On the Folly of Historical Judgement. Truth and Irony in Francesco Guicciardini’s History of Italy

[Autom. eng. transl.] The dialectic between appearance and truth, simulation and dissimulation, as is well known, is a constant in the entire production of Francesco Guicciardini. Starting from the most recent critical acquisitions and focusing in particular on the History of Italy, the intervention aims to investigate the ways in which the continuous contrast between being and opinion is concretely realized in the text: in particular, the the writer's use of irony in its various shades, varying from the hint just noted to more pungent and resentful tones, to the point of bordering on sarcasm. In Guicciardini's writing, irony thus becomes an effective means of demystifying the error, the "occult" and the false and a valid tool for restoring the "substance of the facts", identifying the "advice and foundations" and penetrating under the "name" of things. The effort to reach the 'naked' truth of the events narrated throughout the 20 books of history therefore also brings the 'naked' truth of man to the fore, beyond the "simulated practices".