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Which Machiavelli book should I read?
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- The Prince (Reader’s Library Classics) I recommend this book because it is a remarkable guide of governance for autocrats. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli emphasizes the significance of utilizing deception and manipulation to govern effectively.
- The Prince | Niccolò Machiavelli. I recommend this because The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli is a fascinating read for anyone interested in politics. Machiavelli presents a timeless argument that the ends can justify the means.
- The Essential Writings of Machiavelli: The Prince, The Art of War, The Discourses on Livy, History of Florence. I recommend this extraordinary collection because it brings together four incredible books by Niccolò Machiavelli, an Italian Renaissance diplomat, philosopher, and writer, who is well-known for his book called The Prince.
- Art of War. I recommend this book because it is an essential reading for anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of the history and theory of war in the West.
- Overview
- Early life and political career
- Writings
Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian Renaissance political philosopher and statesman and secretary of the Florentine republic. His most famous work, The Prince (1532), brought him a reputation as an atheist and an immoral cynic.
What did Niccolò Machiavelli write?
Niccolò Machiavelli’s two most important works are Discourses on Livy (1531) and The Prince (1532), both of which were published after his death. He wrote several other works, including Florentine Histories (1532) and The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca (1520).
What was Niccolò Machiavelli’s occupation?
From the age of 29, when he was placed in charge of the republic of Florence’s foreign affairs in subject territories, Machiavelli held a series of governmental posts. Among his tasks were to establish a militia, undertake diplomatic and military missions, oversee fortifications, and write an official history of the republic.
Niccolò Machiavelli (born May 3, 1469, Florence [Italy]—died June 21, 1527, Florence) Italian Renaissance political philosopher and statesman, secretary of the Florentine republic, whose most famous work, The Prince (Il Principe), brought him a reputation as an atheist and an immoral cynic.
From the 13th century onward, Machiavelli’s family was wealthy and prominent, holding on occasion Florence’s most important offices. His father, Bernardo, a doctor of laws, was nevertheless among the family’s poorest members. Barred from public office in Florence as an insolvent debtor, Bernardo lived frugally, administering his small landed property near the city and supplementing his meagre income from it with earnings from the restricted and almost clandestine exercise of his profession.
Bernardo kept a library in which Niccolò must have read, but little is known of Niccolò’s education and early life in Florence, at that time a thriving centre of philosophy and a brilliant showcase of the arts. He attended lectures by Marcello Virgilio Adriani, who chaired the Studio Fiorentino. He learned Latin well and probably knew some Greek, and he seems to have acquired the typical humanist education that was expected of officials of the Florentine Chancery.
In a letter to a friend in 1498, Machiavelli writes of listening to the sermons of Girolamo Savonarola (1452–98), a Dominican friar who moved to Florence in 1482 and in the 1490s attracted a party of popular supporters with his thinly veiled accusations against the government, the clergy, and the pope. Although Savonarola, who effectively ruled Florence for several years after 1494, was featured in The Prince (1513) as an example of an “unarmed prophet” who must fail, Machiavelli was impressed with his learning and rhetorical skill. On May 24, 1498, Savonarola was hanged as a heretic and his body burned in the public square. Several days later, emerging from obscurity at the age of 29, Machiavelli became head of the second chancery (cancelleria), a post that placed him in charge of the republic’s foreign affairs in subject territories. How so young a man could be entrusted with so high an office remains a mystery, particularly because Machiavelli apparently never served an apprenticeship in the chancery. He held the post until 1512, having gained the confidence of Piero Soderini (1452–1522), the gonfalonier (chief magistrate) for life in Florence from 1502.
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During his tenure at the second chancery, Machiavelli persuaded Soderini to reduce the city’s reliance on mercenary forces by establishing a militia (1505), which Machiavelli subsequently organized. He also undertook diplomatic and military missions to the court of France; to Cesare Borgia (1475/76–1507), the son of Pope Alexander VI (reigned 1492–1503); to Pope Julius II (reigned 1503–13), Alexander’s successor; to the court of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (reigned 1493–1519); and to Pisa (1509 and 1511).
In office Machiavelli wrote a number of short political discourses and poems (the Decennali) on Florentine history. It was while he was out of office and in exile, however, that the “Florentine Secretary,” as Machiavelli came to be called, wrote the works of political philosophy for which he is remembered. In his most noted letter (December 10, 1513), he described one of his days—in the morning walking in the woods, in the afternoon drinking and gambling with friends at the inn, and in the evening reading and reflecting in his study, where, he says, “I feed on the food that alone is mine and that I was born for.” In the same letter, Machiavelli remarks that he has just composed a little work on princes—a “whimsy”—and thus lightly introduces arguably the most famous book on politics ever written, the work that was to give the name Machiavellian to the teaching of worldly success through scheming deceit.
About the same time that Machiavelli wrote The Prince (1513), he was also writing a very different book, Discourses on Livy (or, more precisely, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy [Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio]). Both books were first published only after Machiavelli’s death, the Discourses on Livy in 1531 and The Prince in 1532. They are distinguished from his other works by the fact that in the dedicatory letter to each he says that it contains everything he knows. The dedication of the Discourses on Livy presents the work to two of Machiavelli’s friends, who he says are not princes but deserve to be, and criticizes the sort of begging letter he appears to have written in dedicating The Prince. The two works differ also in substance and manner. Whereas The Prince is mostly concerned with princes—particularly new princes—and is short, easy to read, and, according to many, dangerously wicked, the Discourses on Livy is a “reasoning” that is long, difficult, and full of advice on how to preserve republics. Every thoughtful treatment of Machiavelli has had to come to terms with the differences between his two most important works.
- Harvey Mansfield
May 3, 2022 · During his life, he wrote four books, but he is most known for his controversial treatise, The Prince, a guide for new royals to navigate treacherous courts. Machiavelli describes politics as a series of maneuverings where often, the ends justify the means in order to maintain power at all costs.
Dec 25, 2022 · What makes Niccolò Machiavelli’s most famous book ‘The Prince’ so influential? It was written as a handbook on how to rule and its advice is still considered extremely insightful.
- Rachel Ashcroft
Sep 13, 2005 · Why Machiavelli? That question might naturally and legitimately occur to anyone encountering an entry about him in an encyclopedia of philosophy. Certainly, Machiavelli contributed to a large number of important discourses in Western thought—political theory most notably, but also history and historiography, Italian literature, the principles ...
Apr 12, 2024 · The Prince is a political treatise by Niccolo Machiavelli, written in 1513 and first published in 1532. It describes how to acquire power, create a state, and keep it, and it represents Machiavelli’s effort to provide a guide for political action based on history and his own experience as a statesman.
Sep 19, 2014 · 19 September 2014. The Italian political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli is revered by some for being an astute thinker, a pragmatic visionary, and a champion of republican liberty. He is reviled by others for writing a manual for unscrupulous leaders everywhere, teaching them to do whatever it takes to defeat their enemies and stay in power ...
