We see at Florence that from the foundation of the city to the days of Messer Lionardo and Messer Poggio there was no record of anything that the Florentines had done, in Latin, or history devoted to themselves.

Messer Poggio follows after Messer Lionardo, and writes like him in Latin.

Giovanni Villani, too, wrote an universal history in the vulgar tongue of whatsoever happened in every place, and introduces the affairs of Florence as they happened.

The same did Messer Filippo Villani, following after Giovanni Villani.

These are they alone who have distinguished Florence by the histories that they have written.'[5] The pride of the citizen and a just sense of the value of history, together with sound remarks upon Venice and Milan, mingle curiously in this passage with the pedantry of a fifteenth-century scholar.
[1] Poggio's _Historia Populi Florentini_ is given in the XXth volume of Muratori's collection.