History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy

Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
940K words
Chapters
95

Tags

English Originals World History Florentine HistoryCity-State RivalryDiplomatic ObservationItalian PoliticsPower GameMachiavelliPolitical ThoughtSource ResearchRenaissance

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy by Niccolò MachiavelliAuthor: Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527,Language: English, Class: DG: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Italy, Vatican City, Malta, Release Date: Mar 31, 2006

Editor's review

This History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy is Machiavelli's late historical work. It is not chiefly a chronological record but an examination, through the eyes of a political analyst, of the rise and fall of city-states, factional strife, and the intervention of outside powers. The book preserves numerous speeches and judgments on individuals; it is at once a record of Florentine political life in the Renaissance and a reflection of the author's enduring thinking on republics, power, and human nature. Its value for readers lies in a narrative method that fuses historical source material with political argument, helping them understand the multi-centered political landscape of the Italian peninsula in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; at the same time, Machiavelli's judgments are often strongly partisan, which makes the book a fitting sample for training in the criticism of historical sources. This is an English public-domain electronic text, suited to reading by topic and to use alongside maps and a chronology of major events.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Begin with the introduction or table of contents and clarify the relations among Florence, Milan, Naples, and the Papal States before turning to the main text.
  2. Keep an Italian map and a chronology at hand as you read, and note the frequently recurring names and families.
  3. When you encounter a long speech, excerpt it separately and consider the political judgment the author puts into the speaker's mouth.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93
  94. 94
  95. 95

FAQ

Is this Machiavelli's most famous work? No. Machiavelli is best known for The Prince. This book belongs to his historical writings, focusing on the history of the Florentine city-state and the political affairs of the Italian peninsula; its style is closer to narrative political commentary than to a short treatise of political advice.
Is the English public-domain electronic text difficult to read? The text is in English, with a dense concentration of personal, place, and family names, and the paragraphing and punctuation of early editions may differ from modern typesetting. Reading with a map, a chronology, and a table of name equivalents is recommended; with long sentences, grasp the main structure first rather than weighing every word.
Can I read it without any background in Italian history? You can, but some background is needed first. At minimum, know the rough outline of the Florentine Republic, the Medici family, the Papal States, and the intervention of France and Spain in Italian affairs; otherwise you may be overwhelmed by the names and factional threads.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1469-1527 Author

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was an important political thinker and writer of the Italian Renaissance, though public sources offer only limited details of his life. He is best known for The Prince, a coolly direct treatise on how a ruler acquires and keeps power, a work that has long provoked fierce debate; Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius draws on Roman history to explore republican government and political virtue. He also wrote comedies such as La mandragola and historical works including History of Florence, showing a range that spans politics, history, and literature. The library holds eight of his works, commonly classified under inspirational growth, and his unsentimental, pragmatic style has had a lasting influence on later political writing.