Storie fiorentine

The Florentine Histories (Historiae Florentinae) is a work by the historian Francesco Guicciardini, written when the author was only twenty-six years old. It covers the period between the Ciompi uprising of 1378 and the battle of Agnadello in 1509. Compiled between 1508 and 1509, it remained unpublished until 1859.

It forms the first part of the History of Florence, which was to be followed by Le cose fiorentine. Guicciardini seeks to investigate the causes of events and focuses on their protagonists, among them Lorenzo de' Medici, whom he regards unfavorably, and above all Girolamo Savonarola, in order to show the contradictions of both. He tells the story through the opposition between the wise, that is, the nobles and the very wealthy, whom he considers the only ones fit to govern, and the common people, whom he despises. Yet he sometimes admits that this model does not always work well, and he praises the democracy established by Savonarola.