Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince

The Prince - Translator's Introduction
The Prince - The Man and His Works
The Prince - Author's Dedication
The Prince - Ch. 01-03
The Prince - Ch. 04-06
The Prince - Ch. 07-08
The Prince - Ch. 09-11
The Prince - Ch. 12-13
The Prince - Ch. 14-16
The Prince - Ch. 17-18
The Prince - Ch. 19
The Prince - Ch. 20-22
The Prince - Ch. 23-26
The Prince - Appendix 01
The Life Of Castruccio Castracani Of Lucca
The Life Of Castruccio Castracani Of Lucca
ll Principe (The Prince) is a political treatise by the Florentine writer Niccolo Machiavelli, originally called "De Principatibus" (About Principalities). It was written around 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. The treatise is not actually representative of his published work during his lifetime, but it is certainly the best remembered one
Machiavelli - Biography
Machiavelli was born in Florence, the second son of Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli and his wife Bartolommea di Stefano Nelli. His father was a reputed lawyer and belonged to an impoverished branch of an influential old Florentine family. Machiavelli served the Republic of Florence after the expulsion of the Medici in 1494, travelling to European courts in France, Germany, as well as other Italian city-states on diplomatic missions.[1] During this time he would draw influence for his work The Prince from the European leaders he met. His first mission was in 1499 to Caterina Sforza, who appeared as "my lady of Forlì" in his work The Prince. In 1500 he was sent to France to obtain terms from Louis XII for continuing the war against Pisa. Louis XII was also the king who committed the five capital errors in statecraft summarized in The Prince, and was consequently driven out of Italy. Machiavelli's public life was largely occupied with events arising out of the ambitions of Pope Alexander VI and his son, Cesare Borgia, and these characters fill a large space of The Prince.
When Pope Julius II restored the Medicis to power in 1512, Machiavelli's name was found on a list of 20 persons supposedly involved in a conspiracy to oppose Medici rule, including conspirator and disputed friend Giovani Battaini. He was briefly imprisoned and tortured in the Bargello in Florence. It is likely he had no part in the plot, and he maintained his innocence throughout. When Pope Leo X became pontiff in 1513, himself a member of the Medici family, he secured the release of Machiavelli and sent him into exile. Machiavelli returned to Sant'Andrea in Percussina, where he devoted himself to literature.
In later life, Machiavelli joined the humanist academy around Bernardo Rucellai which met at the Orti Oricellari. From here, he may have gained access to unpublished translations of Polybius, upon which many of his ideas on the form of republican government appear to be based (Polybius had not been translated in his lifetime, and Machiavelli is believed to have had no knowledge of Greek.) In a famous letter to his friend Francesco Guicciardini, the Florentine diplomat, Machiavelli wrote that in a normal day while in exile in Sant’Andrea in Percussina, he would rise early, work the fields or the woods until lunchtime, socialise in the local bars, but then:
"When evening comes, I return home (from the local tavern) and go to my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty workaday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death; I pass indeed into their world." (The Literary Works of Machiavelli, trans. Hale. Oxford 1961, page 139.)
He died in Florence in 1527. And his resting place, as well as the tombs of his conspirators' friends, is unknown; however, a cenotaph in his honor can be found at the Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze.