Piero Guicciardini

Piero Guicciardini was born in Florence on 21 July 1808, son of Conte Francesco and Marchesa Elisabetta Pucci. A pupil of the Istituto Fiorentino di Istruzione, from 1825 to 1829 he attended the school of S. Giovannino run by the Scolopi fathers. Since his youth well-connected to the cultural life of the city, at the age of twenty he was associated with the Antologia and with the scientific-literary cabinet of Giovan Pietro Vieusseux. In 1829 he was one of the founders of the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, in collaboration with Gino Capponi, Cosimo Ridolfi and Raffaello Lambruschini.

Heir to a large estate in Cusona (S. Gimignano), in 1830 he became a member of the Accademia dei Georgofili, refining his agronomic skills and starting the modernization of his farms, taking the initiatives of the British aristocracy as a model of his enterprise. In 1831 he became founder (with his father) of a society for mutual education, of which he was treasurer for three years. His commitment as a philanthropist-educator soon became very well known in Florence, to the point that in 1833 the Grand Duke Leopold II commissioned him to reform popular children's education.

Until 1839 he was responsible for the creation of kindergartens, for which he actively engaged in raising funds. His familiarity with the cultured Tuscan aristocracy and Anglo-Swiss traders brought him closer to the positions of the English liberals and to the theology of liberal Catholicism. Having come into contact with the Swiss Protestant educator Matilde Calandrini, he was fascinated by evangelical spirituality. On his grave in the cemetery of Cusona he had it engraved that he was "born again" in the year 1836.

During the 1840s, he became the animator of the first groups of free Christians in the city, linked to the chiesa svizzera di Firenze from whose pastors he learned doctrine. However, he did not abandon his public commitment, so much so that in 1850 he became a municipal councillor: a position from which he subsequently lapsed for refusing the oath, which the authorities refused to replace with a simple promise (as hoped for by the count). In 1851 he was arrested together with some co-religionists, and after being sentenced to six months in prison, he was forced into exile.

Guicciardini therefore began a pilgrimage which took him to England, Switzerland and France. Especially in Great Britain he was welcomed by the leading figures of evangelical circles, but above all he met the Plymouth Brethren in whose movement he recognized many characteristics of his Tuscan "religious awakening". During his stay in the United Kingdom he also worked on a linguistic revision of the Italian Bible translated in the 17th century by Giovanni Diodati.

He soon established committees and initiatives aimed at building evangelical churches in Italy -- returning to Tuscany in 1859, he became the animator of the free churches. Municipal councillor in Florence between 1868 and 1870, he was beaten in the elections for the Chamber that same year by Ricasoli. A renowned book collector, he established a "Religious Bookshop" of over 10,000 volumes (including incunabula, sixteenth century and modern texts) now part of the National Central Library of Florence.

Guicciardini died in Florence on March 23, 1886. In the small world of Italian Protestantism, his status, wealth, talent and persistence made him a figure of significance, both historically and (to his co-generationalists) as a 'sort of patriarch of Italian Protestantism'. (Spini 2002: 14)

Sources:

Maghenzani, S., 'Guicciardini, Piero', Dizionario Biografico dell'Educazione 1800-2000, online http://dbe.editricebibliografica.it/dbe/indici.html (accessed 1 April 2021).

Reading

Giorgi, L. and M. Rubboli (eds.), Piero Guicciardini (1808-1886). Un riformatore religioso nell'Europa dell'Ottocento, Firenze: Olschki, 1988

Jacini, S., Un riformatore toscano dell'epoca del Risorgimento. Il conte Piero Guicciardini, Firenze: Sansoni, 1940

Maselli, D., Tra Risveglio e millennio. Storia delle chiese cristiane dei Fratelli 1836-1886, Torino: Claudiana, 1974

Maselli, D., 'Piero Guiccardini. Il conte evangelico', in D. Bognandi e M. Cignoni (eds.), Scelte di fede e di libertà. Profili di evangelici nell'Italia unita, Torino: Claudiana, 2011.

Ronco, D.D., 'Per me vivere è Cristo'. La vita e l'opera del conte Piero Guicciardini nel centenario della sua morte, 1808-1886, Fondi: UCEB, 1986

Spini, G., Risorgimento e protestanti, Torino: Claudiana, 2008.

Spini, G., Italia Liberale e protestanti, Torino: Claudiana, 2002.

Zanini, C., Del conte Piero Guicciardini, Firenze: Claudiana, 1902;