Palmieri's best-known work as a humanist is "Della vita civile" ("On Civic Life"; printed 1528), composed in 1429 and circulated between 1435 and 1440. It is a treatise discussing the qualities of the ideal citizen. It is written as series of dialogs in four books, set in a country house in Mugello during the plague of 1430, with Agnolo Pandolfini, a rich Florentine merchant, as the main speaker. Depending for the first dialogue upon Quintilian's "Institutio oratoria" and for the last three on Cicero's "De officiis", it discusses the physical and intellectual development of children, the moral life of a citizen, and the contrasting tensions between what is useful and what is honest. As well as classic writers such as Cicero, Quintilian and Plutarch, it draws on Palmieri's own personal experiences as a civil servant. His primary emphasis and advocacy is on the need for a good education and taking an active part in the life of the city. Education at an early age he considered crucial to improve the human capacity to do good for others and the community.