Little is known of his private life. His letters have all perished, except a few addressed to Machiavelli. They are lively in their style, and very friendly. He had no son, and seven daughters, and wrote to the secretary to ask his advice in settling them in marriage. Machiavelli advised his applying to the pope for a dowry; counselling him by all means to marry the eldest well, as the others would follow her example; and he quotes a passage from Dante, referring to a duke of Provence, "who had three daughters and each a queen. And the cause of this thing, was Romeo, a poor wandering man," who had advised the duke to be unsparing in his dowry to his eldest daughter, so to command a splendid alliance, as the best means to advance her sisters also. He gave her half his duchy, and she married the king of France. Guicciardini in reply says, "You have set me on ransacking Romagna for a copy of Dante, and at last I have found one." But he was too high-spirited to apply for a gift from the pope. Guicciardini was tall and of commanding aspect; rather squarely made, and not handsome; but robust, and with an animated, intelligent countenance. He was ambitious, and even haughty, so that he could endure neither contradiction nor advice. Prudence, industry, sagacity, and a penetrating understanding, recommended him to his employers; and he was frequently entrusted with carrying on and correcting the correspondence of the pope and other princes. The last six books of his history are considered unfinished. No portion of it was published till some years after his death, and then the passages considered injurious to papacy were omitted. A complete edition was first printed at Basle; but, even in this, the objectionable passages appeared under the disguise of Latin. His first idea had been to write only memoirs of his own life; and it was by the advice of Nardi, it is said, that he enlarged his plan into a history of Italy during his own times. [Footnote 32: It was a habit among the Florentines to keep memoranda of the principal events of their lives, which they called Ricordi. The date of the birth of Guicciardini has been disputed, but it is ascertained from a MS. book of his ricordi, or records, which Manni cites. He thus writes concerning himself:--"I record that I, Francesco di Piero Guicciardini, now doctor of civil and canon law, was born on the 6th March, 1482, at ten o'clock. I was baptised Francesco, from Francesco de Nerli, my maternal grandfather, and Tommaso, out of respect for St. Thomas Aquinas, on whose festival I was born. Messer Marsiglio Ficino held me at the baptismal font, who was the greatest platonic philosopher then existing in the world, and by Giovanni Canacci and Piero del Nero, both philosophers also."] [Footnote 33: See a clever pamphlet, entitled "Saggio sulla Vita e sulle Opere di Francesco Guicciardini," by Rosini, a professor of the University of Pisa.] VITTORIA COLONNA 1490-1547.