Guicherdini's Vision of a Republic in Florence

When Pietro de Medici fled from the city in 1494, the streets rang with the cry, the people and liberty. The invading French king Charles VIII was welcomed to town with a sign bearing that same word, liberty, emblazoned upon it. Looking back on these events, the historian Francesco Guicherdini, named 1494 as the end of a 40-year period of tranquility and prosperity in Italy. He did not lament the effort to establish a genuine republic in Florence in place of the Medici oligarchy. And as we know, a generation later, the visionary preacher Savonarola, would be endorsing a republican form of government.