Giovanni Villani
Giovanni Villani (1276 or 1280 – 1348) was an Italian banker, official, diplomat and chronicler. He wrote the Nuova Cronica on the history of Florence. His Cronica is viewed as the first introduction of statistics as a positive element in history. Villani was a leading statesman of Florence but later gained an unsavory reputation.
About Giovanni Villani in brief
Giovanni Villani (1276 or 1280 – 1348) was an Italian banker, official, diplomat and chronicler from Florence. He wrote the Nuova Cronica on the history of Florence. His Cronica is viewed as the first introduction of statistics as a positive element in history. Villani was a leading statesman of Florence but later gained an unsavory reputation. He served time in prison as a result of the bankruptcy of a trading and banking company he worked for. His interest in and elaboration of economic details, statistical information, and political and psychological insight mark him as a more modern chronicler of late medieval Europe. The criticism is mostly aimed at his emphasis on supernatural guidance of events, his organizational style, and his glorification of the papacy and Florence. In his Cronica, Villani also emphasized three assumptions about the relationship of sin and morality to historical events, these being that excess brings disaster, that forces of right and wrong are in constant struggle, and that events are directly influenced by the will of God. His work on the Cronica was continued by his brother and nephew. He died of the same illness in 1348. He was the son of Villano di Stoldi di Bellincione, who came from an old and well-respected arti maggiori family of merchants. His father was a member of the Arte di Calimala guild in Florence since 1300, serving on the mercanzia council of eight. In 1300, he visited Rome during the jubilee celebration.
After observing the well-known ancient monuments of Rome and acknowledging its renowned historical personages, he was inspired to write the CronICA, a universal history of Florentine history in a strictly linear, year-by-year format. He provided intricate details on many important historical events of the city of Florence and the wider region of Tuscany, such as construction projects, floods, fires, famines, and plagues. On May 15, 1306, one of the first exchange contracts to mention Bruges involved two parties: Giovanni Villani, representing the Peruzzi Company, granting a loan to Tommaso Fini,representing the Gallerani Company of Siena. In 1328, he gave a detailed account of why Florence was unable to acquire Lucca after the death of Castruio Castracani in 1328. From 1329 to 1330 he was a commune magistrate of Florence, protecting Florence from the worst effects of starvation and assuage peasant discontent through grain imports from Sicily, Talamone and Sicily. He deputed the city walls to inspect the walls in 1321, and in 1324 was deputed to inspect all in Florence, and was present at Alccio Castruccio’s defeat at Alascio during Florence’s defeat. He also participated in the crafty diplomatic tactics that resulted in peace with Pisa and Lucca. As head of the mint beginning in 1316, he collected its earlier records and created a register of the coins struck.
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