Guicciardini, Francesco (Florence, 1483 - Santa Margherita a Montici, 1540). La Historia D'Italia. Geneva: Giacomo Stoer, 1645.
Guicciardini was a Florentine diplomat from a noble family, a statesman and author of the most influent contemporary history of Italy.
The first Spanish version of Guicciardini's History of Italy appeared in Baeza, printed by Juan Bapt. de Montoya in 1581.
"From 1494 to 1530, Florentine politics... stimulated political analysts and historians to reflect on the proper form of government and the fate of states. Two men responded brilliantly to that challenge: Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini... These two historians wrote in the vernacular, used insights gained from contemporary experiences, and abandoned the idealistic affirmation of absolute justice, republican freedom, and benevolent order of things; these ideals, except in official statements, seemed strangely out of place in sixteenth-century Italy. Instead, both men wrote history in order to teach their contemporaries the proper political lessons." (Breisach, 157-8).
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