The Memoir of Marco Parenti - A Life in Medici Florence

For this vivid description of the world of a Florentine patrician, Mark Phillips draws on Marco Parenti's private letters, ricordanze or diaries, and public history or memoir. When Cosimo de' Medici died in 1464, Parenti foresaw a return to liberty and began to write a history, but his political hopes and his literary ambitions foundered when the Medici party won a decisive victory over their patrician enemies in 1466. Despite this setback, Parenti's historical Memoir, recently rediscovered by Mark Phillips, is our best witness to this major crisis in Florentine politics....