Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 2, 2010

Giovanni Villani (c. 1280–1348) was an Italian banker, official, diplomat, and chronicler from Florence who wrote the Nuova Cronica on the history of Florence. He was a leading statesman of Florence but later gained an unsavory reputation and served time in prison due to the bankruptcy of a trading and banking company he worked for. His interest in and elaboration of economic details, statistical information, and political and psychological insight mark him as a more modern chronicler of late medieval Europe. His Cronica is viewed as the first introduction of statistics as a positive element in history. However, historian Kenneth R. Bartlett notes that "his reliance on such elements as Divine Providence links Villani closely with the medieval vernacular chronical tradition," that is to say, not linked closely with his Renaissance-era successors. In recurring themes made implicit through significant events described in his Cronica, Villani also emphasized three assumptions about sin and morality that guided historical events, these being that excess brings disaster, forces of right and wrong are at constant struggle, and that events are directly related to the will of God. While continuing work on the Cronica and detailing the enormous loss of life during the Black Death in 1348, Villani died of the very same illness. His work on the Cronica was continued by his brother and nephew. Villani's work has received both praise and criticism from modern historians. (more...)

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