Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de SISMONDI (1773–1842), Swiss - Lot 143

Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de SISMONDI (1773–1842), Swiss historian and economist. Autograph manuscript signed “J.C.L.S-i,” *Condottieri*; 5 pages, in-4, on bluish paper. Article likely intended for a historical dictionary or encyclopedia. “Condottieri. This is the name by which the captains of mercenary soldiers were known in Italy, who placed themselves for a time in the service of independent governments”… Sismondi recounts their history, citing the most notable figures (Alberic of Barbiano, Braccio da Montone, Sigismondo Malatesta…), emphasizing that the condottieri had no personal stake in the wars they fought and “were primarily concerned with preserving the lives of their soldiers,” right up to the Italian Wars of Charles VIII, before concluding: “Machiavelli therefore urged the Florentines to reorganize their militias and to entrust the defense of the city solely to its citizens. It was too late; the struggle between France and the Holy Roman Empire on Italian soil had already begun; the forces of the peninsula were no longer sufficient to resist all of them at the same time; and the truly independent states—the republics and the condottieri—disappeared from Italy at that same time.”