Prof. Stefano U. Baldassarri has just published a volume,  The Viper and the Lily. The conflict between Milan and Florence in the invectives of Antonio Loschi and Coluccio Salutati (La vipera e il giglio. Lo scontro tra Milano e Firenze nelle invettive di Antonio Loschi e Coluccio Salutati, Rome, Aracne, 2012). In the war of 1390-1402, both Florence and Milan relied on their chanceries to put their opponents in the worst possible light. The Viper and the Lily offers the first critical edition and complete Italian translation of the two main texts authored around this war: Antonio Loschi’s Invective against the Florentines (1401) and Coluccio Salutati’s detailed reply two years later. In these writings both the Visconti secretary and the Chancellor of the Florentine republic employed their extensive knowledge of the classics (especially Cicero) to defend their own states in ideological terms. Many illustrious scholars have focused on the years dealt with here, emphasizing their crucial role in shaping the image of fifteenth-century Florence. Suffice it to say that Salutati’s innovative account of the origins of this city, put forth in his reply to Loschi, would characterize Florence’s propaganda until the 1460s and the coming of the Medici hegemony.