Publication of The Prince

The Prince is a political treatise by the Florentine diplomat and thinker Niccolo Machiavelli, written around 1513 after he lost his post when the Medici returned to power in Florence. It was circulated in manuscript and published in 1532, several years after his death in 1527. The book advises rulers on how to gain and keep power, arguing that a prince must be ready to act against conventional morality when the safety of the state requires it, and that it is better to be feared than loved if one cannot be both. Its realism broke with earlier moral writing on kingship. It is widely read, and the word Machiavellian entered many languages to describe cunning and unscrupulous politics, although interpretations of his intent are still debated.

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