During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a new form of historiography developedin Europe under the influence of 'antiquarianism'. lts novel approach to the proper handlingof historical sources and divergent writing style represented a drastic break from traditionalhistoriographical ideals. In this paper, I wish to explore this scholarly developmentfrom a comparative perspective on the basis of a small corpus of early modernnational histories. I will focus attention on two complementary aspects of these workswhich are particularly revelatory of the scholarly views which influenced their composition:the handling of historical sources and the style of the text. These two dimensionspresent the two faces of historiography: the scientific study and the literary work and aretherefore particularly revelatory of the crucial shift from historiography as a literary genreto historical studies as a scientific discipline which took place in this period.
