Abstract

This article aims to offer some theoretical reflections about authorship and editorial practices in posthumous works and their impact on a modern critical edition, particularly on the status of an unfinished text after the author’s death. The case study considered here is Benedetto Varchi’s Storia fiorentina, a monumental history of Florence commissioned by duke Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1546 and left incomplete at Varchi’s death in 1565. Cosimo’s entourage eventually finished the Storia at the duke’s request, after a heavy editorial process that defined in a better way the overall project of the work, even though it involved censoring several passages.