SOURCE: Translator's Preface to Maxims and Reflections of a Renaissance Statesman (Ricordi), by Francesco Guicciardini, translated by Mario Domandi, Harper Torchbooks, 1965, pp. 33-38.

[In the following essay, Domandi asserts that Guicciardini's Maxims, like the writings of his colleague Machiavelli, should be commended for separating politics from ethics.]

If Guicciardini's Ricordi has been as well known as Machiavelli's Prince, they would surely have competed for the reputation of being the most immoral piece of political prose of the early Cinquecento. The great critic Francesco DeSanctis, whose liberal-nationalism generally predisposed him to see the excellence of neglected or little known Italians, called Guicciardini's book of political maxims "the corruption of Italy, codified and exalted to a rule of life."¹ It is easy enough to understand why these cynical, wordly-wise ricordi, with their constant and clear appeal to self-interest, might have given offense. But to take Guicciardini to task for divorcing political action from ethics is to miss the point of his particular contribution to the history of political thought. For it was precisely the virtue of his works, and those of his friend Machiavelli, that they finally and completely removed politics from its moorings in ethics and philosophy.

In Guicciardini's world of thought, political and social action is not to be determined by super-temporal ethical, theological, or religious principles; rather, it should be based on self-interest (el particulare), and on reason. To be sure, both require taking cognizance of the demands of honor; but not any longer the chivalric sort of honor. Guicciardini understands honor in the Florentine sense of a duty performed without pay, for which one receives recognition and homage. Honor, in other words, is not an abstraction against which life is molded and measured, but a pragmatic notion, a force like all others, of great—perhaps even primary—importance, but not qualitatively different from the others. And among these others, Guicciardini exalts experience and native ability as necessary prerequisites of proper political action. When these qualities are found properly combined in an individual, they produce discretion, that wonderful virtue which enables a man to see the way things are, and to act accordingly.

Guicciardini speaks so often and so emphatically of the need for experience, that we might be tempted to see in him the seeds of empiricism. But a careful reading of these ricordi will show that for him the opposition of reason and experience, of which later generations made so much, simply did not exist. When he tells us (C 12) that the similarity of proverbs in all countries is due to the fact that people everywhere have the same, or similar, experiences, he is simply establishing the homogeneity of experience, which makes it possible to deal with matters consistently, rationally, and universally. For him, experience and reason are simply the two sides of the same coin. He says explicitly (C 10) that native intelligence, no matter how great, can get nowhere without the help of experience. On the other hand, learning imposed on weak minds not only does not better them but tends to hurt them (C 47). In ricordo B 160 he tells us it is right to act according to rational principles even if things turn out wrong, and warns us not to be proud of success if it came about by chance. And then, in B 70, he again tells us that experience teaches a great deal, and more to large minds than to small. In short, not only is there no polarity—not to speak of hostility—between reason and experience, but they are in fact inseparable, the indispensable prerequisites for knowledge and discretion.

Guicciardini constantly reminds us that Fortune, that irrational and whimsical character, can never be left out of consideration. We can almost see him sighing as he writes: "Although cleverness and care may accomplish many things, they are nevertheless not enough. Man also needs good Fortune." (C 30) The value of all those lessons learned from reason and experience would seem to be rendered nugatory by the power of blind Fortune over human affairs. But here, too, the inconsistency is only apparent. Knowledge and discretion may not be sufficient to assure success in human affairs, but they are certainly necessary. Like Machiavelli, though less directly, Guicciardini uses mind to restrict the force and the effectiveness of Fortune's blows. "Remember this," he warns, "whoever lives a life of chance will in the end find himself a victim of chance. The right way is to think, to examine, and to consider every detail carefully, even the most minute. Even if you do, it takes great pains to make things come out right. Imagine how things must go for those who drift." (C 187) Clearly, the lesson that Guicciardini wanted his descendants to learn from his ricordi was that the forces governing life, especially political life, are knowable and, to a large degree, controllable; and that such knowledge and control require effort, talent, experience, mind—and Fortune.

Recent students of Guicciardini's Ricordi have been more concerned with the dispute concerning their textual tradition than with their intellectual content. The dispute arose only some thirty years ago, and has already produced a number of very learned, highly detailed studies on both sides. There certainly is no need to go into the minutiae of evidence each side has adduced. But the problem poses an interesting challenge to the scholar-detective, and merits being presented here at least in its general outlines.

Basing himself on the autograph manuscripts, Guiseppe Canestrini first published the Ricordi in 1857, under the title Ricordi civili e politici.² Canestrini presented the two series as one, numbered sequentially and with the second series first. The Guicciardini family archives contain two autograph manuscripts of the ricordi, subsequently called B and C, the first containing 181 ricordi, the latter 221; and two autograph notebooks (quaderni), subsequently called Q I and Q 2, containing twelve and twenty-nine ricordi respectively. All twelve in Q I are repeated in Q 2. There is no doubt that both notebooks were written at the time of Guicciardini's embassy to Spain, in 1512. At the head of the series we call B, in Guicciardini's own hand, there is a note telling us they were "written before 1525 in other notebooks, but copied in this one at the beginning of the year 1528, during the great leisure I then had, together with most of those that follow in this notebook." In ricordo B 138, Guicciardini mentions the date at which he is writing, which is February 3, 1523 (Florentine style, i.e., February 3, 1524, our style). And before ricordo B 172, he wrote: "Supplement begun in April, 1528." As for series C, it was definitely written in 1530, during and after the siege of Florence. It contains 221 ricordi, using 127 from B (combining some, re-casting them all), five from A (about which series more in a moment), and adding ninety-one new ones.

To recapitulate: Guicciardini wrote and re-wrote his ricordi several times, changing them, polishing them, and rejecting some versions altogether. If we consider the notebooks Q 1 and Q 2 together, there are three autograph manuscripts of the Ricordi: these notebooks of 1512, containing twenty-nine ricordi; the manuscript of 1528 (B), containing 181 ricordi, 171 of which were written before 1525, and ten added in April, 1528, presumably at the time when Guicciardini was transcribing the whole series from another manuscript which no longer exists; and a manuscript of 1530 (C) containing 221 ricordi, ninety-one of which were new, and the rest re-casts of earlier versions.

The dispute arose when Roberto Palmarocchi published his edition of the Ricordi,³ giving the first and second series (B and C) in their chronological sequence, and numbered separately. At about the same time, Michele Barbi published an article⁴ in which he tried to show that aside from Q I and Q 2, there were really three versions of the Ricordi, which he baptized A, B, and C. A, of course, was that manuscript from which Guicciardini copied B in 1528, but which is nowhere to be found. Barbi arrived at his conclusion by comparing the autograph manuscript B with various printed versions and manuscripts of the Ricordi dating from the latter half of the sixteenth century, conserved in various libraries throughout Italy. The origin of these copies seems clear. One of the manuscripts Biblioteca Riccardiana 3.2967) mentions that "Piero Guicciardini, son of Nicholò, gave a copy of these 'admonishments' (avvertimenti) to Don Flavio Orsini … much to the dismay of the Guicciardini."⁵ That very probably happened in 1561. Fifteen years later, a printed edition of the Ricordi appeared in Paris, published by Corbinelli.⁶ And in 1582, another appeared in Venice, published by Fra Sisto.⁷ Many of the extant manuscripts, on the other hand, are hard to date; but they are of the latter half of the sixteenth century, some of the seventeenth, and one may be as early as 1562, just one year after Piero made a gift of the original. The entire dispute revolves around the question whether Piero's gift was simply a copy of B, or another manuscript from which Guicciardini copied B. Barbi, and Raffaele Spongano after him, fervently affirm the existence of A.⁸ They point out that the motto and the first twenty-three ricordi of B are, with only one exception, re-writes of the twenty-nine ricordi in Q 2. And the ricordi from B 24 to B 171 correspond nearly completely to the first 147 of the ricordi in A (which contains in all 161). What could be more logical than to suppose that Guicciardini sat down in April, 1528 with Q 2 and A before him, and transcribed both into B making only a few changes, and adding ten new ricordi?

To Palmarocchi, the matter did not seem quite so logical at all. If things are as Barbi claims, he asks, why is it that B 172 (the first of the supplement begun after April, 1528) appears as A 155? Furthermore, he says, "If it is true that A I corresponds to B 24, it is also true that five [actually, six] of the first twenty-three ricordi in B are also to be found in A, though in a different order."⁹ He finally points out that of the final eleven ricordi in A none except 155 is to be found in B, but that many re-appear in C. If B had been transcribed from Q 2 and A, it hardly seems likely that Guicciardini would have omitted the last eleven ricordi of A, only to pick some of them up two years later, when writing C.

In 1951, Raffaele Spongano published his critical edition of the Ricordi, which is a masterpiece of erudition. By comparing all the manuscripts, several of which he uncovered, by making the most detailed linguistic and editorial analysis of the various versions, he succeeds in showing that a manuscript A did indeed exist. His presentation, if not iron-clad, is most convincing. But since I proposed only to outline the problem and not to solve it, and since an even modest attempt to present Spongano's case would require going into the minute details I promised to avoid, I feel justified in stating only his conclusion, without the proofs. Suffice it to say, then, that on the basis of present evidence, it would seem that Guicciardini wrote four versions of his Ricordi.

Nevertheless, the text of A differs so little from B that it would hardly have been worth reproducing it here. I have translated C, B, and Q 2, and given them in that order, which is the reverse of the chronological. C is the most mature, the most thought-out version. It seemed to me that it should be read first so that the others might be measured against it. To facilitate comparisons, I have included a table of correspondences among the various versions. I have also added a few footnotes in the hope that they will illuminate the text.

I wish to thank my colleagues and friends Carlo Ascheri and Eduardo Saccone for their invaluable help in penetrating to the meaning of some of Guicciardini's hard, terse language. For all errors, I am, of course, solely responsible.

Notes

¹ Francesco DeSanctis, Storia della letteratura italiana (Napoli, 1873), II, p. 118.

² Francesco Guicciardini, Opere inedite, ed. Guiseppe Canestrini (Firenze, 1857-67, 10 vols.), II, pp. 81-224.

³ Guicciardini, Ricordi, in: Scritti politici e Ricordi, ed. Roberto Palmarocchi (Bari, 1933).

⁴ Michele Barbi, "Per una compiuta edizione dei Ricordi civili e politici del Guicciardini," in: Studi di filologia italiana, III, pp. 163-196.

⁵ Raffaele Spongano, Ricordi, edizione critica (Firenze, 1951), p. XXI, n. 1.

⁶ Under the title Piu consigli et avvertimenti di M. Fr. Guicciardini Gentilhuomo fior. in materia di re publica et di privata (Paris, 1576).

⁷ Under the title Considerazioni civili sopra l'Historie di M Francesco Guicciardini e d'altri historici. Trattate per modo di discorso da M Remigio Fiorentino (Venezia, 1582).

⁸ So, too, does the excellent critic Mario Fubini, in "Le quattro redazioni dei Ricordi del Guicciardini," in: Studi sulla letteratura del Rinascimento (Firenze, 1948), pp. 138-207.

⁹ Palmarocchi, Scritti politici e Ricordi, p. 372.