Villari, Pasquale [key], 1826–1917, Italian historian and statesman. He took part in the Revolution of 1848, served in the legislative chamber (1867–82), and was minister of education (1889–92). His first work on Savonarola (1859, tr. The History of Girolamo Savonarola and His Times, 1863) gained him an appointment (1859) as teacher of modern history at Pisa. He also taught at Florence. His vivid and keenly observant writings include The Life and Times of Niccolò Machiavelli (3 vol., 1877–82; tr. of 4th ed. 1929); biographies of Dante, Cavour, and Garibaldi; and studies of Galileo and the experimental method and of Sicilian socialism.
See his studies, ed. by L. Villari (1907, repr. 1968).
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