before Charles V. at Naples in 1535.  On this occasion Alessandro, who had rendered himself unbearable by his despotic habits, and in particular by the insults which he offered to women of all ranks and conditions in Florence, was arraigned by the exiles before the bar of Caesar.  Guicciardini won the cause of his client, and restored Alessandro with an Imperial confirmation of his despotism to Florence.  This period of his political career deserves particular attention, since it displays a glaring contradiction between some of his unpublished compositions and his actions, and confirms the accusations of his enemies.[4] That he should have preferred a government of Ottimati, or wealthy nobles, to a more popular constitution, and that he should have adhered with fidelity to the Medicean faction in Florence, is no ground for censure.[5] But when we find him in private unmasking the artifices of the despots by the most relentless use of frigid criticism, and advocating a mixed government upon the type of the Venetian Constitution, we are constrained to admit with Varchi and Pitti that his support of Alessandro was prompted less by loyalty than by a desire to gratify his own ambition and avarice under the protective shadow of the Medicean tyranny.[6] He belonged in fact to those selfish citizens whom Pitti denounces, diplomatists and men of the world, whose thirst for power induced them to play into the hands of the Medici, wishing to suck the state[7] themselves, and to hold the prince in the leading-strings of vice and pleasure for their own advantage.[8] After the murder of Alessandro, it was principally through Guicciardini’s influence that Cosimo was placed at the head of the Florentine Republic with the title of Duke.  Cosimo was but a boy, and much addicted to field sports.  Guicciardini therefore reckoned that, with an assured income of 12,000 ducats, the youth would be contented to amuse himself, while he left the government of Florence in the hands of his Vizier.[9] But here the wily politician overreached himself.  Cosimo wore an old head on his young shoulders.  With decent modesty and a becoming show of deference, he used Guicciardini as his ladder to mount the throne by, and then kicked the ladder away.  The first days of his administration showed that he intended to be sole master in Florence.  Guicciardini, perceiving that his game was spoiled, retired to his villa in 1537 and spent the last years of his life in composing his histories.  The famous Istoria d’ Italia was the work of one year of this enforced retirement.  The question irresistibly rises to our mind, whether some of the severe criticisms passed upon the Medici in his unpublished compositions were the fruit of these same bitter leisure hours.[10] Guicciardini died in 1540 at the age of fifty-eight, without male heirs.

    [1] See the ‘Apologia de’ Cappucci,’ Arch.  Stor. vol. iv.
    part 2, p. 318.

    [2] For the avarice of Guicciardini, see Varchi, vol. i. p.
    318.  His Ricordi Politici amply justify the second, though
    not the first, clause of this sentence.