad accumulare con ogni studio somma grandissima di pecunia, acció che alla volontà che aveva di accendere guerra fusse aggiunto la facoltà e il nervo di sostenerla" (7.1:634). Here Guicciardini showed Julius' will, which preserved its inherent ambition and great designs, but manipulated the external circumstances in preparation for expressing its true object.

But the emotions that dominate Julius' animo are fear and hatred. In his description of the pope's career, Guicciardini presented his complex and often contradictory policy as a relationship between these emotions, either within his own soul, or between Julius and other political elements. The historian used fear and hatred to present the dramatic changes in Italian politics during the war of the League of Cambrai. He saw them changing within Julius' soul, as the original fear of the French produced hatred, an emotion whose strength overcame his fear and led him to focus all of his energies on driving the French out of the peninsula.

In his earliest relations with the French, Julius was affected most by fear and suspicion. When he broke off talks and went back to Rome, he did so partly because of the renewal of his suspicions of the Cardinal of Rouen and partly because of the fear the king would not receive him if they met ("forse concorrendo l'una e l'altra cagione" 7.5:659). Julius' fear and suspicion did not remain unmixed with hatred for long. When Bologna was reinforced against his will, he blamed the king and, "transportato non meno dall'odio che dal sospetto," he accused the king of exciting the disturbances in Genoa as a pretext to attack the pope (7.7:670). But at this point the growing hatred for the king did not yet have the strength to overcome other fears. The memory of ancient quarrels between popes and emperors and the realization that the causes for those quarrels still existed, made him fear the Emperor Maximilian. Dissuaded from an open break with Louis, he incited Maximilian against the Venetians to increase the power of the League (8.1:723).

Throughout the formation of the League, fear of the French remained an important factor in Julius' decisions, conflicting with his animosity to the Venetians: "Maggiore dubitazione era nel pontefice, combattendo in lui, secondo la sua consuetudine, da una parte il desiderio di ricuperare le terre di Romagna e lo sdegno contro a' viniziani e dall'altra il timore del re di Francia" (8.1:727). Fear and suspicion of the French induced Julius to receive the Venetians after the battle of Ghiradadda and to consider pardoning them (8.7:761-62). But soon important changes occurred in the relation among these emotions in the pope's soul. Gradually hatred overcame his fear of the French, and, inspired by this hatred, Julius embarked on a new policy of reconciliation with the Venetians and explusion of the French from Italy.

Guicciardini showed the specific historical circumstances that first brought Julius to hate the French more strongly than he feared them. The first issue where Guicciardini addressed the change was a quarrel between Julius and Louis over the appointment to the see of Provence. Julius seemed to acquiesce in the settlement, but the quarrel had caused an important change: "Queste erano le cagioni apparenti degli sdegni suoi: ma per quello che si manifestò poi de' suoi pensieri, avendo nell'animo piu alti fini, desiderava ardentissimamente, o per cupidita di gloria o per occulto odio contro al re di Francia o per desiderio della liberta de genovesi, che 'I re perdesse quel che possedeva in Italia" (8.12:800). A fundamental change in policy is intimated here, one that would throw Italy into chaos and realign the relations among the major powers. Guicciardini traced the change to a psychological state of hatred, mobilized by the quarrel but developing out of a previous series of events in which Julius had been led to fear the French.

Julius' change of policy was the direct result of transforming fear into hatred. In describing his reaction to the French support of Ferrara against the pope, Guicciardini gave full expression to this interpretation: "Aveva il pontefice propostosi nell'animo, e in questo fermati ostinatamente tutti i pensieri suoi, non solo di reintegrare la Chiesa di molti stati, i quali pretendeva appartenersegli, ma oltre a questo di cacciare il re di Francia di tutto quello possedeva in Italia; movendolo o occulta e antica inimicizia che avesse contro a lui o perche il sospetto avuto tanti anni si fusse convertito in odio potentissimo, o la cupidita della gloria di essere stato, come diceva poi, liberatore di Italia da' barbari" (9.5:849). Here Guicciardini combined constant emotions such as the love of glory with the historical context of the long record of quarrels with the French. The historical circumstances transformed fear into hatred; that psychological change altered the political relationships among the Italian powers. Political and personal change are brought together, founded on psychological states and tied to historical events.

Though transformation of fear to hatred explains his permanent hostility to the French, the vagaries of Julius' policy are too many to be so easily traced. Instead Guicciardini showed his behavior in the last years of his pontificate as a mixture of conflicting emotions, of which hatred for the French was always the foremost, but in which fear of the Emperor or of specific military threats often produced dramatic reversals and attempts to secure peace. At times he seemed to have no fear of the consequences of his actions. All marvelled that at a moment when he was threatened with a council and the armies of both the French and the Germans were in Italy, he should alienate himself from the Emperor (9.11:924). At other times fear became a more decisive factor. After the loss of Bologna, fearing that the victorious army might follow up its advantage, he asked for peace, "combattendo insieme nel petto suo la paura la pertinacia l'odio e lo sdegno" (9.18:937). His final pact with Aragon, a move which brought into Italy a power that would eventually dominate the peninsula, was the result of such a combination: "Dunque il pontefice, rimossi tutti i pensieri dalla pace, per gli odii e appetiti antichi, per la cupidità di Bologna, per lo sdegno e timore del concilio e finalmente per sospetto, se differisse più a deliberare, di essere abbandonato da tutti, [formed the pact]" (10.5:969).

Within the context of a constant hatred for the French, Julius' behavior emerges from Guicciardini's narrative as reflecting a constant struggle between hatred and fear, one in which historical circumstances determined the victor. After the battle of Ravenna, the pope listened to the various alternatives "con somma ambiguità e sospensione, e in modo che si potesse facilmente comprendere, combattere in lui da una parte l'odio lo sdegno e la pertinacia insolita a essere vinta o a piegarsi, dall'altra il pericolo e il timore" (10.14:1044). Events which Guicciardini characterizes as a turn in the wheel of fortune (10.14:1046) determined the results. With the removal of foreign troops from Romagna, the pope abandoned his fear, settled matters in Rome, called his own council, and moved to achieve his long-desired ends.

Constancy and change thus permeate the historical process at all levels in the Storia d'Italia. Individuals are presented in such a way as to reflect within themselves the psychological changes the humanists used in order to explain general political events. But the individuals remain dynamic. Beyond the state of hatred or fear lie other related feelings, which cause a wavering condition determined by external events, some of which are unpredictable while others fall into rational patterns of political discourse. Guicciardini blends the contingent with the analytical and the political with the moral in order to produce a historical narrative that fulfills the promise of the preceding century of historians.

By means of the second feature of his treatment of individuals, Guicciardini combines political analysis with traditional moral consideration within a single historical process. Here again, as was the case with his integration of personality into the process of change, he carried on developments within the humanist tradition and brought them to new levels of realization. One of the moral issues he felt most deeply about was the ecclesiastical corruption that was so evident an element in the world around him. He used the personalities in his narrative to castigate this corruption, while at the same time analyzing its political effects. Ecclesiastical corruption was a moral scandal to be deplored in categorical terms; practical considerations, however, could not be ignored, since corruption was also a factor in Italy's political weakness and played a role in determining the course of the Italian wars.

The combination of these factors is clearest in his treatment of Alexander VI, whose personal immoralities and political successes fascinated and repelled Guicciardini. The Borgia pope's career raised vividly in his mind the question of the relationship between the personal and political facets of Alexander's character and the general scene of Italian life. In discussing how Alexander used his spiritual power, Guicciardini stressed that no one with Alexander's character and reputation could have acquired the papacy if the spiritual functions had been fulfilled and respected in the preceding period. At the same time, the historian felt that Alexander's obscene habits and greed for his children further eroded the spiritual position of the office in significant ways.

Guicciardini saw that the decline in spiritual power had a definite historical context. In speaking of Alexander's attempt to secure the support of the French to reassert papal control over Romagna, he reviewed the history of the states of the Church. In a long digression he explained how the popes, beginning with Peter, had gradually accumulated political power, first in order to support their spiritual functions, then as an end in itself. We learn that the most marked degeneration of spiritual power occurred in the period after the return of the popes to Rome from Avignon, when they could barely exist in Rome without help from secular rulers. After the return, succeeding popes gradually lost their memory of former troubles and began to live more as secular princes than as popes, reveling in luxury and private vice, pursuing the interests of their families at the expense of the spiritual interests of Christendom, and fomenting wars over secular gains rather than bringing peace (4.12:427-28).

Alexander was partly the victim of this general historical background and partly the cause of further decline in papal authority. To demonstrate this point, Guicciardini introduced into his narrative a variety of details which might not have concerned him had his focus been exclusively on political analysis. With his great talents at dissimulation and persuasion, the pope made use of all the traditional ceremonies and observances of the papacy. When he finally welcomed Charles VIII into the Vatican, he observed the customary marks of respect, allowing the king to kiss his cheek and present the water at the pontifical mass. He even commissioned a painting of the meeting to be hung in the Vatican (1.17:118-19). Receiving the victorious Consalvo di Cordova after the taking of Ostia, Alexander honored him with the traditional rose bestowed by the popes each year as a special mark of honor (3.11:311). Neither event fits easily into the Brunian model for history with its narrow focus on political happenings, though Poggio and Scala could easily have mentioned them. Here the ceremonies allowed Guicciardini to expand his scope to include his concerns about the misuse of the spiritual powers of the papacy.

Alexander's observance of the trappings of papal ceremony, however, could not overcome the scandal of his private life or his wanton disregard for moral issues. Guicciardini reinforced this point by describing the popular rumors around specific policies or actions of Alexander. When Prince Diem, the Sultan's brother, died after having been given over to Charles VIII, who wanted to use him in a crusade against the Turks, Alexander was believed to have poisoned him, either because the pope did not like being forced to surrender Diem due to his envy at Charles' glory, or because he feared that a successful crusade would create a movement to reform. At this point, Guicciardini comments that the affairs of the Church, "allontanatesi totalmente dagli antichi costumi, facevano ogni di minore l'autorita della cristiana religione, tenendo per certo ciascuno che avesse a declinare molto piu nel suo pontificato; il quale, acquistato con pessime arti, non fu forse giammai, alla memoria degli uomini, amministrato con peggiori" (2.3:156).

In the foregoing analysis Guicciardini employed the psychological and political tools of the humanists to show the effects of Alexander's behavior on his ability to use his spiritual powers. The result is clear and the events show the effects. When Alexander demanded that Charles either leave Italy or appear before him under threat of spiritual punishment, Guicciardini observed that the pope was following a course of action adopted by earlier popes. Adrian I had condemned Desiderius in the same fashion; at this time, however, "mancata la riverenza e la maesta che dalla santita della vita loro ne' petti degli uomini nascevano, era ridicolo sperare da costumi e esempli tanto contrari gli effetti medesimi" (2.11:116).

The ambiguity of Guicciardini's treatment is complex. On the one hand, Charles' disrespect arose only partly from Alexander's misdeeds, since it also depended on the papal abuse over the preceding century he had described earlier. On the other, Guicciardini was acutely aware that Alexander's sins were not always punished. He was surprised and shocked by the pope's success in his endeavors and the frequency with which people ignored his deviousness and trickery. As the pope's body was carried through Rome, people flocked to see it, "non potendo saziarsi gli occhi d'alcuno di vedere spento un serpente che con la sua immoderata ambizione e pestifera perfidia, e con tutti gli esempli di orribile crudelta di mostruosa libidine e di inaudita avarizia, vendendo senza distinzione le cose sacre e le profane, aveva attossicato tutto il mondo. Nondimeno era stato esaltato, con rarissima e quasi perpetua prosperita, dalla prima gioventu insino all'ultimo di della vita sua, desiderando sempre cose grandissime e ottenendo pifi di quello desiderava" (6.4:555).

The combination of analysis and fortune that is so prominent a feature of the Storia d 'Italia is thus also part of the development of humanist historiography. Guicciardini wedded the analytical concerns of Bruni to the interest in traditional moral categories found among the humanist historians of the late fifteenth century. He incorporated these into a single narrative style, organized along traditional annalistic lines, but conveying a complex web of personal and political realities. By bringing the personal and political elements of the story together with common psychological terms, expressed through concrete and vivid personal acts, he presented a narrative of change which supports his explicit description of human affairs as a sea swept by the winds.

Seen against the background of developments within the previous century and a half of humanist historical writing, Guicciardini takes on some familiar traits but loses none of his orginality and historical greatness. The categories of analysis which lie behind his explanation of events are those that would have been familiar to his readers and had been used by previous historians in their effort to broaden the basis of humanist history. Guicciardini's use of these categories, however, added a portrayal of individuals and a sense of change beyond anything previously achieved in that tradition and created also a new narrative structure which conveyed his insight into the dynamic quality of history.

Notes

¹ Vittorio De Caprariis, Francesco Guicciardini: Dalla politica alla storia (Bari: Laterza, 1950).

² Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1965), 203-35.

³ Donald Wilcox, The Development of Florentine Humanist Historiography in the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1969), 40-41.

⁴ Mark Phillips, Francesco Guicciardini: The Historian's Craft (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1977), 181-82. See also Phillips, "Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and the Tradition of Vernacular Historiography in Florence," American Historical Review 84 (1979):86-105.

⁵ Emanuella Lugnani Scarano, Francesco Guicciardini, La letteratura italiana: storia e testi, IV, II Cinquecento: Dal Rinascimento alla Controriforma (Bari: Laterza, 1973), 4.2:245, 315.

⁶ Eric Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981), 302-3.

⁷ For a detailed discussion of these characteristics of the later humanist historians, see Wilcox, chapters 4, 5, and 6.

⁸ "Cavenda vero maxime videntur principia seditionum inter primarios cives," Leonardo Bruni, Aretino, Historiarum Florentini Populi Libri 12, ed. E. Santini e C. di Pierro in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Citta di Castello: S. Lapi, 1934), 19.3:224.

⁹ Poggio Bracciolini, Historia Florentina, ed. J. Recanati, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. L. Muratori (Milano: 1731), 20: 242-43.

¹⁰ See for example his description of the expedition of the Britons into the Vallombrosa, Poggio 213.

¹¹ Bartolommeo Scala, Historia Florentinorum (Roma: 1677), 5, 35, 93.

¹² On the meaning of these prefaces see Felix Gilbert, "Machiavelli's Istorie fiorentine: An Essay in Interpretation," in Studies on Machiavelli, ed. Myron Gilmore (Firenze: Sansoni, 1972), 75-99.

¹³ See Mark Phillips, "Machiavelli," and Donald Wilcox, "The Renaissance Sense of Time," in Classical Rhetoric and Medieval Historiography, ed. Ernst Breisach (Medieval Institute, forthcoming).

¹⁴ "Mors peropportuna inanes curas illius et dominandi appetitum diremit," Poggio 209.

¹⁵ Niccolò Machiavelli, Istorie fiorentine, in Tutte le opere di Niccolò Machiavelli, eds. Francesco Flora and Carlo Cordie (Milano: Mondadori, 1960), 3.25:163. References are to book, chapter, and page.

¹⁶ For example he turned the fury of the mob onto the hated official Nuto and stabbed several members of a delegation that came to negotiate with him in the Palazzo della Signoria.

¹⁷ For an intelligent analysis of these individuals see Phillips, Francesco Guicciardini 157-68.

¹⁸ Francesco Guicciardini, Storia d 'Italia, ed. Silvana Seidel Menchi (Torino: Einaudi, 1971), 1.2:11. References are to book, chapter, and page.

¹⁹ "Superante iam odio metum," 6:164.