New Chronicle (Nuova Cronica)
The chronicle of a Florentine who began writing in 1300 and lived through the seizure of Boniface VIII at Anagni and the move of the papal court beyond the Alps. He reports these events as an Italian contemporary, with the rumours of his day.
Giovanni Villani was a citizen of Florence. He says that he went to Rome for the jubilee of 1300, saw the ancient city, and on his return began this chronicle of Florence, to which he added “the other notable things of the universe in brief” (book 8, chapter 36). He wrote the history of his city year by year and set it within the affairs of the popes, the emperors and the kings of France. For the years after 1300 he writes of what happened in his own adult lifetime.
He is well placed for the public facts: who was pope, where the court was, on what day a pope died. He also passes on what was “said” in Italy, and marks it so. His story of a secret bargain between Philip IV and the future Clement V before the election of 1305 is of this kind: it shows what Italians believed about a pope who never came to Italy, and it cannot be checked. He is no friend of the French popes, whom he calls Gascons, and he is cited here with that in mind.
Cited in
- 18 November 1302, firm date
- 1309 to 1377, estimated date