The Prince
Nicolo Machiavelli, W. K. Marriott
Paperback
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Aug. 5, 2015)
Machiavelli’s classic guide to obtaining (and maintaining) power, The Prince provides guidance to potential and actual rulers, diplomats, executives, and leaders of every stripe. Pragmatic, rational, even cold-blooded, The Prince sets out a formula for wielding power that resonates and aides leaders today, 500 years after it was written.Nicolo Machiavelli was born at Florence on 3rd May 1469. He was the second son of Bernardo di Nicolo Machiavelli, a lawyer of some repute, and of Bartolommea di Stefano Nelli, his wife. Both parents were members of the old Florentine nobility.His life falls naturally into three periods, each of which singularly enough constitutes a distinct and important era in the history of Florence. His youth was concurrent with the greatness of Florence as an Italian power under the guidance of Lorenzo de' Medici, Il Magnifico. The downfall of the Medici in Florence occurred in 1494, in which year Machiavelli entered the public service. During his official career Florence was free under the government of a Republic, which lasteduntil 1512, when the Medici returned to power, and Machiavelli lost his office. The Medici again ruled Florence from 1512 until 1527, when theywere once more driven out. This was the period of Machiavelli's literary activity and increasing influence; but he died, within a few weeks ofthe expulsion of the Medici, on 22nd June 1527, in his fifty-eighth year, without having regained office. In 1500 he was sent to France to obtain terms from Louis XII for continuing the war against Pisa: this king it was who, in his conduct of affairs in Italy, committed the five capital errors in statecraft summarized in "The Prince," and was consequently driven out.Machiavelli's public life was largely occupied with events arising out of the ambitions of Pope Alexander VI and his son, Cesare Borgia, theDuke Valentino, and these characters fill a large space of "The Prince.” Machiavelli never hesitates to cite the actions of the duke for thebenefit of usurpers who wish to keep the states they have seized; he can, indeed, find no precepts to offer so good as the pattern of CesareBorgia's conduct, insomuch that Cesare is acclaimed by some critics as the "hero" of "The Prince." Yet in "The Prince" the duke is in point offact cited as a type of the man who rises on the fortune of others, and falls with them; who takes every course that might be expected from aprudent man but the course which will save him; who is prepared for all eventualities but the one which happens; and who, when all his abilitiesfail to carry him through, exclaims that it was not his fault, but an extraordinary and unforeseen fatality.The Prince is the original, classic handbook for leaders who want to understand the basic principles for grasping and holding onto power.