SOURCE: Introductory Notes to Francesco Guicciardini: Selected Writings, edited and introduced by Cecil Grayson, translated by Margaret Grayson, Oxford University Press, 1965, pps. xxv, 59-60, 127-28.

In the following brief notes, Grayson describes the contents, physical appearance, and publication history of Guicciardini's Ricordi, Considerations on the "Discourses" of Machiavelli, and Ricordanze.

Gi; introductory Note: Ricordi =~ Sintroductory Note: Ricordi

Guicciardini made three redactions of this work. Although he began to collect together certain maxims as early as 1512, the main body of the collection, in a manuscript now lost, was put together sometime before 1525, re-copied, enlarged, and corrected in 1528, and further revised in 1530. In this process he made no fewer than 606 formulations for a total of 276 maxims, of which in the final version he discarded 55. The history of the growth and elaboration of the Ricordi has been reconstructed by R. Spongano in his excellent critical edition published by the Accademia della...