The article discusses the importance of historical and political polemics in the works of Claude de Seyssel in the context of the European historiography of the Italian wars. The author suggests that this author's views were unique and that they differed from those expressed by other educated people of this age. In his works Claudede Seyssel did not seek to analyze the problems of the history of Anquity, he was addressing the contemporary problems. The works he composed were mostly of polemic nature. Trying to explain the peculiarities of the French monarchy to Italians, Seyssel attempted to show that the French monarchy was a harmoniously functioning system that could be discussed in the same terms as the Italian city-states. Thus he showed that the French monarchy did not fall out of the context of the humanistic worldview which considered the political systems of Antiquity as ideal models.