Part 1 (1/2)

The Essential writings of Machiavelli.

by Niccolo Machiavelli & Peter Constantine.

INTRODUCTION.

Albert Russell Ascoli.

In his second and lesser known play, Clizia Clizia, Niccol Machiavelli imagines history, following the late Greek historian Polybius and ultimately Plato, as a cyclical process: ”If in the world the same men were to return, as the same events recur, a hundred years would not pa.s.s before we would find ourselves once more together, doing the same things as we do today”1 Machiavelli, who believed strongly in the utility of reading the past in order to understand, and to shape, the present, nonetheless speaks in the verbal mode of ”condition-contrary-to-fact,” suggesting the improbability of his hypothesis and ironically undermining his claims even as he makes them. It is this voice-wise, self-critical, sometimes quite bitter, and often very funny-that the present volume offers up to be heard, as it rarely is by an English-language public, in something very near its full range, power, and beauty. Machiavelli, who believed strongly in the utility of reading the past in order to understand, and to shape, the present, nonetheless speaks in the verbal mode of ”condition-contrary-to-fact,” suggesting the improbability of his hypothesis and ironically undermining his claims even as he makes them. It is this voice-wise, self-critical, sometimes quite bitter, and often very funny-that the present volume offers up to be heard, as it rarely is by an English-language public, in something very near its full range, power, and beauty.

We no longer believe that history moves in cycles, and we are beginning to lose faith in the model of relentless forward progress-technological, economic, sociopolitical-that has predominated, at least in the imperial West, since the Enlightenment. And we have responded to this loss of our princ.i.p.al models of historical understanding by forgetting the past-or chopping it into postmodern fragments-or turning it into grotesque fantasies of hermetic codes that unlock a violently repressed past (which, oddly enough, then looks very like the present). If there is an idea of history we have not forgotten, it is the Christian, or Marxian, idea of history's end-of the Apocalypse, or of ”the withering away of the state.” Under such conditions, Machiavelli still has much to offer, whether he is seen as const.i.tuting the origins of our current circ.u.mstances, as ”the father of modern politics” and a sponsor of what is known in some quarters as secular humanism, or instead viewed as someone experiencing, and recording, a crisis in world order and sociopolitical inst.i.tutions not entirely unlike the one we ourselves now face.

Unlike his contemporaries Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the epic poet Ludovico Ariosto, Niccol Machiavelli (14691527) does not tempt us with the possibility of flight into a past both simpler and more beautiful than our own world. Rather, he has consistently been figured as the originator of ideas and practices that have led directly to the present state of things. On the one hand, his exaltation of the Roman Republic (as against the later Empire), his links to the last stirrings of anti-Medicean Florentine republicanism, and his violent critique of the Catholic Church's role in Italian politics have been understood as throwing open the gates to a secularization of the political that led to English parliamentary government and thence to the American and French revolutions.2 And this view finds real support in his work, particularly on the pages of his long commentary on Livy's Roman And this view finds real support in his work, particularly on the pages of his long commentary on Livy's Roman Histories, The Discourses Histories, The Discourses, where, for example, he exposes Julius Caesar's power grab (and the literary propaganda machine that legitimized it) and argues, against all received wisdom of the time, that the ”people” understand the world better than the ”Prince.”

On the other hand, he has been linked, and not without reason, to the degradation and delegitimization of a politics decoupled from moral imperatives and transcendent religious principles. Already in Elizabethan England he is ”the murderous Machiavel” dramatized in the diabolical shenanigans of Shakespeare's Richard III, not to mention Iago, and frequently tied-ironically-to the Protestant demonization of the corrupt papacy. For Hannah Arendt, and even more for Leo Strauss, he is the patron saint not of modern democracy, but rather of demagogic totalitarianisms, from Fascism and n.a.z.ism to Stalin's Soviet Union. Here also, and more obviously, there is a great deal of supporting evidence: for example, in the famous dicta from The Prince The Prince that ”all armed prophets were successful, while unarmed prophets came to ruin”; ”a man is quicker to forget the death of his father than the loss of his patrimony”; ”a wise [prince] will not keep his word”; and so on. Or in the exemplary role conferred on the b.l.o.o.d.y state-building of Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI. Or in the mockery of Roman Lucretia's chast.i.ty and suicide-out of which Livy says the Roman Republic arose-via the adulterous seduction and corruption of Florentine Lucrezia in his darkly comic play that ”all armed prophets were successful, while unarmed prophets came to ruin”; ”a man is quicker to forget the death of his father than the loss of his patrimony”; ”a wise [prince] will not keep his word”; and so on. Or in the exemplary role conferred on the b.l.o.o.d.y state-building of Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI. Or in the mockery of Roman Lucretia's chast.i.ty and suicide-out of which Livy says the Roman Republic arose-via the adulterous seduction and corruption of Florentine Lucrezia in his darkly comic play The Mandrake The Mandrake.

What these two apparently contradictory views share is the notion that in Machiavelli can be found the first stirrings of modernity-of secularization, of dispa.s.sionately scientific thought, of human agency and foresight (”prudence”), rather than divine providence, as the driving engines of politics and society. What they share as well is a strong tendency to wrench Machiavelli's words and works out of their original historical context and to turn his always qualified, always historically grounded precepts into abstract, universal rules of conduct. Moreover, both views identify Machiavelli with one text-usually The Prince The Prince, sometimes The Discourses The Discourses-when in fact he wrote across a broad spectrum ranging from diplomatic reports, to political-historical treatises, to a dialogic primer in The Art of War The Art of War, to a collection of fascinating personal letters, to poetry and drama, and even to a treatise on the Tuscan language (in which he stages a dialogue between himself and his ill.u.s.trious precursor Dante Alighieri, whose work he both loved and mocked). There is a strong case, then, for looking at Machiavelli's oeuvre as a whole and for reading it in the flickering light of his personal biography and of the turbulent era which gave rise to him, and which he, as much as anyone, is responsible for blazoning in the historical imagination of the West. In particular, there is a case to be made for seeing his experience of a radical historical and ideological crisis as a.n.a.logous to the unsettled world that we now confront.

Niccolo Machiavelli was born in 1469, the same year that Lorenzo de' Medici (called the Magnificent) a.s.sumed unofficial control of Florence, following in the footsteps of his father and especially his grandfather, Cosimo the elder.3 Machiavelli was a member of the oligarchic elite that ruled Florence, but not of its upper echelon (unlike his friends Francesco Vettori and especially Francesco Guicciardini, author of the first great Machiavelli was a member of the oligarchic elite that ruled Florence, but not of its upper echelon (unlike his friends Francesco Vettori and especially Francesco Guicciardini, author of the first great History of Italy) History of Italy). He came of age, politically speaking, between 1494 and 1500, when, in rapid succession, (1) the vulnerability of the Italian peninsula-divided into small, independent, fractious states-was exposed by the invasion of Charles VIII, King of France; (2) the Medici family-now headed by Lorenzo's f.e.c.kless son, Piero-was unseated from power and temporarily exiled from Florence by a combination of religious zeal (centered on the ”unarmed prophet” himself, Girolamo Savonarola), of anti-Medicean, pro-republican sentiment, and of King Charles's almost unwitting collaboration; (3) Savonarola rose to power and then fell, burned at the stake, in 1498, having failed in his Utopian quest for religious and political reform; and (4) a new, moderate republican government was inst.i.tuted under the leaders.h.i.+p of one Piero Soderini, with Machiavelli a.s.suming the role of second secretary to the ruling council, ultimately becoming Soderini's chief political, diplomatic, and military adviser.

Machiavelli's vocation-his true calling, as he himself understood it-was in the role of active partic.i.p.ant in the world of Florentine and Italian politics. His writings from the period when he served the re-founded republic (from 1498 to its fall in 1512) are largely confined to official dispatches, reports, and briefings; his only serious literary endeavors were two chronicles of Florentine political life over two decades, written in the rhyme scheme terza rima terza rima, invented by Dante for the Divine Comedy Divine Comedy (ca. 1320). Only with the ignominious collapse of the republic-provoked by an invasion by troops of the other European superpower, Spain, and with the collaboration of Pope Julius II (Michelangelo's patron)-and the triumphant return of the Medici, whose head, Giovanni de' Medici, would shortly be crowned Pope Leo X, did Machiavelli's career as ”Machiavelli” begin in earnest. In a justly famous-caustic, pathetic, and brilliant-letter of December 10, 1513, Machiavelli, from his exile on the fringes of Florence, speaks of writing what would become (ca. 1320). Only with the ignominious collapse of the republic-provoked by an invasion by troops of the other European superpower, Spain, and with the collaboration of Pope Julius II (Michelangelo's patron)-and the triumphant return of the Medici, whose head, Giovanni de' Medici, would shortly be crowned Pope Leo X, did Machiavelli's career as ”Machiavelli” begin in earnest. In a justly famous-caustic, pathetic, and brilliant-letter of December 10, 1513, Machiavelli, from his exile on the fringes of Florence, speaks of writing what would become The Prince The Prince-declaring its content to be the fruit of his private colloquies with the (books of the) ancient philosophers, historians, and poets, and its purpose to be that of acquiring favor with the Medici (who were, reasonably enough, deeply suspicious of this counselor to their enemies, whom they had recently arrested and briefly tortured before banis.h.i.+ng him) and thus regaining active employment.

That purpose was never fully realized, though his relations with the Medici gradually improved to the point of his receiving a commission from Leo's Medicean successor as pope, Clement VII, to write the Florentine Histories Florentine Histories. Instead, in the fifteen years between his exclusion from the precincts of power and his untimely death (in 1527, at the age of fifty-eight), Machiavelli would write The Prince, The Discourses, The Art of War The Prince, The Discourses, The Art of War, the Histories Histories, and his two plays, along with various poems, a misogynistic short story (”Belf.a.gor”), essays, a biography, and many, many letters. In these, he offers an inside view, at once melancholy and incisive, poignant and satirical, of the daily life of Renaissance Florence, revealing what for us today has become a kind of museum-an architectural and artistic monument, a memorial to the great artists and writers of its past (from Dante and Giotto to Alberti, Donatello, and Lorenzo, to Michelangelo and Machiavelli himself)-as a raw, raunchy, vital, profoundly human place. At the same time, he invents (or so it is claimed) the scientific study of politics, takes lengthy strides toward modern ideas of the writing of history, and makes a crucial contribution to the refounding of a secular dramatic theater, which would reach its zenith less than a hundred years later, in the England of Shakespeare.

All of these works, most of which are represented in this collection in whole or in part, deserve their own, separate consideration, which, alas, they cannot receive in an introduction of this kind. Together they represent a powerful, anguished response to a crisis not only in Machiavelli's own life and in the life of his beloved Florence, but in that of the Italian peninsula and of Europe generally. The elements of that crisis are well known: the rise of the nation-state (France, Spain, England), which would soon render the independent states of Italy obsolete; the discovery of an unknown world that both unsettled traditional understandings of human society and unleashed a frenzied pursuit of imperial dominion and economic hegemony; the fragmentation of Christianity with the Lutheran-Protestant revolt (whose first warning shot-the Lutheran theses-was directed at the gaudy worldly papacy of Leo and was heard in the same year we believe Machiavelli completed The Prince The Prince, 1517); and so on and on. Machiavelli's writings, especially the ones on politics and history represent an extreme response to an extreme situation-and they betray the angry if often bitingly funny awareness that traditional theocentric ways of thinking and established inst.i.tutions (whether Florentine republicanism or the Catholic Church itself) were incapable of coping with a menacing tide of drastic changes.

It is tempting to find in this experience, Machiavelli's experience, an allegory of our recent history and present state: the decay and evident inadequacy of protodemocratic inst.i.tutions; wars between superpowers that carry along the rest of the world in their wake; globalization driven by economic exploitation and the exportation of an imperial culture; fierce, at times violent, attacks motivated by religious intolerance (most obviously between Protestants and Catholics, but the expanding Muslim world, in the form of the Ottoman Empire, was an increasingly present worry for Europe); a world in which terror is a weapon of first resort. No doubt, Machiavelli would tell us if he could, such parallels have their limitations, but also their uses.

Which brings me to a last point, one that encapsulates my own admiration of and wariness about this courageous, dangerous, ever-innovative author: Machiavelli's political thought places us at the very top of the intellectual and ethical ”slippery slope” one hears so much about-that is, in a world of politics, society, and culture no longer grounded in sacred truths or moral imperatives, no longer able to count on long-cherished principles of order and understanding. But, we should ask ourselves-as Machiavelli's best readers have asked themselves since his own time-does he invent this slippery slope, or does he simply reveal that it has been the uncertain ground beneath our feet all along? Does he create or does he expose the perils of a historical world of contingency where our neighbors' (and perhaps even our own) intentions are frequently bad, where justice is often an empty, crowd-pleasing spectacle, where human rights and freedom are not divinely given and ”unalienable” but, if they exist as such at all, hard won and easily lost?

There is no easy answer to this question-which is in some ways the the question we face today-but the reading of Machiavelli in all of his many facets, in the complexity of his thought and of his imagination, demands of us that we address it before it is too late. question we face today-but the reading of Machiavelli in all of his many facets, in the complexity of his thought and of his imagination, demands of us that we address it before it is too late.

ALBERT R RUSSELL A ASCOLI is Gladys Arata Terrill Distinguished Professor of Italian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He has held research fellows.h.i.+ps from the NEH and ACLS, and was awarded the Rome Prize for study at the American Academy in Rome in 20045. His publications include is Gladys Arata Terrill Distinguished Professor of Italian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He has held research fellows.h.i.+ps from the NEH and ACLS, and was awarded the Rome Prize for study at the American Academy in Rome in 20045. His publications include Ariosto's Bitter Harmony: Crisis and Evasion in the Italian Renaissance Ariosto's Bitter Harmony: Crisis and Evasion in the Italian Renaissance (Princeton, 1987) and (Princeton, 1987) and Dante and the Making of a Modern Author Dante and the Making of a Modern Author (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, 2007). With Victoria Kahn he co-edited (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, 2007). With Victoria Kahn he co-edited Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature (Cornell, 1993), which includes his essay ”Machiavelli's Gift of Counsel.” (Cornell, 1993), which includes his essay ”Machiavelli's Gift of Counsel.”

1. Clizia Clizia, Preface; see also The Discourses The Discourses, Book II, Preface and chapters 39 and 43, and Book III, chapter 1, and the Florentine Histories Florentine Histories Book III, chapter 1, and Book V, chapter 1; cf. Book III, chapter 1, and Book V, chapter 1; cf. The Prince The Prince, chapter 6.2. As J.G.A. Poc.o.c.k argues in As J.G.A. Poc.o.c.k argues in The Machiavellian Moment The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton University Press, 1975). (Princeton University Press, 1975).3. This Lorenzo is not to be confused with his grandson of the same name, to whom This Lorenzo is not to be confused with his grandson of the same name, to whom The Prince The Prince is dedicated. is dedicated.

EDITOR'S NOTE.

Born in a city which more than any other spoke in a way.

that was ideal for expressing itself in verse and prose.NICCOL M MACHIAVELLI.

When Machiavelli set out to write his final great work, Florentine Histories Florentine Histories, his contract with Cardinal Giulio de' Medici stipulated that Machiavelli would compile ”the annals and chronicles of Florence” but also specified that it was up to him in what tongue he chose to do so, ”Latin or Tuscan.” In the early 1500s Latin was the language of intellectual discourse and high literature. Machiavelli, throughout his life as a literary and political writer, championed a new and vibrant Italian idiom based on the Tuscan speech of Florence, an idiom which the great Florentine writers of his time who chose not to write in Latin could bolster with Latin or Latinate words.

The contract to write Florentine Histories Florentine Histories was drawn up in 1520. At that time Machiavelli had been exiled from Florentine political life for eight years and was living on his farm in straitened circ.u.mstances after a decade of being in the center of Florentine politics as the foremost adviser to the Gonfalonier Piero Soderini. But in 1520, when Soderini offered him a prestigious and profitable position in Ragusa (present-day Dubrovnik), Machiavelli made a surprising choice: After years of desperate attempts to return to political life, he now declined Soderini's offer. He opted instead to become Florence's official historiographer at about half the salary he had earned a decade earlier as Soderini's right-hand man. To Machiavelli, being a literary figure was of greater importance. was drawn up in 1520. At that time Machiavelli had been exiled from Florentine political life for eight years and was living on his farm in straitened circ.u.mstances after a decade of being in the center of Florentine politics as the foremost adviser to the Gonfalonier Piero Soderini. But in 1520, when Soderini offered him a prestigious and profitable position in Ragusa (present-day Dubrovnik), Machiavelli made a surprising choice: After years of desperate attempts to return to political life, he now declined Soderini's offer. He opted instead to become Florence's official historiographer at about half the salary he had earned a decade earlier as Soderini's right-hand man. To Machiavelli, being a literary figure was of greater importance.

This interest in elegant writing manifested itself throughout Machiavelli's career. Judging by what has come down to us, his prose first came to notice when he was thirty. We have discourses written in an official capacity, pieces such as ”Discourse on Pisa” and ”On Pistoian Matters,” which are incisive a.n.a.lyses of urgent political problems that Florence was facing. They are remarkable not only for their immediate sizing up of issues, but also for their clear and beautiful prose. In a piece believed to be from that time, ”How Duke Valentino Killed the Generals Who Conspired Against Him,” Machiavelli describes the brutal and cunning means by which Cesare Borgia (Duke Valentino) eliminated rivals who crossed him. The controlled prose describing the mounting menace of Borgia's murderous tactics is given a touch of lyricism as Machiavelli describes the landscape, r.e.t.a.r.ding the action: Whoever approaches Senigallia has on his right the mountains, with foothills that come so close to the sea that there is often only a narrow strip of land between them and the waves. Even in those places where the foothills are further inland, the strip is never more than two miles wide. Senigallia lies a bow's shot from these foothills, and less than a mile away from the sh.o.r.e. There is a little river by the city that washes the walls facing toward Fano.

Machiavelli's ma.n.u.scripts reveal how carefully he edited his own work: words crossed out, sentences chiseled down for concision, a lofty Latin word replaced by a simpler and more direct Italian one. The slightly hyperbolic and pompous redundando in utilita redundando in utilita (literally: ”redounding in benefit”) of a first draft is changed into the simpler (literally: ”redounding in benefit”) of a first draft is changed into the simpler retornando utilita retornando utilita (”returning benefit”). (”returning benefit”).

The translator must keep in mind that words change their meanings and nuances over the centuries: Virtu Virtu, for instance, in modern Italian, primarily means ”virtue” in the modern English sense, but in Machiavelli's Italian it had a range of meaning depending on the context. It princ.i.p.ally reflected the Latin virtus virtus-excellence, manliness, strength, vigor, bravery, and courage. In Renaissance Italian it also took on shades of ”skill,” ”competence,” and ”virtue” in the modern sense. Machiavelli uses the word in many forms throughout his works: virtuoso, virtude, virtutis, virtuosissimo, virtuosissimamente. Religione virtuoso, virtude, virtutis, virtuosissimo, virtuosissimamente. Religione is another word that has different shades of meaning in Machiavelli's Italian. Mostly it means ”religion” in the modern sense, but it can also reflect the Latin original is another word that has different shades of meaning in Machiavelli's Italian. Mostly it means ”religion” in the modern sense, but it can also reflect the Latin original religio: religio: conscientiousness, moral obligation, duty. conscientiousness, moral obligation, duty.

Throughout his works Machiavelli was refracting ancient texts, particularly in The Discourses on Livy The Discourses on Livy. Where he was specifically responding to Latin and ancient Greek texts, I have translated the pa.s.sages from the original in the footnotes.

- Machiavelli took himself seriously as an important literary figure of his time. When in Orlando Furioso Orlando Furioso his contemporary Ludovico Ariosto has the poet return from the sea of writing to the sh.o.r.e of reading, he encounters a crowd of literary figures of the day-but not Machiavelli. his contemporary Ludovico Ariosto has the poet return from the sea of writing to the sh.o.r.e of reading, he encounters a crowd of literary figures of the day-but not Machiavelli.* He was angry at being omitted. He was angry at being omitted.

Today, Machiavelli's most widely read work is The Prince The Prince, and the three books of The Discourses on Livy has The Discourses on Livy has a more limited readers.h.i.+p. But the vast body of Machiavelli's important and compelling works is unjustly neglected. This volume presents a wider panorama of Machiavelli's many guises as a political philosopher and literary figure. His work has been clouded by centuries of controversy, but as you read through a more limited readers.h.i.+p. But the vast body of Machiavelli's important and compelling works is unjustly neglected. This volume presents a wider panorama of Machiavelli's many guises as a political philosopher and literary figure. His work has been clouded by centuries of controversy, but as you read through The Prince, The Discourses on Livy The Prince, The Discourses on Livy, and his historical and literary masterpieces, a clearer sense of their powerful, multilayered texture emerges-precisely the texture that has led to so much debate and disagreement.

What has perplexed readers for the past five centuries is that Machiavelli's most popular work, The Prince The Prince, seems to espouse the ruthless acquisition and maintenance of power by a single ruler, while his significantly more far-reaching book, The Discourses on Livy The Discourses on Livy, advocates republican forms of government. How can these two incompatible sides of Machiavelli be reconciled? It is widely believed that The Discourses on Livy The Discourses on Livy corresponds to his fundamental beliefs: he interprets the great Roman historian's corresponds to his fundamental beliefs: he interprets the great Roman historian's History of Rome History of Rome as offering viable models to be emulated in his own time. as offering viable models to be emulated in his own time. The Prince The Prince, on the other hand, is seen as offering viable cla.s.sical models to a single ruler. Machiavelli hoped that this ruler would be one of the Medici, who in appreciation might restore him to his former high position in politics.

The Essential Writings of Machiavelli is divided into four parts. The first presents the major political works: is divided into four parts. The first presents the major political works: The Prince The Prince, and selections from The Discourses on Livy, The Art of War The Discourses on Livy, The Art of War, and Florentine Histories Florentine Histories. The second part contains Machiavelli's political essays and treatises. These lesser-known pieces are from the period when Machiavelli was at the height of his political career. They range from strategic a.n.a.lyses of urgent and critical issues that Florence was facing beyond its borders during the first decade of the 1500s to lighter pieces, such as Machiavelli's irreverent ”On the Nature of the French.” The selection of fiction, social satire, historical prose, and theater in the third part shows perhaps the greatest range of Machiavelli's literary talent. The Mandrake The Mandrake is considered one of the most well-crafted theatrical pieces of the Italian Renaissance. It is the only play of the period that is still widely performed in our time. The final part is a brief selection of Machiavelli's letters to friends and family. They reveal Machiavelli as a caring, witty, sensitive man, and contain some of his most beautiful writing. is considered one of the most well-crafted theatrical pieces of the Italian Renaissance. It is the only play of the period that is still widely performed in our time. The final part is a brief selection of Machiavelli's letters to friends and family. They reveal Machiavelli as a caring, witty, sensitive man, and contain some of his most beautiful writing.

* Albert Russell Ascoli and Victoria Kahn, in Albert Russell Ascoli and Victoria Kahn, in Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 1. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 1.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Burton Pike for his encouragement, support, and knowledgeable editorial advice throughout this project. I am also grateful to Albert Russell Ascoli for his encouragement: I benefited from both his advice and his extensive publications over the years on Machiavelli and the Italian Renaissance. I am also grateful to Daniel Javitch for his editorial recommendations, to Nelson Moe, and to Beth Hadas for her insights into Machiavelli's comic prose. I am especially thankful to Judy Sternlight, my editor at Modern Library, for her tireless support and helpful knowledge of the Renaissance, to Vincent La Scala, and to Jessica Wainwright.I am particularly grateful to Columbia University's libraries and the help of Karen Green, the Librarian of Ancient and Medieval History and Religion. Columbia's substantial Italian Renaissance collection was of great help for the annotation and interpretation of the texts.-Peter Constantine

POLITICAL WORKS.

THE PRINCE.

The Prince is the first modern treatise of political philosophy, and over the centuries it has remained one of the most influential and most widely read works. It is of outspoken clarity, and yet is one of the most enigmatic works in history. It tells in clear terms how to gain power, how to keep it, and how to wield it, and has often been seen as the product of cold cynicism. Despite its clarity, however, centuries of readers have not been able to agree on what its principles actually are is the first modern treatise of political philosophy, and over the centuries it has remained one of the most influential and most widely read works. It is of outspoken clarity, and yet is one of the most enigmatic works in history. It tells in clear terms how to gain power, how to keep it, and how to wield it, and has often been seen as the product of cold cynicism. Despite its clarity, however, centuries of readers have not been able to agree on what its principles actually are.

The Prince was written around 1513 while Machiavelli was in exile from Florence, after the republican government of Piero Soderini was ousted by the Medici. He wrote was written around 1513 while Machiavelli was in exile from Florence, after the republican government of Piero Soderini was ousted by the Medici. He wrote The Prince The Prince in the hope of gaining favor with the Medici, but unfortunately did not succeed in the hope of gaining favor with the Medici, but unfortunately did not succeed.