The transition from strictly humanist histo riography to the beginnings of modern political and national historical writing in Italy was well illustrated by the works of the. Florentine his torians, Machiavelli and Guicciardini. The cul tural supremacy of Florence at the time, and the intensity of its political life, combined to make it a particularly favorable environment to stimulate the production of works of high value. With Blondus they valued truth more than rhetoric, but they were saved from the former's obscurity and unpopularity by avoid ing a labored and pedantic style. With them history became wholly secular and was limited primarily to a straight-forward narrative and analysis of political events. Some attempt also was made to substitute a psychological and material theory of causation for supernatu ralism.
Machiavelli (1469-1527) was primarily a Politic:al philosopher without any particular emotion for history unless•it was utilized in the interests of political theory. It is this tendency which gives his major historical work, The History of Florence,' its distinctive characteris tics: From the standpoint of style or accuracy it was not Superior to some other histories of the period, but is it doubtful if any previous historian since Polybius, with whom Machin. velli was thoroughly familiar, had exhibited the power of grasping the nature of historical caus ation or of presenting a clear picture of the process of historical development that Maclua velli displayed in his analysis of the political evolution of the city of Florence. It was as a political thinker and organizer of causal factors that Machiavelli excelled, and not as an ob jective narrator of political events.
Not at all philosophical, but more truly his torical, was Guicciardini (1483-1540). His (History of Florence' is one of the truly orig inal works in historiography in that the author broke almost completely with both Patristic and humanist historiography and even went beyond the classical historical conventions in one par ticular, namely, that he eliminated the introduc tion of direct discourse in his narrative. In his lucid style, free from digressions and irrelevant details, there was no trace of florid rhetoric, and his primary concern with contemporary po litical history allowed him, in the latter part of the work, to dispense, to some extent, with the annalistic and strictly chronological arrangement of the conventional historical writing of his time. He made no attempt at philosophic anal ysis, but devoted himself solely to a vigorous and incisive narrative of events and a candid criticism of men and policies. "'With the 'Flor
entine History," says Fueter, "'there began modern analytical historiography and political ratiocination in history' Most critics contend that with Guicciardini's 'History of Florence' historiography in western Europe had again at tained to the level of Thucydides and Polybius. It had, however, no influence on contemporary historiography as it was not published until 1859. From the standpoint of style and ar rangement Guicciardini's other major work, The History of Italy,' was less original be cause here he compromised with those rhetori cal conventions of humanism which he had so rigorously excluded from his first work. But with respect to its breadth, scope and original mode of approach, the latter work was even more epoch making. For the first time a his torian had been able to break with tradition and free himself from primary concern with any particular state or dynasty and to devote his attention to a much broader field — "'the history of a geographical unite This gave him an unprecedented opportunity to study the growth and decline of states, the interaction between states in all the phases of international relations, and the processes of political evolution, In other words, the subject-matter offered rare opportunities for the study of universal history reproduced on a small scale, and, though Guic ciardini almost entirely lacked that philosophical insight into social and political processes that distinguished Machiavelli and was thereby pre vented from making the first great study of social and political evolution, the very novelty of his program constituted a great advance in historical method. Few will deny that Guicciar dini reached the highest level to which post classical historiography attained until the time of Mabillon, but the great progress that was necessary before modern scientific political his tory could be reached is best appreciated by a perusal of the rather over severe criticism of Guicciardini by Ranke, the earliest, but by no means the most cautious and scholarly of the modern school. The modem standards might more quickly have been reached had not the Reformation set back the progress of historical writing by the resurrection of theological inter ests and religious bias and controversy which humanism was gradually and peacefully smoth ering. Not until the theological monopoly had been crushed by the rationalism of the 18th cen tury and secular interests had been reinforced by the commercial revolution and the rise of modern nations could any fundamental advance be achieved.