Bernardo Segni composed a history of Florence still more valuable, which shared the same fate as that of Nerli. It was only after his death that his relatives accidentally discovered this history of Florence, which the author had carefully concealed during his lifetime. He had abstained from communicating to any one the existence of such a work while he lived, that he might not be induced to check the freedom of his pen, nor compromise the cause and the interests of truth. His heirs presented it to one of the Medici family, who threw it aside. Another copy had been more carefully preserved, from which it was printed in 1713, about 150 years after it had been written. It appears to have excited great curiosity, for Lenglet du Fresnoy observes that the scarcity of this history is owing to the circumstance "of the Grand Duke having bought up the copies." Du Fresnoy, indeed, has noticed more than once this sort of address of the Grand Duke; for he observes on the Florentine history of Bruto that the work was not common, the Grand Duke having bought up the copies to suppress them. The author was even obliged to fly from Italy for having delivered his opinions too freely on the house of the Medici. This honest historian thus expresses himself at the close of his work:--"My design has but one end--that our posterity may learn by these notices the root and the causes of so many troubles which we have suffered, while they expose the malignity of those men who have raised them up or prolonged them, as well as the goodness of those who did all which they could to turn them away." It was the same motive, the fear of offending the great personages or their families, of whom these historians had so freely written, which deterred Benedetto Varchi from publishing his well-known "Storie Fiorentine," which was not given to the world till 1721, a period which appears to have roused the slumbers of the literary men of Italy to recur to their native historians. Varchi, who wrote with so much zeal the history of his fatherland, is noticed by Nardi as one who never took an active part in the events he records; never having combined with any party, and living merely as a spectator. This historian closes the narrative of a horrid crime of Peter Lewis Farnese with this admirable reflection: "I know well this story, with many others which I have freely exposed, may hereafter prevent the reading of my history; but also I know, that besides what Tacitus has said on this subject, the great duty of an historian is not to be more careful of the reputation of persons than is suitable with truth, which is to be preferred to all things, however detrimental it may be to the writer."[113]