This disappointment and his ill-
health, brought on by hard study, terminated his life, and he died A.D.
1607. The _Annales Ecclesiastici_ occupied Baronius thirty years, and
contain the history of the Church from the earliest times to A.D. 1198.
Various editions were printed at Venice, Cologne, Antwerp, Metz,
Amsterdam, and Lucca. It was continued by Rainaldi and Laderchi, and the
whole work was published in forty-two volumes at Lucca 1738-57. It is a
monument of the industry and patience of its authors.
Another luckless Italian historian flourished in the sixteenth century,
John Michael Bruto, who was born A.D. 1515, and was the author of a very
illustrious work, _Historia Florentina_ (Lyons, 1562). The full title of
the work is: _Joh. Michaelis Bruti Historiae Florentinae, Libri VIII.,
priores ad obitum Laurentii de Medicis_ (Lugduni, 1561, in-4). He wrote
with considerable elegance, judgment, and force, contradicting the
assertions of the historian Paolo Giovio, who was a strong partisan of the
Medicis, and displaying much animosity towards them.
This book aroused the ire of the powerful family of the Medicis, and was
suppressed by public authority. Bruto encouraged the brave citizens of
Florence to preserve inviolate the liberties of their republic, and to
withstand all the attempts of the Medicis to deprive them of their rights.
On account of its prohibition the work is very rare, for the chiefs of the
Florentines took care to buy all the copies which they could procure.
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