Francesco Guicciardini - Early Life

Early Life

Francesco Guicciardini was born 6 March 1483 in Florence, Italy; he was the third of eleven children of Piero di Iacopo Guicciardini and Simona di Bongianni Gianfigliazzi. The Guicciardini were well-established members of the Florentine oligarchy as well as supporters of the Medici. Influential in Florentine politics, Guicciardini's ancestors for many generations had held the highest posts of honor in the state, as may be seen in his own genealogical Ricordi autobiografici e di famiglia.

Piero Guicciardini had studied with the philosopher Marsilio Ficino, who stood as his son's godfather. Like his father, Francesco received a fine humanist education, studying the classics, learning both Latin and a little Greek. The boy was sent by his father to study law at the universities of Ferrara and Padua, where he stayed until the year 1505.

The death of an uncle, who had occupied the see of Cortona, induced the young Guicciardini to seek an ecclesiastical career. His father, however, discouraged him, "because he thought the affairs of the Church were decadent. He preferred to lose great present profits and the chance of making one of his sons a great man rather than have it on his conscience that he had made one of his sons a priest out of greed for wealth or great position." Thus, the ambitious Guicciardini once again turned his attention to law. At the age of twenty-three was appointed by the Signoria of Florence to teach legal studies at the Florentine Studio.

In 1508 he married Maria Salviati, the daughter of Alamanno Salviati, cementing an oligarchical alliance with the powerful Florentine family. In the same year, he wrote the Memorie di famiglia, a family memoir of the Guicciardini family, the Storie Fiorentine (The History of Florence), and began his Ricordanze, a rudimentary personal chronicle of his life.