The whole mass of this historical literature is instinct with the spirit of criticism and vital with experience.

The writers have been either actors or spectators of the drama.

Trained in the study of antiquity, as well as in the council-chambers of the republic and in the courts of foreign princes, they survey the matter of their histories from a lofty vantage ground, fortifying their speculative conclusions by practical knowledge and purifying their judgment of contemporary events with the philosophy of the past.

Owing to this rare mixture of qualities, the Florentines deserve to be styled the discoverers of the historic method for the modern world.

They first perceived that it is unprofitable to study the history of a state in isolation, that not wars and treaties only, but the internal vicissitudes of the commonwealth, form the real subject matter of inquiry,[2] and that the smallest details, biographical, economical, or topographical, may have the greatest value.