Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/270

Rh 256 GUICCIARDINI mcnt and difficulty. The copious correspondence relating to his administration has recently been published (Op. Ined., vols. vii., viii.). In 1526 Clement gave him still higher rank as lieutenant-general of the papal army. While holding this commission, he had the humiliation of witnessing from a distance the sack of Rome and the imprisonment of Clement, without being able to rouse the perfidious duke of Urbiuo into activity. The blame of Clement s downfall dil not rest with him ; for it was merely his duty to attend the camp, and keep his master informed of the proceedings of the generals (see the Correspondence, Op. Ined., vols. iv., v.). Yet Guicciardini s conscience accused him, for he had previously counselled the pope to declare war, as he notes in a curious letter to himself written in 1527 (Op. Ined., x. 104). Clement did not, however, withdraw his confidence, and in 1531 Guicciardini was advanced to the governorship of Bologna, the most important of all the papal lord- lieutenancies (Correspondence, Op. Ined., vol. ix.). This post he resigned in 1534 on the election of Paul III., pre ferring to follow the fortunes of the Medicean princes. It may here be noticed that though Guicciardini served three popes through a period of twenty years, or perhaps because of this, he hated the papacy with a deep and frozen bitter ness, attributing the woes of Italy to the ambition of the church, and declaring he had seen enough of sacerdotal abominations to make him a Lutheran (see Op. Ined., vol. i. 27, 104, 96, and 1st. d It., ed. Ros., ii. 218). The same discord between his private opinions and his public actions may be traced in his conduct subsequent to 1534. As a political theorist, Guicciardini believed that the best form of government was a commonwealth administered upon the type of the Venetian constitution (Op. Ined., i. 6 ; ii. 130 sq.) ; and we have ample evidence to prove that he had judged the tyranny of the Medici at its true worth (Op. Ined., vol. i. 171, on the tyrant; the whole Storia Fiorentina and Regyimento di Firenze, ib. i. andiii., on the Medici). Yet he did not hesitate to place his powers at the disposal of the most vicious members of that house for the enslavement of Florence. In 1527 he had been declared a rebel by the signoria on account of his well-known Medicean prejudices ; and in 1530, deputed by Clement to punish the citizens after their revolt, he revenged himself with a cruelty and an avarice that were long and bitterly remembered. When, therefore, he returned to inhabit Florence in 1534, he did so as the creature of the dissolute Alessandro de Medici. Guicciardini pushed his servility so far as to defend this infamous despot at Naples in 1535, before the bar of Charles V., from the accusations brought against him by the Florentine exiles (Op. Ined., vol. ix.). He won his cause ; but in the eyes of all posterity he justified the re proaches of his contemporaries, who describe him as a cruel, venal, grasping seeker after power, eager to support a despotism for the sake of honours, offices, and emoluments secured for himself by a bargain with the oppressors of his country. Varchi, Pitti, Segni, and Nardi are unanimous upon this point ; but it is only the recent publication of Guicciardini s private MSS. that has made us understand the force of their invectives. To plead loyalty or honest political conviction in defence of his Medicean partisanship is now impossible, face to face with the opinions expressed in the Ricordi Politici and the Storia Fiorentina. Like Macchiavelli, but on a lower level, Guicciardini was willing to &quot; roll stones,&quot; or to do any dirty work for masters whom, in the depth of his soul, he detested and despised. After the murder of Duke Alessandro in 1537, Guicciardini espoused the cause of Cosimo de Medici, a boy addicted to field sports, and unused to the game of statecraft. The wily old diplomatist hoped to rule Florence a&amp;gt;s grand vizier under this inexperienced princeling. He was mistaken, however, in his schemes, for Cosimo displayed the genius of his family for politics, and coldly dismissed his would-be lord-protector. Guicciardini retired in disgrace to his villa, where he spent his last years in the composition of the Istoria d&quot; Italia. He died in 1540 without male heirs. Guicciardini was the product of a cynical and selfish age, and his life illustrated its sordid influences. Of a cold and worldly temperament, devoid of passion, blame less in his conduct as the father of a family, faithful as the servant of his papal patrons, severe in the administra tion of the provinces committed to his charge, and indis putably able in his conduct of affairs, he was at the same time, and in spite of these qualities, a man whose moral nature inspires a sentiment of liveliest repugnance. It is not merely that he was ambitious, cruel, revengeful, and avaricious, for these vices have existed in men far less antipathetic than Guicciardini. Over and above those faults, which made him odious to his fellow-citizens, we trace in him a meanness that our century is less willing to condone. His phlegmatic and persistent egotism, his sacrifice of truth and honour to self-interest, his acquiescence in the worst conditions of the world, if only he could use them for his own advantage, combined with the glaring dis cord between his opinions and his practice, form a character which would be contemptible in our eyes were it not so sinister. The social and political decrepitude of Italy, where patriotism was unknown, and only selfishness sur vived of all the motives that rouse men to action, found its representative and exponent in Guicciardini. When we turn from the man to the author, the decadence of the age and race that could develop a political philosophy so arid in its cynical despair of any good in human nature forces itself vividly upon our notice. Guicciardini seems to glory in his disillusionment, and uses his vast intellectual ability for the analysis of the corruption he had helped to make incurable. If one single treatise of that century should be chosen to represent the spirit of the Italian people in the last phase of the Renaissance, the historian might hesitate between the Principe of Macchiavelli and the Ricordi Politici of Guicci ardini. The latter is perhaps preferable to the former on the score of comprehensiveness. It is, moreover, more ex actly adequate to the actual situation, for the Principe has a divine spark of patriotism yet lingering in the cinders of its frigid science, an idealistic enthusiasm surviving in its moral aberrations ; whereas a great Italian critic of this decade has justly described the Ricordi as &quot; Italian corrup tion codified and elevated to a rule of life.&quot; Guicciardini is, how r ever, better known as the author of the Storia d Italia, that vast and detailed picture of Iris country s suffer ings between the years 1494 and 1532. Judging him by this masterpiece of scientific history, he deserves less com mendation as a writer than as a thinker and an analyst. The style is wearisome and prolix, attaining to precision at the expense of circumlocution, and setting forth the smallest particulars with the same distinctness as the main features of the narrative. The whole tangled skein of Italian politics, in that involved and stormy period, is unravelled with a patience and an insight that are above praise. It is the crowning merit of the author that he never ceases to be an impartial spectator,- a cold and curious critic. We might compare him to an anatomist, with knife and scalpel dis secting the dead body of Italy, and pointing out the symp toms of her manifold diseases with the indifferent analysis of one who has no moral sensibility. This want of feeling, while it renders Guicciardini a model for tlie scientific student, has impaired the interest of his history. Though he lived through that agony of the Italian people, he does not seem to be aware that he is writing a great historical tragedy. He takes as much pains in laying bare the trifling causes of a petty war with Pisa as in probing the deep- seated ulcer of the papacy. Nor is he capable of painting