Among several members of the extended Florentine patrician family the Cavalcanti holding the name Giovanni, the chronicler Giovanni Cavalcanti (1381-c.1451), of a minor branch of the family but who was captain of the

Guelf The Guelphs and Ghibellines (, , ; it, guelfi e ghibellini ) were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in the Italian city-states of Central Italy and Northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, ri ...

party in 1422, is most widely remembered for his malevolent and melancholic account of Florence, covering the period 1420-47. Cavalcanti's ''Storie'' obsessively focussed on the city's political intrigues and scandals and was colored by his personal political misfortunes as an aristocratic agitator, first against the corrupt oligarchy of 1420-34 and subsequently of the

Medici The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mu ...

; his long imprisonment for debt excluded him from the participation in public life that he considered his noble right. Historians had discounted the decayed ''grande'', Cavalcanti, who was rehabilitated by Claudio Varese, 1961. In private he was also the author of a ''Trattato politico-morale'', written in the 1440s and dedicated to the anti-Medicean Neri Capponi; it was intended as a

Ciceronian Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

moral guide to family morality and a nostalgic account of lost, pre-Medicean civic virtues, offered with Roman parallels, intended for Neri's young son.Giovanni Cavalcanti, Marcella T. Grendler, editor, ''The "Trattato politico-morale" of Giovanni Cavalcanti (1381-c.1451)'' (Geneva: Droz) 1973. First publication, of Cavalcanti's book III.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cavalcanti, Giovanni 15th-century Italian historians 1381 births 1450s deaths