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Guicciardini, Francesco (1483–1540) |
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A Florentine patrician, Guicciardini trained and then practised successfully as a lawyer, though he subsequently acquired much experience of the world of diplomacy. He was ambassador in Spain from 1512 until 1514 and, in his later capacity as a papal lord-lieutenant, he received envoys and despatched his own, including his friend Machiavelli. Guicciardini is remembered today chiefly for his great works of history, especially his History of Italy, in which he displayed a taste for methods well ahead of his time. Nevertheless, he also committed to paper some interesting general reflections on diplomacy. A few of these are to be found in his sympathetic but cautionary observations on Machiavelli\'s Discourses. Most however are located in a volume entitled the Ricordi, which consists of a list of more or less elaborated maxims and observations on a miscellaneous range of topics which he began to write during his sojourn in Spain and periodically revised until 1530, when the final version, known as ‘Series C’, was produced. This contains 221 ricordi in all, about 50 of which are of relevance to the student of diplomacy. The Ricordi are important because they reveal the thinking about certain key elements of diplomacy of one of the greatest minds of the Italian Renaissance at precisely the time that diplomacy (sense 1) was being established. They are also a valuable antidote to the elegant caricature of the ‘Italian method’ of negotiation offered by Harold Nicolson. |
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