The overtures which he had made to the Medici had been but coldly received; yet they were sufficiently notorious to bring upon him the suspicion of the patriots.

He had not sincerely acted up to the precept of Polonius: 'This above all,--to thine own self be true.' His intellectual ability, untempered by sufficient political consistency or moral elevation, had placed him among the outcasts:-- che non furon ribelli, Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se foro.
The great achievement of these years was the composition of the _Istorie Fiorentine_.

The commission for this work he received from Giulio de' Medici through the Officiali dello Studio in 1520, with an annual allowance of 100 florins.

In 1527, the year of his death, he dedicated the finished History to Pope Clement VII.

This masterpiece of literary art, though it may be open to the charges of inaccuracy and superficiality,[2] marks an epoch in the development of modern historiography.