(i) Accolti's historical thought

Benedetto Accolti's preoccupation with history impressed his contemporary, Vespasiano da Bisticci, who wrote that he ‘had universal knowledge of … histories’, and Accolti was apparently already contemplating and even planning a longer work of history on the crusades – which was to become his De bello – while composing the dialogue, where he declares,

Accolti's dialogue is itself a work of historical research: besides revealing wide reading of classical authors including Cicero, Livy, Sallust, the elder Seneca, Lucan, Justin, Polybius and Josephus, who were the sources for Accolti's picture of the ancient world, the work also shows the study of patristic authors such as Augustine, Jerome, Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom and Eusebius for his portrait of the ancient church and of a recent author such as Bruni for modern history. His two completed Latin compositions did not satisfy his historical enthusiasm, as was noted by Vespasiano, who wrote that ‘he wanted to pursue history up to his own times, part of which he completed having written the history of Godfrey of Bouillon's expedition to the holy land’; indeed, at the end of the preface to De bello, he himself wrote to Piero de' Medici, ‘If you do not regard my work as entirely inept, I shall be encouraged to pursue the study of history more keenly in the future.’