Mărturii din arhivele florentine
Sources from the Florentine Archives

Summary/Abstract: This previously unpublished paper given at the Sever Zotta Institute from Iași in the autumn of 2003 is an overview of the Romanian-related sources extant in the Florentine archives. Following on the footsteps of N. Iorga, the author adds a significant amount of new material to the already-known corpus of sources. This archival research starts in the fourteenth century and ends in the mid-seventeenth one. Among the newly-discovered sources the most spectacular are a biography of Pippo Spano, some Florentine merchants’ letters (especially the 1564 letter sent by Antonio Pandolfi to Pietro Machiavelli), several writings of the Florentine-born military commanders involved in the Transylvanian affairs, from Castaldo to Bernardo de Aldana, and more than a handful of Florentine informants’ reports on a variety of subjects (i.e. Sigismund Báthory’s matrimonial projects, anti-Ottoman plans, or the ancient history of the region). In addition to its historical substance, this paper also provides a historiographical testimony, as it echoes some controversies of the day within the Romanian academia.

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