Essay
The Prince
Il Principe
Niccolò Machiavelli · 1532
Synopsis
A short treatise in twenty-six chapters. The first distinguish the kinds of principalities, hereditary, new or mixed, and the ways of acquiring them; those that follow deal with arms, then with the qualities a prince must have or appear to have in order to keep power, with cruelty and clemency, with fear and love; the last weigh the part played by fortune and call for the liberation of Italy.
Context
The treatise was written from July to December 1513, during the author's retreat at Sant'Andrea in Percussina, under the Latin title De principatibus, which he names in a letter to Francesco Vettori of 10 December 1513. Intended at first for Giuliano de' Medici, it was dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino. The text circulated in manuscript and was printed only in 1532, in Rome by Blado and in Florence by the Giunta, five years after its author's death.
Who it is for
A short text, best read in an annotated edition that clarifies its many historical examples.
Prizes and reception
Placed on the Index in 1559, it circulated clandestinely and earned its author a reputation as an atheist and a cynic, before being studied in the Enlightenment.
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