Renaissance and Reformation Primary Sources | Niccolò Machiavelli

Excerpts from The Prince (1513)

Reprinted in The Renaissance Man

Translated by Ninian Hill Thomson
Published in 1969

One of the most important works of the Renaissance was The Prince by the Italian author and statesman Niccolò Machiavelli (pronounced mahk-yah-VEL-lee;1469–1527). In this book Machiavelli explained his political philosophy, which remains controversial even today. According to Machiavelli, a ruler must be motivated solely by self-interest and must place the survival of his regime above all other considerations. Machiavelli developed his theories on the basis of humanist ideals. Humanism was a scholarly movement that began in Machiavelli's native city, Florence, Italy, in the mid-1300s. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries humanists set out to revive the culture of ancient Greece and Rome (called the classical period), which they considered the...