Domenico di Leonardo Buoninsegni's Istoria Fiorentina
Florence as a source for the political events which occurred in that city in the Trecento and Quattrocento. Being a narration of Florentine history from the Creation to the autumn of 1460 it has provided modern scholars with numerous details which, seemingly, offered fresh and original insights into the evolution of Florentine history, particularly for the later portion of the Istoria in which the events described coincided with the life of the author himself (b. I384-d. I465).1 Unfortunately, since its first partial publication by Giorgio Marescotti in I580 (reissued in I581), Buoninsegni's Istoria has been subject to a series of misunderstandings and misinterpretations on one of which, ironically, has rested its reputation among scholars. Marescotti, in fact, committed three serious errors in his publication of the text: he published only the first seven chapters of the Istoria, the portion, that is, which carries the story to February I409/10; he attributed the authorship of the work to Domenico's son Piero; and he based his edition of the work on a manuscript which lacked the proemio of the Istoria written by Domenico Buoninsegni himself. The first two of these errors were corrected within a fairly brief time. When the Florentine printer Landini in 1637 published the last two chapters of the Istoria, which cover the years I410-146o, he inserted a prefatory note explaining Marescotti's error, and correctly attributed the authorship of the entire ceuvre to Buoninsegni the elder.2 But he made no reference at all to the preface