The Prince

Contents

1. To the Magnificent Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici 3 min 7

   Machiavelli offers Lorenzo de’ Medici, in place of the horses, jewels and cloth of gold that courtiers usually present, the most precious thing he owns: his knowledge of the actions of great men, learned from long experience of modern affairs and continual study of antiquity. He has written plainly, without rhetorical ornament, and defends a man of humble station writing about princes, since just as a painter sees mountains best from the plain, to know princes one must be of the people. He closes by hoping Lorenzo will notice how undeservedly he suffers from fortune’s malice.

2. I How Many Kinds of Principalities There Are, and by What Means They Are Acquired 1 min 5

   All states are either republics or principalities. Principalities are hereditary or new; the new are either wholly new, like Francesco Sforza’s Milan, or added to a prince’s existing state, like Naples to the King of Spain. Acquired dominions were used either to a prince or to freedom, and are won by one’s own arms or another’s, by fortune or by ability.

3. II Concerning Hereditary Principalities 2 min 3

   Leaving republics aside, Machiavelli begins with hereditary principalities, the easiest to hold. A prince of ordinary ability keeps such a state simply by not breaking his ancestors’ customs and handling events prudently, and even if he is driven out he will return at the usurper’s first misfortune. The Dukes of Ferrara survived Venice in 1484 and Pope Julius in 1510 because their rule was old: a long-established prince has less need to offend, and time erases the memories that invite change.

4. III Concerning Mixed Principalities 18 min 12

   New acquisitions added to an old state are hard to hold, because the people who welcomed a new ruler are soon disappointed. Territories of the same language and customs are kept by extinguishing the old dynasty and leaving laws and taxes alone; foreign ones require the prince to live there or plant colonies, to protect weaker neighbours, humble the strong and keep out other great powers, as Rome did. Louis XII broke every rule in Italy, strengthening the Church and bringing Spain into Naples, and so lost Lombardy. Whoever makes another powerful ruins himself.

5. IV Why the Kingdom of Darius, Conquered by Alexander, Did Not Rebel Against the Successors of Alexander at His Death 6 min 1

   Alexander’s successors kept Darius’s empire without rebellion because of how it had been governed. A state ruled by one lord through servants, like the Turk’s, is hard to conquer but easy to hold once the ruling family is destroyed; a kingdom of hereditary barons, like France, is easy to enter with a discontented lord’s help but hard to keep, since the barons remain to lead revolts. Rome’s difficulties in Spain, Gaul and Greece came from their many principalities.

6. V Concerning the Way to Govern Cities or Principalities Which Lived Under Their Own Laws Before They Were Annexed 3 min 2

   A conquered city used to living in freedom under its own laws can be held in three ways: by destroying it, by living there, or by leaving its laws and setting up a friendly oligarchy that pays tribute. Sparta lost Athens and Thebes despite such oligarchies; Rome held Capua, Carthage and Numantia by destroying them. Republics never forget their liberty, as Pisa showed after a century of Florentine rule, so the safest course is to ruin them or reside there.

7. VI Concerning New Principalities Which Are Acquired by One’s Own Arms and Ability 7 min 4

   The best models for new princes are those who rose by their own ability, such as Moses, Cyrus, Romulus and Theseus, to whom fortune gave only the opportunity. They win power with difficulty but keep it easily. Introducing a new order is the most dangerous undertaking, since the innovator has the beneficiaries of the old order as enemies and only lukewarm supporters. Innovators who can use force succeed: all armed prophets have conquered, and the unarmed, like Savonarola, have been destroyed. Hiero of Syracuse is a lesser example.

8. VII Concerning New Principalities Which Are Acquired Either by the Arms of Others or by Good Fortune 16 min 12

   Princes made by fortune or by others’ arms rise easily but struggle to stay up. Cesare Borgia won his state through his father Pope Alexander VI and French troops, then laid his own foundations: he won over the Roman nobility, destroyed the treacherous Orsini and Vitelli at Sinigalia, pacified the Romagna through the cruel Ramiro d’Orco whom he then publicly executed, and planned for Alexander’s death. Only his own illness when Alexander died in 1503, and his consent to the election of his enemy Julius II, ruined him. Machiavelli offers him as a model.

9. VIII Concerning Those Who Have Obtained a Principality by Wickedness 10 min 5

   Some rise to power by crime. Agathocles of Syracuse massacred the senate and richest citizens and ruled securely; Oliverotto da Fermo murdered his uncle and the town’s leaders at a banquet, and held Fermo for a year until Borgia strangled him. Such acts may win power but not glory. Cruelty is “well used” when done at one stroke for security and then turned to the subjects’ benefit, and badly used when it grows over time. Injuries should be done all at once, benefits given little by little.

10. IX Concerning a Civil Principality 8 min 5

    A citizen may become prince by the favour of his fellows, either of the people or of the nobles, the two parties found in every city: the nobles wish to oppress and the people wish not to be oppressed. A prince raised by the people is more secure, since nobles think themselves his equals; the people’s aim is more honest, and a prince cannot secure himself against a hostile people. Whoever becomes prince must keep the people friendly and make them need him, or he will find no support in adversity.

11. X Concerning the Way in Which the Strength of All Principalities Ought to Be Measured 4 min 1

    A prince’s strength is measured by whether he can put an army in the field or must shelter behind walls. One who cannot should fortify and provision his town and avoid being hated. The free cities of Germany, with walls, artillery, a year’s supplies and work for their people, fear no one. A besieger rarely lasts a year, and subjects whose property has been burned in their prince’s defence feel bound to him all the more.

12. XI Concerning Ecclesiastical Principalities 6 min 4

    Ecclesiastical principalities are held by ancient religious institutions, whatever their rulers do, and Machiavelli ironically declines to discuss what God maintains. He then explains the Church’s new temporal power historically: before 1494 the Roman baronial factions kept popes weak; Alexander VI, through Cesare Borgia, built a state the Church inherited; Julius II enlarged it and drove out the French. He hopes Pope Leo X will make it greater still by goodness.

13. XII How Many Kinds of Soldiery There Are, and Concerning Mercenaries 11 min 13

    Good laws require good arms. A prince’s troops are his own, mercenary, auxiliary or mixed; mercenaries are useless and dangerous, unfaithful and cowardly, and capable mercenary captains seek their own greatness. Italy’s ruin came from relying on them, as examples from Carthage and Thebes to Francesco Sforza, Carmagnola and Vailà show. The condottieri, from Alberigo da Conio onward, preferred cavalry, avoided risk and fought almost bloodless campaigns, leaving Italy to be overrun by Charles, Louis, Ferdinand and the Swiss.

14. XIII Concerning Auxiliaries, Mixed Soldiery, and One’s Own 8 min 10

    Auxiliaries, an ally’s troops lent to you, are even more dangerous than mercenaries: if they lose you are ruined, if they win you are their captive. Julius II, Florence before Pisa and the Byzantine emperor who brought in the Turks show the risk. Cesare Borgia moved from French auxiliaries to mercenaries to his own troops, and was respected most when he relied on his own. France weakened itself by replacing its infantry with Swiss. No principality is secure without its own forces.

15. XIV That Which Concerns a Prince on the Subject of the Art of War 6 min 3

    War is the only art proper to a ruler: it keeps princes in power and raises private men to rule, as with Francesco Sforza, while neglecting it loses states. In peace the prince should train his body and learn terrain through hunting, as Philopoemen constantly discussed tactics with his friends, and train his mind by reading history and imitating great men, as Scipio imitated Xenophon’s Cyrus, so that fortune finds him ready.

16. XV Concerning Things for Which Men, and Especially Princes, Are Praised or Blamed 3 min 4

    Machiavelli turns from states to the prince’s conduct and announces a break with tradition: he will follow “the real truth” of things rather than imagined republics, because a man who tries to be good in everything is ruined among so many who are not. He lists the qualities for which princes are praised or blamed and argues that, since no one can have all the good ones, a prince must avoid the vices that would cost him his state and need not fear those that keep it safe.

17. XVI Concerning Liberality and Meanness 5 min 2

    A reputation for liberality ruins a prince: to keep it he must spend lavishly, then tax his subjects, and so becomes hated or poor. Better to be thought mean, for thrift lets him wage war without new taxes; Julius II and Ferdinand of Spain show it. Liberality is needed only by one still rising to power, or with plunder taken from others, as with Cyrus, Caesar and Alexander. Meanness brings reproach without hatred; rapacity brings both.

18. XVII Concerning Cruelty and Clemency, and Whether It Is Better to Be Loved Than Feared 7 min 6

    Cruelty well used is a kind of mercy: Cesare Borgia’s pacified the Romagna, while Florence’s leniency let Pistoia tear itself apart. Asked whether it is better to be loved or feared, Machiavelli answers that it is safer to be feared, since men are ungrateful and love depends on them while fear depends on the prince. But fear must not become hatred, which a prince avoids by leaving his subjects’ property and women alone. Hannibal’s cruelty kept his army united; Scipio’s leniency bred mutiny.

19. XVIII Concerning the Way in Which Princes Should Keep Faith 6 min 12

    The most notorious chapter. There are two ways of contesting, by law and by force; a prince must use both the man and the beast, the fox to detect snares and the lion to frighten wolves. Since men are bad, he need not keep faith when it harms him, and Alexander VI deceived with constant success. He need not have the virtues but must seem to, above all religion, because people judge by appearances and results. An unnamed contemporary king preaches peace and faith and observes neither.

20. XIX That One Should Avoid Being Despised and Hated 22 min 12

    A prince must avoid hatred, caused by seizing property and women, and contempt, caused by seeming fickle or weak. A ruler loved by his people need fear little from conspiracies, as Bologna’s rally to the Bentivogli shows, and France’s parlement shows how to restrain the nobles without blame to the king. The long survey of Roman emperors from Marcus Aurelius to Maximinus explains their fates by the need to satisfy the army, a problem that in Machiavelli’s day only the Turk and the Mamluk sultan still face.

21. XX Are Fortresses, and Many Things to Which Princes Often Resort, Advantageous or Hurtful? 10 min 5

    Machiavelli weighs common devices of rule. New princes should arm their subjects, not disarm them, except in newly annexed provinces. Fostering factions, as Florence did in Pistoia and Venice in its subject cities, fails in war. Princes may profit from enemies they overcome and from men they first distrusted. Fortresses help only a prince who fears his people more than foreigners; the Sforza castle in Milan and Caterina Sforza’s Forlì show their limits. The best fortress is not to be hated by the people.

22. XXI How a Prince Should Conduct Himself So as to Gain Renown 8 min 6

    A prince wins esteem by great enterprises, like Ferdinand of Aragon, who used Granada, religion and constant wars to master his barons and dazzle his people, and by striking rewards and punishments at home. He should take sides openly rather than stay neutral, as the Roman envoy told the Achaeans, though he should avoid allying with a stronger power for conquest. He should reward talent, protect commerce and farming from confiscation and heavy taxes, and entertain his people while keeping his dignity.

23. XXII Concerning the Secretaries of Princes 3 min 3

    A prince is judged by the men around him. Pandolfo Petrucci was thought clever because he chose Antonio da Venafro. There are three kinds of mind: one that understands by itself, one that recognises what others understand, and one that does neither; a prince of the second kind can still govern well. A minister who thinks of himself before his master is untrustworthy; the prince should bind a good one with honours and wealth while keeping him dependent.

24. XXIII How Flatterers Should Be Avoided 4 min 4

    Courts are full of flatterers, yet a prince who lets everyone tell him the truth loses respect. The answer is a small council of wise men, free to speak frankly but only when asked, with the prince deciding alone and holding firm. Maximilian I, who consulted no one and then gave way to everyone, shows the opposite. Good advice is born of the prince’s own wisdom, not the reverse, since a foolish prince cannot judge between counsellors.

25. XXIV Why the Princes of Italy Have Lost Their States 3 min 2

    Following these rules makes a new prince more secure than an hereditary one. The Italian rulers who lost their states, such as the King of Naples and the Duke of Milan, failed through bad arms and through losing the people or the nobles. Philip V of Macedon, though defeated by Rome, kept his kingdom because he had both. They should blame their own sloth, not fortune: they made no provision in calm weather and, when the storm came, fled and waited to be restored.

26. XXV What Fortune Can Effect in Human Affairs, and How to Withstand Her 7 min 6

    Many think fortune and God govern the world; Machiavelli grants fortune half of our actions and leaves the rest to us. Fortune is like a flooding river that can be checked by dykes built in calm weather, and Italy had none. Men fail when their fixed nature no longer suits the times, and impetuous Julius II succeeded only because his times favoured boldness. Since fortune is a woman, the bold and young master her better than the cautious.

27. XXVI An Exhortation to Liberate Italy from the Barbarians 8 min 8

    The book ends with an appeal to the Medici. Italy, more enslaved than the Hebrews and more scattered than the Athenians, is ready to follow any banner, and the house of Medici, now heading the Church, can lead its redemption. The war is just because necessary. Italians excel in single combat but their armies fail for want of leaders; a prince needs his own forces and a new infantry that can beat both Swiss and Spanish. The chapter closes with Petrarch’s lines on ancient Italian valour.