Villari was born in Naples in 1827 to a rather well-off family, but he suffered the early loss of his father, who was a lawyer, who died in 1837 as a result of catching cholera. After a period of private study, he attended the school in Vico Bisi founded by Francesco De Sanctis. In 1849 he chose to live in Florence, on the one hand, to avoid the demands of his family, who would have wanted him to sacrifice his interests in history and literature and his political passion for a life as a lawyer. On the other hand, he wanted to escape the repression unleashed by the Bourbons following the revolt in Naples on 15 May 1848, in which he had taken part and was later arrested, although fortunately without any further repercussions. He shared the hardships that he suffered as a result of his relocation to Florence with many exiles from Naples, including De Sanctis himself. However, the opportunity to attend the meetings held by Margherita Albana Mignaty, who turned Via Larga into a multicultural meeting point for local intellectuals and for those foreigners passing through, not only helped him to integrate into the cultured circles of Florence, but also broadened his horizons and opened him to new experiences, thus giving him a unique profile compared to all those with whom he co-operated.

His work on the history of Italy, on Savonarola and on the Middle Ages in Italy, the culmination of his earlier interests, benefited also from a deep knowledge of French historiography of the beginning of the century, and later his interest in the English debate and his correspondence with John Stuart Mill, whom he met personally in Florence in 1855. After Le opere di Cesare Beccaria, a text with a biography, published by Le Monnier and criticised by “Civiltà Cattolica”, and his essay Sull’origine e sul progresso della filosofia della storia, printed by the Tipografia Galileiana, the contents and methodology of which brought together the Hegelian tradition with a reference to the positivism of Comte and, especially, Mill, with a thread of Italian thought that ran from Macchiavelli to Vico, in the second half of the 1850s Villari could call himself in all respects a naturalised Florentine. He was a member of the Accademia Colombaria, a contributor to the “Archivio storico italiano” of Giovan Pitero Vieusseux, and wrote a biography of Savonarola, in which the focus on the original documentation seen within a new historical perspective was far removed from the religious ideologies of the new Piagnoni [followers of Savonarola], who in Florence centred their studies on the Dominican monk from Ferrara. He would adopt the same methodology in his biography of Machiavelli, published about twenty years later.

After he received a teaching post in history at the University of Pisa, Villari stood out for his planning and organisational activities, with the result that he was nominated as director of the Scuola Normale in 1862. Later he moved to the Istituto di studi superiori in Florence, where he created one of the most important schools of philosophy and philology, which he would head for several decades. His study trips abroad and his international network of contacts, helped also by his wife Linda White (the daughter of James White, who was a Member of the English Parliament with liberal views) made him a celebrity of European standing, whose writings were translated into many languages and reviewed in the main newspapers. When in 1865 he published his article La filosofia positiva e il metodo storico, Villari’s intention was to address a Europe-wide group of readers and interlocutors, in order to give a new foundation to human sciences, snatching them from the dominance of the conservative and clerical tradition. His “historical method” had to be the “practical, safe and positive way” to a knowledge of the “actions and laws of the human spirit and thought”, a cultural renewal that saw in the methodological revolution of Galileo one of its most important forerunners.

Villari took an active part in politics, starting from the 1860s, and was to be a member of the Consiglio superiore della pubblica istruzione, secretary general of the Ministry, a Member of Parliament in the 1870s and a senator after 1884, as a result of having been nominated as a member of the Regia Accademia delle scienze for seven years and of the Consiglio superiore di istruzione pubblica, also for seven years. Between 1891 and 1892 he was Minister of Education in the first government of Antonio di Rudinì, in a unfortunate period as far as economic resources were concerned, which ended up overshadowing the positive aspect of his work. He was also a member of various academies and institutional committees, including the Lincei, the Deputazione toscana di storia patria and the Consiglio superiore degli archivi, but he did not neglect his historical studies, especially on mediaeval history, particularly of Florence, nor considerations on methodology, nor political analysis regarding state school and university education, social problems, the question of the South and emigration, and always guided by the beacon of positive science. He was a mason, but with little conviction, and he toyed with socialism through his favourite pupil Gaetano Salvemini, whom he continued to help, despite their different political views. He kept aloof from the colonial exploits in Libya and viewed with trepidation the economic problems preceding the First World War, which he considered anyway to be an inevitable tragedy.

He died in Florence in 1917 and is buried in the monumental cemetery of Porte Sante. One would have expected of Pasquale Villari, the father and theorist of the historical method, if not enthusiasm, at least a certain regard for the edition of Galileo, which was one of the most perfect incarnations of the historical method. Villari, however, perhaps as a result of poor advice, a wish to shine and personal antipathies, never hid his own annoyance towards Antonio Favaro’s enterprise. In 1892 he succeeded in stopping, through a ministerial order, after only the first volume, the printing of the paperback edition published by Le Monnier. This restricted the publication of the Opere di Galileo to 500 copies not for sale. Favaro, who had hoped for a wider distribution of his work, never forgave Villari and never gave up on the project, but despite repeated attempts, including a plea by Isidoro Del Lungo, who again in 1922 revived his idea in his commemoration of Favaro at the Accademia dei Lincei, the reprint in a smaller format never happened.