Collection of materials of an international conference organized jointly by IVI RAS, HSE and the Institute of Italian Culture in Moscow on September 22-23, 2019. The conference was timed to coincide with a number of anniversaries: the 500th anniversary of the creation of the historical works of Florentines N. Machiavelli and F. Gvichchardini). In addition, in 2019, the 550 anniversary of the birth of Makkiy iavelli The conference discussed the problems of the transition from medieval chronicles to the historiography of the Renaissance and the New Age, the circumstances of the appearance of the historical works of Machiavelli and Guicciardini, the philosophical, political and political-legal ideas embedded in them, the history of their perception and translations in European countries