Dialogue on the Government of Florence

This is the first English translation of Guicciardini's Dialogue on the Government of Florence, written in the 1520s. Like Machiavelli, his more famous contemporary and friend, Guicciardini rejects classical republican arguments in the name of the new political realism and acknowledges the important role of patronage and graft in contemporary politics and the illegitimacy of nearly all forms of political power, arguing for the priority of state interest over private morality and religion.