MEMORIES IN FRENCH: THE EARLY FORTUNE OF POLITICAL MAXIMS OF FRANCESCO GUICCIARDINI

In 1576, Antoine de Laval published in Paris his French translation of Francesco Guicciardini's Ricordi, in which a precise political strategy could be discerned. During the crisis of sovereignty, Laval offered the court a collection of precepts conceived to furnish universal models adaptable to various different occasions of political praxis. Indeed, his edition supplemented the original text with an anthology of aphorisms, a section of 42 articles inspired by classic and modern historiography, that introduce the reader into the parliamentary affairs of the French court. Laval's translation met the demand - very much alive in late-sixteenth-century France - for a kind of manual for the training of the sovereign, as a crucial element in defending the unity and stability of the monarchy.