The Communal Ideology in Giovanni Villani’s Nuova cronica

Abstract

The essay analyses the ideological message of Giovanni Villani’s Nuova Cronica. Rather than a cohesive theory of good governance, the Florentine chronicler shows scattered images, and in the comments added to the events described he makes explicit what political virtues and inadequacies he considered crucial. Insofar as the earlier books seem to have been inspired by the Roman republican ethos and the Franciscan cult of paucity preached by Dante, he focuses in the final section mostly on the citizens’ internal disposition: their expected attitude would be to hold the Commune in magnanimous love. Villani discerns between the virtues of citizens and those of the rulers, with whom discretion and prudence, rendering political practice efficient, is paramount; such prudence is easier to find with affluent burghers than good artisans. The superior value that ought to be sought through the citizens activities, in the area of policymaking and not only, is the grandeur of their Commune.