The father of Francesco Guicciardini (1483-40 ) , member of one of the leading merchant families of Florence, provided his son with a humanist education and sent him to law school rather than the Church. In 1509, Francesco entered the halls of government as part of a consultative group of citizens. By 1511, at age 28, he was elected ambassador to Spain, where he was when he received news of the collapse of the Florentine Republic  and the hands of the Spanish and the papacy in 1512. Unlike Machiavelli, however, Guicciardini maintained his favor with the Medici and continued working for them in Florence and then under Leo X in the Papal States. The writing of the Dialogue dates to 1521-1524, the period just after the death of Guicciardini’s patron Leo X, a period when some Florentines envision governmental reform and a return of the republic. However, an aborted attempt to assassinate Giulio de Medici in 1522 increased Medici authority in Florence, and Guilio’s election to the papacy as Clement VII in 1523 further increased the power of Guicciardini’s patrons.  This uncertain political environment, whispers of republican revolution in the streets still controlled by the Medici, albeit a weak and unpopular scion, provides important context for reading the Dialogue, for Guicciardini does, at times, seem to equivocate on political issues. Later, when the Republic was restored in 1527, Guicciardini was branded a rebel and exiled. In 1532, he helped “establish Alessandro, the illegitimate last descendant of the elder Medici line, as Duke of Florence repeating the advice he had given to Leo X back in 1516: that the Medici should not establish a principate but strengthen their partisans in the city, among whom he now openly included himself.” (Alison Brown, Dialogue, xxii.)

Questions to consider:

1. What was the nature of Medici rule in Florence and how did it curtail factionalism and disorder?
2. What are the merits and demerits of overthrowing narrow or restrictive governments (tyranny?) in the name of popular freedom?
3. Do Guicciardini’s thoughts about government display any similarities to Machiavelli’s?

BERNARDO     It would be easy to classify the nature of the Medici state, since what Piero Guicciardini said is undeniable, that is an illegitimate state obtained by means of faction and with force. Indeed, he was perhaps too polite to say that it was a tyranny. And although the city retained the name, the show and the image of being free, nevertheless the Medici ruled it and were the bosses, since they distributed offices to whom they liked and the recipients obeyed their signals. It is true that their tyranny was by the standards of others mild; for they were not cruel or bloody, they were not rapacious, they they did not violate women or other people’s honor. They were eager and enthusiastic to make the city more powerful, and they have done much good and little evil, apart from what they were forced to do. They wanted to be in control of the government, but in as civilized a way as possible, using humanity and modesty. I think that this was mainly because it was in their nature to behave like this, since they were well bred and generous. And since Cosimo and Lorenzo were also prudent and were always surrounded by a number of wise citizens and counselors, they knew that the nature of their regime and the condition of the city were such that they could scarcely afford to behave differently; and that if they had ever attempted to resort to blood and violence, it would in Florence have destroyed their greatness more than increased it. Now I wait to hear what your more specific criticism of the Medici regime are.

CAPPONI     It will be more difficult for me to describe its evils than it was for you to say what was good about it — not because the evils are less well known, but because they so exceed the good things that my memory will fail to remember them all. I think that in a government of a city like ours there are three main topics to be considered: how to administer justice fairly, how best to distribute the honorary political offices and the salaried public offices, and how to conduct foreign affairs, that is, concerning the defense and expansion of our dominion.

As to justice, I don’t want to accuse the Medici of being greedy to exercise influence in the sphere of civil justice, for except where constrained by some particular interest, they have in fact proceeded with due respect. It is undeniable, however, that they have sometimes sullied it by recommending their friends to the magistrates and judges; and what they have failed to do has often been done without their knowledge by their ministers or favorites whose recommendations carried a lot of weight.  The fact that the recommendations were made without the Medici’s agreement is irrelevant: it is enough that, because they stemmed from their greatness, they are defects produced by the authority of tyrants, whose wishes are held in such respect that even when they are silent, men try to divine what their wishes are. And what do we imagine was the effect of Lorenzo’s close involvement in the scrutinies of the Mercanzia? [the mercantile court of Florence’s guilds] Filling the election bags with the names of his dependents, who demonstrated gratitude by ensuring that, with no other help from the state, preferential treatment was given to the lawsuits of members of the inner circle. This could not have displeased Lorenzo, since he must have loved the fact that his friends’ affairs received better treatment and that everyone desired to be classified as his friend. He always kept a hand-picked chancellor in the Mercanzia, as well as in all the guilds and the offices. And why do you think that the judges of the Six and of the Court of Appeals, who were in the past held in such high repute throughout the world, no longer enjoy any credit?

And what shall we say about criminal justice, where without any doubt favors were dispensed more generously? I will not deny that Lorenzo did indeed desire the city and the countryside to be tranquil, he wanted no one to be oppressed, the laws observed and life conducted without outrages. But when crimes were committed, he had to ensure special treatment for his own friends and see that eyes were closed concerning their affairs or that they got off lightly. And these friends of his were so numerous that each year an infinite number of cases were settled this way. This is the reason not only why the law often proceeded gently against stabbings and other forms of violence, but also why our citizens and these little tyrants from outside [the city of Florence] were allowed to make off with the possessions of their neighbors, hospitals, local communities and the Church. You all remember without me mentioning any names, how many outrages of this sort were committed each year without coming to light because the victims remained silent, fearing that litigation against these powerful men would be more likely to result in new damage than in reparation. What anger, even desperation, shall we not believe was generated in people’s minds when they saw what for them was mortal sin treated in another sort of man as venial, one treated as a son of his country, that other as a bastard? How inhuman and tyrannical the expression with which these men deceive their consciences: ‘in matters of the state, one must judge one’s enemies harshly and one’s friends with favor’! As if justice can allow such distinctions!

It goes without saying how important the distribution of honorary and salaried offices is in any city — and especially in Florence where citizens pay such heavy taxes to support the republic. Honorary and salaried offices belong to us all in common. Everyone knows how they were distributed by the Medici family. Their principal objective was never to give them to people who deserved them because of the standing of their family or for their abilities or other merits. Instead, they made them circulate among those they regarded as their friends and confidants, often satisfying the most frivolous appetites. Not only wives, pet-favorites, and lowlt domestic servants held sway over them, but even lovers. What is more important and less tolerable in a republic: a large part of the citizen body has been excluded almost by law, that’s to say, those families they never wanted to trust, whose sons and descendants from 1434 onwards have been totally deprived of office, like the product of tainted stock. This has resulted in a double wrong. Not only hav ethey taken from those to whom it should have been given, but in place of these, they have given to those to whom it should have not been given, elevating to the highest honors many ignoble families and making infinite numbers of commoners and peasants for political office. By dressing louts in scarlet cloth, they wanted to make noble citizens.

I should also include their dishonesty over taxes, since citizens who were deprived of office were also burdened with heavier tax assessments. Everyone knows how much of the nobility, and how much wealth was destroyed by Cosimo by means of taxes. This was the reason why the Medici family never allowed a fixed system of tax law to be worked out, for they wanted to reserve for themselves the power to beat whomever they wanted arbitrarily. They clearly used it to sow terror among people of every kind. They used this instrument to make themselves adored and to become bosses of everything and everyone, forcing men to try to divine how to obey them even in the smallest matters. It upsets me to much to remember all this, let alone talk about it any more, so I suggest we move on to the aspect of government concerned with defending and expanding territory.

Here I say that the Medici have always had as their ultimate objective their own personal welfare. Directing all means to this end, decisions were made not with the benefit of the city in mind but according to what they thought would be most conducive to their own personal greatness… While the damage suffered from every enterprise has been borne equally by all citizens, the honor and merit have been appropriated by the Medici for themselves.

In oder to sustain these excessive expenses [for wars] and keep his friends in the courts and circles of princes, didn’t Lorenzo, who as a merchant had practically gone bankrupt, lay his hands on communal funds and help himself, by covert means, to large sums of money? What he did for himself, he wouldn’t or couldn’t deny his friends, many of whom helped themselves to communal monies drawn from the blood and bones of the poor citizens and even from the dowries of unfortunate girls. Knowing that these conditions can only please someone who is corrupt or dispicable himself, or who is extraordinarily self-interested, they are suspicious of everyone else, so they are forced to keep down everyone who seems to them great or too intelligent. This is the reason why the Pazzi were deprived their inheritance and battered from so many sides that desperation drove them into the conspiracy with its many dire consequences. This is why no marriages were allowed to be contracted between people who seemed to bring together too much distinction. I am not surprised when I recall how distrustful Lorenzo was to even his closest friends, outwitting them in various ways and always retaining a certain reserve towards them…  Anyone who proposes as his ultimate objective his own greatness regards as an enemy everything opposed to it, and to preserve it he would whenever necessary utterly destroy the riches, the honor, and the lives of others.

SODERINI     Piero has raised all the most important points. Bernardo rightly said that Cosimo’s and Lorenzo’s behavior was mild compared with that of other tyrants, either because this was their nature or because they were wise and had good counsellors. But that is excatly why I hate such governments all the more. For if we have to tolerate so many evils under a tyrant who is good and wise, what can we expect from one who is imprudent or evil? What could we have expected from Piero? [expelled in 1494]

Consider Cosimo’s progress and how much more powerful he was at the end of his life than he had been at the beginning of 1434. Subsequently Lorenzo enjoyed more absolute power than Cosimo and in his last years everything was much more tightly controlled by him, and was becoming daily more restricted than it had been in the early days after his father’s death. The reason for this was the distrust felt by rulers of narrow regimes even towards their friends. Although they l;ike participating in the government, it is nevertheless impossible for such friends not to become secretly angry — even if they lack the spirit of a good citizen or love of their native city — when they see they are held in suspicion and that the authority and weight of government rests with secretaries, men of low birth and little quality, mostly non-citizens (sudditi) from our dominion, to whom they must defer and honor as leading citizens if they wish to survive…. Therefore I don’t know how Bernardo can compare the way of life in such regimes with popular government. It is especially those who are more gifted or more noble in mind who cannot, and should not, tolerate servitude. On the contrary, they can only despair when they see their actions, which ought to be free and not contingent on anyone apart from themselves and the good of the country, must instead be regulated by the arbitrary will of others. They must despair when they realize that they not only must submit to someone who knows many times less than themselves, but also have to go around concealing their virtue because of the tyrant’s dislike of all elevated spirits, every outstanding power. The tyrant nevertheless does this, sometimes through envy, because he alone wants to be outstanding, and oftent hrough fear, of which he is normally full.

So if the primary objective of legitimate rulers of cities, and the main task of philosophers and all who have written about political life, has been to set up in such a way that the city will produce virtues, excellence of character and generous deeds, how must we condemn and detest a government that, on the contrary, does all it can to extinguish every act of generosity and all virtue! I am talking about civic virtues which make men capable of performing great deeds, that is, those which benefit the republic. How miserable it is for noble minds and for men who desire fame to see all means of achieving excellence and acquiring glory cut off, and be forced to lavish frequent praise on men who don’t deserve it. So I repeat that whenever the government is not legitimate but has the qualities of tyranny — violent or mild — one ought to seek another type of government, whatever sacrifice of possessions and prosperity it might entail.

I shall add another observation which seems to me entirely true: that the Medici family, like all narrow regimes, always tried to prevent arms being possessed by the citizens and to extinguish their virility…. Nor should this arrangement be praised on the grounds that unarmed states are tranquil and armed states are often prey to factions. How easy this is we can see from the ancient republics, some trace of which can be seen in the Swiss today, who are now becoming familiar in Italy. Although they are fierce fighters, I understand that they live at home very peaceably, in freedom and under the rule of law….

BERNARDO     I have often pondered on the fact that this word ‘liberty’ is frequently used more as a disguise and an excuse by those who want to conceal their cupidity and ambition than because men in fact have a natural desire for it. It seems to me that men have a natural desire to dominate and be superior to others; there are normally very few people who love liberty so much that if they had a chance to make themselves lords or superior to others they would not do so willingly. So if you consider the behavior of those who live in the same city and the disagreements that arise among them, you will find that their ultimate objective has more to do with superiority than liberty. But men often let themselves be so deceived by names that they do not recognize the things themselves.

Those who enjoy leading positions in the city do not primarily seek liberty as their objective as much as increase of power and making themselves as superior and outstanding as possible. As long as possible, they strive to conceal their ambition with this pleasing title of liberty. This is because those in a city who fear being oppressed far outnumber those who hope to oppress, so the person who seems to be assuming the patronage of equality has far more supporters than someone who openly goes for superiority. Nevertheless, if successful, the outcome reveals the designs of such men, since it is through this deception that they generally use the multitude to make themselves great….This demonstrates what men’s objective really is, since the powerful often use the name of liberty to deceive the rest, and many who have sought for it abandon it as soon as they achieve aquality, if they think they are entitled to hope for a superior status. I

If you were to tell me that history contains many examples of people fired by the desire for the freedom of their country as theur ultimate objective, and so ardently that they have risked their own lives for it, I beg you not to delude yourselves. And if I attempt to make you see things as they really are, please don’t for this reason label me a lover of tyranny and an enemy of the freedom of republics…. Among the tyrant’s enemies a precious few have been moved purely by the love of freedom of their country. At the risk of seeming too keen to annihilate this appetite for liberty, I will go on to say that perhaps most of even this tiny number are moved not so much of liberty as by the attempt to acquire reputation and glory, knowing how glorious it is to act as its patron and protector So it is not the common good that motivates them, but their own person interest.

…

So I conclude by saying that the desire for political liberty is neither natural nor universal. This is why I say that if those who preach freedom believed that their private interest was better served in a narrow regime than in a free one, there would be few who would not rush there at top speed…. Governments were not instituted for the honor or profit of the rulers but for the benefit of the ruled; and in organizing them the aim is not for everyone to rule but only those who are most capable. Therefore the government that has always been most approved of and called the best is the one that produces the best results. It is by their results that governments have to be judged. Therefore we have to calculate which are greater, the benefits received from Medici government of those which this new popular government will produce.

… So my conclusion is this: although in the days of the Medici, offices were bestowed on those who didn’t deserve them more from sheer nastiness than from ignorance, whereas the popular government will do so more from ignorance than from nastiness, nevertheless the people will make mistakes more frequently, with greater damage to public interest, than the Medici. For what is done deliberately usually has weight and measure; but ignorance is blind, confused, without limit or rule, hence the proverb that is it often better to have to deal with someone who is evil than someone who is ignorant.