The Prince
Niccolò Machiavelli · translated by W. K. Marriott
A short, unsentimental manual on winning and keeping a state, built from the Italian rulers Machiavelli dealt with as a Florentine envoy.
Editorial review. Written from the complete text of Project Gutenberg eBook #1232.
men ought either to be well treated or crushed
What it is
The Prince is a 26-chapter treatise on how a new ruler acquires, keeps and loses a state. Machiavelli was dismissed from office in 1512 when the Medici returned to Florence, then imprisoned and tortured over a conspiracy against them. He wrote the book in 1513 at San Casciano, and he never published it. The dedication is to Lorenzo de' Medici, though the introduction quotes a letter to Vettori that dedicates it to Giuliano.
Chapters I to XI sort principalities by how they are acquired and held. Chapters XV to XVIII argue that a prince must sometimes do what good men would avoid, and Chapter XV contrasts how men live with how they ought to live. Chapter XXVI exhorts the Medici to free Italy from the barbarians. Two appended pieces follow: an account of how Cesare Borgia murdered four commanders at Sinigalia in 1502, and The Life of Castruccio Castracani.
What holds up
Chapter III is the strongest case. Machiavelli names five errors that cost Louis XII of France Lombardy: he destroyed the minor powers, strengthened a greater power in Italy, brought in a foreign power, did not settle in the country, and did not send colonies.
Chapter VII is sharper on Cesare Borgia. Machiavelli blames him for the election of Julius II, a cardinal he had injured, and calls it the cause of his ultimate ruin, since new benefits do not make injured men forget. That applies Chapter III's rule to the papacy: an injured man with the power to avenge is dangerous.
Chapter XXIV says princes lose their states by neglecting preparation in calm times. Chapter XXV's flood image makes the same point: build defences and barriers while the weather is fair.
What does not
The translation is the first obstacle. Marriott keeps the Italian's brevity so far as the sense allows, and his preface admits the result may carry "an occasional asperity". Switzers (Chapter XII) and the Soldan (Chapter XIX) read as archaic.
Cruelty is presented as technique. Chapter VIII counts Agathocles' cruelty as well used because he inflicted all of it at one stroke. Chapter VII presents the execution of Ramiro d'Orco, left in the square at Cesena with a bloody knife beside him, as the duke's way to clear himself with the people. Chapter XVII credits Hannibal's cruelty with keeping his army from quarrelling. Chapter VIII's test is whether a cruelty is done once and is necessary to security, and the author judges necessity.
The argument on armies is hard to test. Chapter XXIV says a state with power enough to keep an army in the field cannot be lost, if the usual defects are absent. Chapter XIII praises Cesare for relying on his own forces, yet Chapter VII records his collapse after his father's death and blames fortune. A rule that fortune can override is hard to falsify.
Chapter IV builds its contrast of the Turk, where one lord rules through servants, and France, where barons hold their own rights, on those two examples alone. Chapter XXVI argues that Italy had to be reduced to extremity so that an Italian virtue could show itself, then turns to the Medici as the house that could lead the redemption. That is an appeal to a patron, not an argument of the kind the earlier chapters make.
Who should read it
Start with the cases, then the footnotes, which trace the passage on contesting by law or by force in Chapter XVIII to Cicero's De Officiis. Students of Renaissance politics, and readers who know the word Machiavellian only as an insult, will get the most. Readers looking for a theory of just government will not find one here.
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