From this time he occupied himself wholly in the composition of his history. It is a fine monument of his genius and industry. It commences with the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII., and goes down to the exaltation of Cosmo. The fault attributed to him as an author is prolixity, and to this he must plead guilty. He dwells with the most tiresome and earnest minuteness on the most trivial incidents; and the taking of an insignificant castle, followed by no important results, is attended by the same diffuseness and exactitude of detail as events of the greatest magnitude. But no historian surpasses Guicciardini when the subject is worthy of his pen. His animated descriptions of battles, the chances of war, and conduct of princes and leaders; his delineations of character, and masterly views of the course of events, all claim the highest admiration. The orations, which he intersperses, have been cavilled at, but they are eloquent, full of dignified exhortation, or sagacious reasoning. His account of the rise and formation of the temporal power of the popes excited great censure in catholic countries; and throughout he is accused of showing himself the enemy of the Roman church. It is true, that the pages of no other historian afford such convincing proofs of the pernicious effects resulting from the union of spiritual supremacy and temporal possessions. His powerful character of the infamous pope Borgia; his description of the fiery vehemence of Julius II.; his unveiling of the faults of Leo X., and the exposure he makes of the mistakes and weakness of Clement VII., present the very men and times to our eyes, and form as it were a school in which to study the philosophy of history. We perceive no partiality till the last few pages, which record the downfall of the republic of Florence. His language is, in the eyes of Italian critics, nearly pure; it is forcible, without being concise; and the clearness and majesty of the expressions in his best passages carry the reader along with him. Guicciardini was solicited by pope Paul III. to leave his retreat, and to enter again on public life, but he refused. The disappointment of his ambitious views on the exaltation of Cosmo, and the duke's ingratitude, struck him to the heart. He did not live to complete his history, and died on the 27th of May, 1540, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. He expressly ordered that his funeral should be unattended by any pomp; and his directions were so strictly followed, that for some time no stone even commemorated the spot of his sepulture.