I had to read this book for a college history class. I was impressed that these ancient diaries had been preserved and had been brought into the printing world. I was not impressed with the content. Pitti's diary did not tell me anything about Florence. He traveled too much because of his affinity with the French. He seemed to me like a conservative, wealthy extremist who wrote the diary for his own self indulgence. My understanding of Renaissance Florence is no sharper than before this book because the life of this man could not have been indicative of the rest of the population of Florence.