versation with each other, they gave
expression to different shades of political opinion, and their histories
remained in manuscript till some time after their death.[2] The student
of the Renaissance has, therefore the advantage of comparing and
confronting a whole band of independent witnesses to the same events.
Beside their own deliberate criticism of the drama in which all played
some part as actors or spectators, we can use the not less important
testimony they afford unconsciously, according to the bias of private or
political interest by which they are severally swayed.

[1] The dates of these historians are as follows:--

BORN. DIED.
Machiavelli 1469 1527
Nardi 1476 1556
Guicciardini 1482 1540
Nerli 1485 1536
Giannotti 1492 1572
Varchi 1502 1565
Segni 1504 1558
Pitti 1519 1589

[2] Varchi, it is true, had Nardi's _History of Florence_ and
Guicciardini's _History of Italy_ before him while he was compiling
his _History of Florence_. But Segni and Nerli were given for the
first time to the press in the last century; Pitti in 1842, and
Guicciardini's _History of Florence_ in 1859.

The Storia Fiorentina of Varchi extends from the year 1527 to the year
1538; that of Segni from 1527 to 1555; that of Nardi from 1494 to 1552;
that of Pitti from 1494 to 1529; that of Nerli from 1494 to 1537; that
of Guicciardini from 1420 to 1509. The prefatory chapters, which in most
cases introduce the special subject of each history, contain a series of
retrospective surveys over the whole history of Florence extremely
valuable for the detailed information they contain, as well as for the
critical judgments of men whose acumen had been sharpened to the utmost
by their practical participation in politics. It will not, perhaps, be
superfluous to indicate the different parts played by these historians
in the events of their own time. Guicciardini, it is well known, had
governed Bologna and Romagna for the Medicean Popes. He too was
instrumental in placing Duke Cosimo at the head of the republic in 1536.
At Naples, in 1535, he pleaded the cause of Duke Alessandro against the
exiles before Charles V. Nardi on this occasion acted as secretary and
advocate for Filippo Strozzi and the exiles; his own history was
compose