Nonfiction · 1532
The Prince
Niccolò Machiavelli · translated by W. K. Marriott
Written in 1513, after its author had lost office in Florence, and printed in 1532, five years after his death, The Prince is a short handbook on how power is won and kept — by fortune or by ability, by cruelty or by clemency, by keeping faith or by breaking it. Its plainness about means made “Machiavellian” an insult; its analysis made it one of the founding texts of political thought.
Niccolò Machiavelli’s Italian is given here in the English translation by W. K. Marriott, first published in 1908.
This volume carries Machiavelli’s dedication to Lorenzo de’ Medici and, after the treatise, the life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca that he wrote in 1520.
Contents
- Note
- The Man and His Works
- Dedication
- Chapter I — How Many Kinds of Principalities There Are, and by What Means They Are Acquired
- Chapter II — Concerning Hereditary Principalities
- Chapter III — Concerning Mixed Principalities
- Chapter IV — Why the Kingdom of Darius, Conquered by Alexander, Did Not Rebel Against the Successors of Alexander at His Death
- Chapter V — Concerning the Way to Govern Cities or Principalities Which Lived Under Their Own Laws Before They Were Annexed
- Chapter VI — Concerning New Principalities Which Are Acquired by One’s Own Arms and Ability
- Chapter VII — Concerning New Principalities Which Are Acquired Either by the Arms of Others or by Good Fortune
- Chapter VIII — Concerning Those Who Have Obtained a Principality by Wickedness
- Chapter IX — Concerning a Civil Principality
- Chapter X — Concerning the Way in Which the Strength of All Principalities Ought to Be Measured
- Chapter XI — Concerning Ecclesiastical Principalities
- Chapter XII — How Many Kinds of Soldiery There Are, and Concerning Mercenaries
- Chapter XIII — Concerning Auxiliaries, Mixed Soldiery, and One’s Own
- Chapter XIV — That Which Concerns a Prince on the Subject of the Art of War
- Chapter XV — Concerning Things for Which Men, and Especially Princes, Are Praised or Blamed
- Chapter XVI — Concerning Liberality and Meanness
- Chapter XVII — Concerning Cruelty and Clemency, and Whether It Is Better to Be Loved Than Feared
- Chapter XVIII — Concerning the Way in Which Princes Should Keep Faith
- Chapter XIX — That One Should Avoid Being Despised and Hated
- Chapter XX — Are Fortresses, and Many Other Things to Which Princes Often Resort, Advantageous or Hurtful?
- Chapter XXI — How a Prince Should Conduct Himself So as to Gain Renown
- Chapter XXII — Concerning the Secretaries of Princes
- Chapter XXIII — How Flatterers Should Be Avoided
- Chapter XXIV — Why the Princes of Italy Have Lost Their States
- Chapter XXV — What Fortune Can Effect in Human Affairs and How to Withstand Her
- Chapter XXVI — An Exhortation to Liberate Italy from the Barbarians
- Description of the Methods Adopted by the Duke Valentino When Murdering Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, the Signor Pagolo, and the Duke di Gravina Orsini
- The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca
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About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
Part of Political Thought, Essential Philosophy.
Source mind
About the author
1469–1527 · Renaissance
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) was a Florentine civil servant and diplomat who served the republic from 1498 until the return of the Medici in 1512, when he was dismissed, briefly imprisoned and tortured, and retired to his farm outside the city. There he wrote The Prince (1513, printed 1532), the Discourses on Livy, the comedy Mandragola, The Art of War and the Florentine Histories. He died a few weeks after the Medici were expelled again.
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