not only the ideal but the criterion that he adopts for the explanation of events. He does not only appear in his treatises and political opuscules, but in the Florentine Histories, where we meet with him at the very beginning--after the terrible imaginative description of the condition of Italy in the fifth century--in the great figure of Theodoric, by whose 'virtue' and 'goodness' not only Rome and Italy, but all the other parts of the Western empire, "arose free from the continual scourgings which they had supported for so many years from so many invasions, and became again happy and well-ordered communities." The same figure reappears in many different forms in the course of the centuries described in those histories. Finally, at the end of the description of the social struggles of Florence, we read that "this city had reached such a point that it could be easily adapted to _any form of government_ by _a wise law-giver._" In like manner, the _History of Italy_ by Guicciardini begins with the description of the happiness of Italy at the end of the fifteenth century, "acquired at various times and preserved for many reasons," not the least of which was "the industry and genius of Lorenzo de' Medici," who "strove in every way so to balance Italian affairs that they should not incline more in one direction than another." He had allies in Ferdinand of Aragon and Ludovic the Moor, "partly for the same and partly for other reasons," and the Venetians were held in check by all three of them. This perfect system of equilibrium was broken by the deaths of Lorenzo, of Ferdinand, and of the Pope. All historians of this period express themselves in the same way, and although a lively consciousness of the spiritual values of humanity was in process of formation, as has been seen, yet these were spoken of as though they depended upon the will and the intelligence of individuals who were their masters, not the contrary. In the history of painting, for example, the 'prince' for Vasari is Giotto, "who, although born among inexpert artisans, alone revived painting and reduced it to such a form as might be described as good." Biographies are also constantly individualistic, for they never succeed in perfectly uniting the individual with the work which he creates and which in turn creates him.