Machiavelli prefaces The Prince with a letter to “the Magnificent Lorenzo de Medici.” In fact, the first edition of The Prince was dedicated to Guiliano de Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Guiliano died in 1516, and so Machiavelli rededicated the book to one of Lorenzo’s grandsons, the Duke of Urbino, who was also named Lorenzo.

The opening letter is abstract enough to allow for these changes: Machiavelli admits that he is seeking favor with “a prince” and is offering his book as a gift. “I…would like to commend myself to your Magnificence with some token of my readiness to serve you,” he writes.

In the first chapter, entitled “Different Kinds of States, and the Different Ways to Get Them,” Machiavelli proceeds to map out a classification of states. In short, we have princely states and republics. Princely states are either hereditary or new. The new states are either brand new or freshly joined to an established hereditary state. Of the latter, the conquered territories are accustomed to either living free or living under a prince.

The second chapter focuses on hereditary principates. These are easier to rule than new states, as tradition provides a basis for stable government. Machiavelli argues a key point here in regards to a people’s desire for change: “And in the antiquity and continuity of the government,” he writes, “people forget not only the reasons for innovations but their very existence, because every new change provides a footing to build on another.”

Chapter III, “On Mixed Principalities,” is a longer, more involved consideration of the problematic states: those states that are new and are “like a graft freshly joined to an old kingdom (so that the two bodies together may be considered mixed).” What we have here is, simply put, the conquest of territory. Machiavelli meditates on what exactly makes such a conquest successful, using two prime examples: the Roman Empire, which succeeded, and King Louis of France, who failed.

What did the Romans do correctly? According to Machiavelli, they sent out colonies, a far better strategy than the use of standing armies (since the latter are a burden, whereas colonies only hurt the poor and scattered and do not touch anyone else). The Romans also indulged the less powerful, broke the more powerful, and didn’t allow foreigners to gain a stronghold. Never did they let a trouble remain just to avoid going to war over it. As Machiavelli argues, war is never entirely avoidable, but is merely postponed; one should therefore fight it sooner rather than later, attacking those ills that plague a society before they become incurable. Preemption, in other words, is the name of the game.

On the subject of colonies, Machiavelli goes one step further, noting that it is better to displace or disrupt the poor and powerless than the rich and powerful. Why? Because the poor cannot fight back. Moreover, “men ought either to be caressed or destroyed, since they will seek revenge for minor hurts but will not be able to revenge major ones.”

Turning to King Louis, Machiavelli lists his mistakes in an effort to explain his failure to conquer Italian states. Louis entered Italy through the ambition of the Venetians, who wanted to gain control of half of Lombardy. Granted this opportunity, Louis proceeded to squander it. He put down the weaker powers (smaller states), increased the strength of a major power (the Church), introduced a powerful foreigner into the fray (Spain), never took up residence in Italy, never set up colonies, and deprived the Venetians of their power. This last error proved fatal: if the Venetians had retained full power, no one would have taken Lombardy from France just to give it to Venice, and the Venetians would not have let others in.

Analysis

Machiavelli’s methodology in these opening chapters is an intrinsically scientific one. He uses a classification system, treating states as varying species to be ordered in a form of political taxonomy. He also bolsters each claim with a historical example, flaunting his knowledge of past men and events, and unfolds his arguments in careful thesis-antithesis fashion, demonstrating the rights and the wrongs as absolute principles to be disregarded at one’s own peril.

His examples are by and large culled from Italian history. Machiavelli cites the case of the duke of Ferrara, “who did not yield under attacks either from the Venetians in 1484 or from Pope Julius in 1510” (an example of the relative ease with which hereditary principates may be ruled), and then discusses the Roman Empire, contrasting it with King Louis of France’s unsuccessful attempt to gain control of Italy.

What Machiavelli is beginning to build (subtly in these first chapters and then more overtly later on) is a vision of Italy that is grounded in historical specificity and a set of cardinal rules by which the science of politics operates. There is a curious dialectic between the abstract land Machiavelli seems to invoke when he writes of princes and princedoms as if they were variables in a mathematical equation, and the precision with which he fleshes out Italian history as well as the current events of his land. One can’t help but surmise that Italy is the abstract setting of all Machiavelli’s formulations, that he has his eye on improving the governance of his own country, and that his emphasis on conquered lands may point the way to a unified Italy, a dream that would not be realized for another three centuries.

At the same time, Machiavelli intersperses his layering of details and examples with bits of philosophy and ruminations on the human condition. Indeed, it is not for nothing that he is often referred to as a “secular humanist.” Though there are admittedly a few allusions to God, for the most part Machiavelli refers to humans as agents of free will – fickle, noble, full of flaws and merits - and the ultimate barometer of power. What causes princes to succeed or fail? Human nature.

Consider the following line: “men ought either to be caressed or destroyed, since they will seek revenge for minor hurts but will not be able to revenge minor ones.” Machiavelli bases his political conclusions on basic human impulses: like a great dramatist, he expounds on a set of particular human qualities and uses them to extrapolate broader meanings. He is a humanist insofar as he continually returns to these human impulses in his arguments, thereby positing the larger argument that power and the gain thereof are reflections of a universal human spirit. It is worth noting that Machiavelli never writes, “the French prefer to be caressed,” or “the English are rebellious,” or “the Germans are quick to avenge wrongs”; he is not a nationalist or even an ethnographist, but rather a believer in the universality of man. He writes in categorical terms, presaging Kant and the categorical imperative. Juxtaposed with his reliance on history as example and his emphasis on the comings and goings of his contemporaries is a vision of common man, united by certain fundamental qualities that have persisted since the dawn of civilization and that depend neither on nation nor on creed. In this way, he stands as a quintessential product of the Renaissance.

There are two kinds of kingdoms: those in which the prince is the sole ruler (e.g. Turkey, the kingdom of Darius) and those in which power is split between the prince and the barons (e.g. France). This classification enables Machiavelli to argue, as the title of Chapter IV goes, “Why the Successors of Alexander After His Death Did Not Lose the Kingdom He Had Conquered From Darius.” The first kind of kingdom is difficult to conquer and easy to hold onto; the latter is easy to conquer and difficult to hold onto.

What should a prince do if he has conquered a republic, as opposed to a kingdom? Herein lie a number of difficulties, enumerated in the next chapter, “How Cities or States Should Be Ruled Which Lived By Their Own Laws Before Being Taken.” The subjects of a conquered kingdom are not used to living in freedom or standing up for themselves, and are therefore slower to take up arms than are the citizens of a republic. There are three options for the conquering prince: destroy the republic, live there, or set up a puppet government. At the end of the day, Machiavelli seems to favor the first option. The Spartans established oligarchies in Athens and Thebes and lost both. The Romans destroyed Capua, Carthage, and Numantia and never lost them. “Any man who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom, and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it,” Machiavelli writes.

In the following chapter, “About New Princedoms Acquired With One’s Own Arms and Energy,” Machiavelli digresses momentarily in order to explain why he relies so much on examples in his writing. “A prudent man should always follow the footsteps of the great and imitate those who have been supreme,” he writes. The most notable princes who became princes by their own force were, according to Machiavelli, Moses (of the Hebrews), Cyrus (of Persia), Romulus (of Rome), and Theseus (of Athens). These are the giants of the past and the models for present and future princes to follow; men of this sort “may have trouble gaining their power, but they find it easy to hold onto.” Carving out one’s own position of power single-handedly, without outside help, is an arduous task; but once accomplished, the prince who has risen on his own merits and by his own force will find his perch far easier to maintain.

On the other hand, new states acquired either by fortune or outside assistance are easy to conquer; the difficulty lies in holding onto power, as Machiavelli argues in his next chapter, “About New States Acquired With Other People’s Arms and By Good Luck.” Here Machiavelli zeroes in on a single protracted example: the story of Cesare Borgia, otherwise known as Duke Valentino, the son of Pope Alexander VI.

Alexander wanted to give his son a state to rule, but the only ones he could offer were the papal states, and the Duke of Milan and the Venetians would never agree to that hand-off of power. So the Pope used his ties to King Louis of France to secure control of Romagna for his son. Louis offered up some of his own troops to aid in the cause after Alexander helped the French King enter Italy by dissolving his first marriage.

Now that Cesare Borgia had Romagna, what was he to do next? Two problems faced him: he could not trust his army, composed of members of the Orsini clan (a powerful faction that seemed willing to betray him), and he could not trust King Louis. His suspicions that these players might turn against him growing, Cesare decided to no longer rely on their support. He recruited to his cause all noble-ranked Orsinis and Colonna followers in Rome, thereby weakening the Orsini/Colonna factions. The city of Urbino, an Orsini stronghold, rebelled as a result, the Orsini family having realized what Cesare was up to. Cesare promptly squashed the revolt with the aid of the French. The Orsinis tried to reconcile with him, and Cesare used this opportunity to lure their leaders to Sinigaglia and kill them all.

Cesare now possessed Romagna fully, but it was a territory rife with crime and disorder. He appointed Remirro de Orco, a notoriously cruel and ruthless man, as lieutenant general of the region. Quickly and mercilessly, Remirro pacified and unified Romagna. Then, in order to quell the hatred that this aggressiveness might have spawned, Cesare had Remirro tried and executed, making it clear that the cruelty had been the result of the lieutenant general’s character, and not Cesare’s own.

Machiavelli expresses approval for all these drastic measures. However, the tide ultimately turned against Cesare. Alexander died, and Cesare himself fell ill. In the depths of his illness, he made the mistake of allowing Julius to become the next Pope. Machiavelli argues that he should instead have tried to make a Spaniard Pope, or else accepted Rouen’s entreaties to the papacy, the reason being that both Spain and Rouen were “bound to him by nationality and obligation.” Julius, on the other hand, had reason to hate and fear Cesare: he had endured ten years of exile in France, and held a considerable grudge against the Borgia family. Machiavelli offers Cesare Borgia up as an example of what to do right should a prince acquire his power through the help of others, and the ways in which fortune can lay waste to even the best plans.

Analysis

Out of the trials and tribulations of Cesare Borgia Machiavelli constructs a rise-and-fall saga that is itself a profoundly moving piece of storytelling. Machiavelli, especially in his later works, seemed to prefer to be thought of as an historian, and here he shows off his predilection for spinning the messiness of history into the stuff of great fiction to. That said, Machiavelli does much to undercut and subvert his own tendency to draw larger meanings out of complex events.

For example, Machiavelli posits Borgia as a kind of latter-day mortal equivalent of the legends of history: Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus. Where those ancient figures exist shrouded in a haze, their exploits mythologized, Borgia is, for Machiavelli, a contemporary figure, and thus cannot hope to live up to these precedents. He is a flawed man, albeit one equipped with intelligence and courage, and yet when Machiavelli concludes by blaming Cesare’s failure on bad luck, one senses a kind of half-heartedness in the decision. Julius’s rise to the papacy sealed Cesare’s doom, and that rise can be attributed, according to Machiavelli, to a lapse of reason on Cesare’s part: “his only error lay in making Julius pope, where he simply made a bad choice; because, as I said, though he couldn’t make his own man pope, he could keep anyone else from the office.”

It is interesting to note the extent to which Machiavelli will decry or apologize for either figures of history or his contemporaries, when it comes to Borgia one senses some level of personal connection to or feeling for the material. “Looking over all the duke’s actions, then,” he writes, “I find nothing with which to reproach him; rather I think I’m right in proposing him, as I have done, as a model for all those who rise to power by means of the fortune and arms of others.” There is a defensiveness in the tone that is worth considering.

History is, indeed, inherently subjective. What gets told, not to mention why, is dependent on so many variables, and in the end it is the temperament of the historian that dictates the form history takes. From his decision to introduce The Prince with a letter to Lorenzo de Medici, itself a heartfelt plea for understanding and favor, to his construction of Borgia as a character and his use of the first person, it is clear that Machiavelli’s writing is not the work of a faceless author who would rather disappear behind the veil of his own ostensibly objective formulations, but is rather a kind of first-person history, a sustained meditation on the foibles of human nature and how those foibles translate into larger (i.e. societal) results. In other words, The Prince is a work of philosophy in the traditional sense: a sustained piece of thought that personalizes the impersonal.

To this effect, certain fibs can be identified in Machiavelli’s history-making. One example that springs to mind is his reference to France as a major problem for the Romans. Not only does Machiavelli seem to equate pre-Capet France with the nation post-Capet, stretching his vision of a prince sharing power with barons, but in some sort of vaguely centralized manner, back in the days of Vercingetorix and the Gallic Wars, he also exaggerates Gaul’s rebelliousness once conquered by the Roman Empire. In fact, Gaul became one of the Empire’s calmer territories. That said, Machiavelli is not prone to historical inaccuracy, and his elision of certain facts in this case can be interpreted as a way of supporting his central argument – that states in which power is split between princes and barons are easy to conquer and difficult to hold onto.

Chapter VIII, “On Those Who Have Become Princes By Crime,” is one of the key chapters of The Prince. In it, Machiavelli seems to distinguish between outright cruelty and the kind of clever ruthlessness he describes earlier in the work (as exemplified by Cesare Borgia). He makes use of two examples: the first ancient, and the second modern. Agathocles massacred all the senators and richest citizens of Syracuse, and thereby became prince. Oliverotto da Fermo murdered his uncle and other citizens, and forced Fermo to make him its prince. An interesting side-note: Oliverotto was later killed by Cesare Borgia at Sinigaglia, having fallen victim to another statesman’s trickery. How, Machiavelli asks, did these two men “live long, secure lives in their native cities, defend themselves from foreign enemies, and [manage to] never be conspired against by their fellow citizens?” His answer: because their cruelty was put to good use.

Cruelty can be considered well-used if carried out in one stab, the wicked deeds executed all at once, and if it can be interpreted as necessary for self-preservation. This distinction leads Machiavelli to the following argument: “We may add this note that when a prince takes a new state, he should calculate the sum of all the injuries he will have to do, and do them all at once, so as not to have to do new ones every day; simply by not repeating them, he will then be able to reassure people, and win them over to his side with benefits.”

The next chapter, “On the Civil Principate,” concerns another kind of prince: one who gains power “not through crimes or other intolerable violence, but by the choice of his fellow citizens (and this may be called a civil princedom, success in which depends neither completely on skill nor completely on fortune, but rather on a kind of lucky shrewdness).” A prince can rise in this fashion in one of two ways: either by the will of the people, or by the will of the nobles. “In every city,” Machiavelli goes on to argue, “there are two different humors, one rising from the people’s desire not to be ordered and commanded by the nobles, and the other from the desire of the nobles to command and oppress the people.” If nobles see they are having trouble with the people, they make one of their own a prince; he becomes their puppet, and therefore they get what they want on a larger scale. If the people feel that the nobles are oppressing them, they will try to make one of their own a prince; he then becomes their shield against the nobles.

As nobles are particularly difficult to deal with, a prince of any kind should try to win the favor of the populace and keep it dependent on the state. Machiavelli rejects the notion that “The man who counts on the people builds his house on mud,” though he does concede that a prince should not let “himself think that the people will come to his aid when he is in trouble.” As with so much else, it is all about balance.

Analysis

Machiavelli has a reputation, largely based on The Prince, for a cold-hearted worldview, political cynicism, and philosophical ruthlessness. However, this reputation is largely exaggerated. As influential as Machiavelli’s ideas may have been on future generations of totalitarians, realpolitik maestros, and Kissinger think-alikes, his own approach is far more complex: it reflects a taste for expediency and an emphasis on ends over means, but is muted by a concern for human needs and a genuine interest in human nature.

Consider the following sentence, from Chapter IX: “In fact the aim of the common people is more honest than that of the nobles, since the nobles want to oppress others, while the people simply want not to be oppressed.” Machiavelli adopts an altogether bitter tone when describing the nobles – their greed, their power-lust, their selfishness – and seems to argue that a good prince should rise above such petty wants and lowly attributes. If anything, a prince should pay more attention to the people than to the nobles. While such a formulation may seem to be common sense, it reflects an almost democratic view: the will of the many over the will of the few, protection for the powerless against the threats of the powerful.

That this chapter follows a chapter exclusively devoted to criminal princes is telling. Machiavelli seems unsure whether to condone what he labels as “cruelty” or to condemn it. He seems to take a certain pleasure in recounting the wicked deeds of an Agathocles or an Oliverotto da Fermo; what these men did is indefensible, and yet it worked. Machiavelli, ever the theoretician, proceeds to meditate on why it worked. He nearly traps himself in a philosophical cul-de-sac when, about to explain what he means by well-used cruelty, he writes: “if it’s permissible to say good words about something which is evil in itself.”

Why are the actions of Agathocles and Oliverotto evil, while those of Cesare Borgia are not? We are reminded of Borgia, since it was he who lured Oliverotto to his death. Never would Machiavelli refer to Borgia as a criminal prince, yet he murdered the leaders of rival factions to clear the way for his own ascent, much as did Agathocles and Oliverotto, and he made an example of his lieutenant general after using him to pacify his kingdom, just to save face. To Machiavelli, this is cleverness at its best: actions justified by their very brilliance. It’s not hard to see why everyone from Macbeth to the Corleone family to Stalin have been labeled Machiavellian at various junctures. But would Machiavelli approve? It seems that because the deeds of Agathocles and Oliverotto reflected not so much urgent necessity as a kind of deep-seated bloodlust, they are distinguishable from Borgia’s moves. Whatever the reasoning, Machiavelli’s distinction is notable.

Machiavelli has not touched the bottom of this particular well, in later chapters continues to examine the line between justifiable and unjustifiable cruelty. Nonetheless, what emerges at this juncture in The Prince is the simple assertion, fundamental to the book’s argument, that some cruelty is good and some is not. This rejection of the categorical in favor of the relative or comparative is an important one: there is a sense in which the contradictions in Machiavelli’s theorizing may reflect his own uncertainty as to when cruelty can be excused. It is worth remembering that he was imprisoned and tortured prior to writing The Prince; without lashing out at the Medici family, he does, in his introductory letter, suggest that the cruelty he experienced was unjustified: “you [Lorenzo de Medici] will recognize how unjustly I suffer the bitter and sustained malignity of fortune.” The exile rails against the cruelty carried out against him while defending the cruelty of past princes. At the same time, he refers to historical figures such as Agathocles as wicked men; he writes that people should either be “caressed or destroyed,” and then later turns around and argues that the common people are honest (therefore autonomous human beings with their own virtues) and more noble in their sentiments than the nobles. None of these various positions constitutes a complete about-face vis-à-vis an earlier position, but the shifting of rhetoric and the slipperiness of Machiavelli’s tone does suggest that he himself has not finished grappling with what is perhaps the most fundamental question of all: when do the ends no longer justify the means?

Chapter X is entitled “How to Measure the Strength of Any Prince’s State.” Here Machiavelli adopts a decidedly militaristic tone. Princes, he writes, are better off when they can assemble an army and stand up against attackers; once again, Cesare Borgia is cited as a perfect example. Machiavelli addresses the majority of this chapter to the other class of princes: “those who can’t take the field against their foes, but have to hide behind their walls and defend themselves there.” What should these more vulnerable princes do? They should keep their cities well-fortified; they should ignore the rural areas and focus their defense efforts on the urban centers; and they should be careful not to earn the people’s hatred. A prudent prince is able to keep his subjects loyal to him and in good spirits during a siege. The burden during a siege is often on the besieger; he can almost never afford to wage a siege and do nothing else for a year. Defense, therefore, can consist of slowing the attacker down, wearing him out. Machiavelli cites the cities in Germany as examples of good fortification. These cities have moats, walls, artillery, public warehouses of food, drink, and fuel, and large supplies of raw materials in reserve to keep workers busy and economies going during a siege.

Chapter XI, “Of Ecclesiastical States,” primarily concerns the Papal States. Religious bodies politic are, in general, easy to hold onto; religion itself sustains them, and they hardly need to be defended or governed. Still, the Church had a hard time securing power in Italy, largely because popes tended to only live for ten years or so - not enough time to exact any lasting change. Moreover, Rome was divided by hostile factions, most prominently the Orsini and Colonna families. Today, Machiavelli notes, the papacy awes France, and was able to kick King Louis out of Italy and “ruin the Venetians at the same time.”

How did this happen? It really began, Machiavelli argues, with Pope Alexander VI. Alexander strategically used his son Cesare Borgia to strengthen his own power. Admittedly, Alexander likely intended only to give his son more power; but the moves wound up strengthening the papacy, and as a result Rome emerged as more united, and less threatened by factions.

Pope Julius continued Alexander’s efforts. He took Bologna, crushed the Venetians, ran the French out of Italy, and kept Orsini and Colonna weak. Machiavelli concludes his chapter by mentioning the current pope, Leo. “These are the reasons,” he writes, “why his present holiness Pope Leo has found the papacy so strong; and we may hope that as his predecessors made it great by force of arms, he by his generosity and countless other talents will make it even greater and more to be revered.”

Analysis

Leo was a Medici, and Machiavelli’s compliment of him is obviously half-hearted; it seems to barely disguise Machiavelli’s contempt for the Church. It is not for nothing that Machiavelli is so often dubbed a “secular” humanist: his focus on the free will of princes, the ways in which their own characters and decisions dictate the success or failure of their reigns, implicitly rejects any notion of divine rule. But The Prince was written for a Medici, in part as a way of currying favor with the family, and Machiavelli therefore had to be sure to refer to Pope Leo only in glowing terms. And yet, when one compares his praise of the pope to his praise of other political leaders, the former pales in comparison. The “countless other talents” are not enumerated, and there is more emphasis on the greatness of “predecessors” than on that of the Pope himself.

It is also intriguing that Machiavelli should follow a chapter explicitly devoted to fortifying cities and other such military matters with one on ecclesiastical states – which, he notes, find such strength in religion that they hardly need to be unified or defended by force. “These are the only princes,” Machiavelli notes, “who have states that they do not defend and subjects that they do not govern; the states, though undefended, are never taken from them, and the subjects, though ungoverned, neither protest, not try to break away, nor could revolt if they had a mind to.” Machiavelli continues with a dismissal of such states, though admittedly “happy and safe governments,” as undeserving of his interest: “But since they are ruled by a heavenly providence to which human reason cannot reach, I shall say nothing of them. Instituted as they are by God, and sustained by him, it would be a rash and imprudent man who ventured to discuss them.”

Machiavelli is drawing a clear distinction between that which men can control and that which they cannot - a topic that he delves into at greater length later in The Prince. For now, there is much to be considered in his assertion that the subjects of an ecclesiastical state could not “revolt if they had a mind to.” Why not? On the one hand, Machiavelli implicitly accepts the Church as a purveyor of divinity; these states are indeed “instituted” by God, and are thus beyond analysis. On the other hand, his earlier examination of various popes’ political maneuvers and the machinations at play within the Church (for example, his detailed treatment of Pope Alexander and Julius, and their respective rises to power) belies such an uncritical view. There also remains the following question: does Machiavelli distance himself from the Church as a subject of analysis and critique because it is divine and therefore beyond fault, or because he is uninterested in it?

The focus of so much of The Prince - and a prevalent theme throughout the Renaissance - is reason. Machiavelli continually refers to the “prudent” prince; he outlines the choices that face a prince, and addresses decisions as if he were speaking of medicine – even going so far as to compare pre-emptive war to a doctor treating a malady before it has time to grow and worsen. Power, for Machiavelli, can be attained purely through the faculties of the mind. Yes, armies are necessary, friends in high places can help, and luck plays a role, but it takes reason to determine what kind of army to use, to know when and when not to rely on friends, to know who to trust, and to know how to harness the vicissitudes of fortune. When Machiavelli writes that “human reason” cannot reach a certain state or kingdom, he therefore may be delivering a not-so-veiled insult not to religion itself, but to the state.

These hints are buttressed by Machiavelli’s other writings. In his famous Discorsi, for example, Machiavelli lambasts the Church’s role in politics, bemoaning its decadence and writing, “And certainly, if the Christian religion had from the beginning been maintained according to the principles of its founder, the Christian states and republics would be much more united and happy than in fact they are.” At the same time, Machiavelli does argue that religion deserves an importance place in society. To his mind, however, the Church abuses its status, and is guilty moreover of what is to him a cardinal sin: keeping Italy divided and stalling her unification.

A prince must lay strong foundations, Machiavelli argues in Chapter XII, “On Different Kinds of Troops, Especially Mercenaries.” Such foundations consist primarily of good laws and good arms. Because these are inextricably bound, Machiavelli explains that he will focus on arms rather than laws.

Armies are either composed of mercenaries, composed of auxiliaries, mixed, or the state’s own. The first two types are “useless and dangerous”: mercenaries, in particular, “will protect you from ruin only as long as nobody assaults you; in peace you are at their mercy, and in war at the mercy of your enemies.” The only incentive mercenaries have is money, and the weakness of Italy can be blamed on their kind. Machiavelli proceeds to list examples of secure republics with large armies of their own people (ancient Sparta, ancient Rome, contemporary Switzerland) and contrasts these with the Carthaginians, whose mercenary armies turned on their masters and almost overthrew them.

The next chapter, “On Auxiliary Troops, Mixed Troops, and Your Own Troops,” defines auxiliaries as foreign armies who help a prince upon request. They are also useless, but even more dangerous than mercenaries. “You get your ruin ready-made,” Machiavelli writes. While mercenaries are undisciplined, disunited, and disloyal, auxiliary troops “come to you as a compact body, all trained to obey somebody else.” Mixed armies are, of course, composed of both auxiliary troops and mercenaries. The ideal is for a prince to use his own troops. Cesare Borgia started out relying on auxiliaries (the French, specifically), and then switched to mercenaries (the Orsini and Vitelli) before resorting to troops of his own. Steadily, his reputation increased.

In Chapter XIV, “Military Duties of the Prince,” Machiavelli concludes that a prince must constantly study the art of war. He should think even more about war during times of peace than during times of conflict. He should read history and “reflect on the actions of great men.” After all, Alexander the Great imitated Achilles; Caesar imitated Alexander; and Scorpio imitated Cyrus. Reiterating one of the principal themes of The Prince, Machiavelli stresses the importance of learning from the past in order to carve out a better – and more politically successful – future.

Analysis

In these three chapters, Machiavelli puts forth an explanation for the decline of three great states or territories: the Roman Empire, France, and Italy. Machiavelli, holding forth the hope for a unified Italy, refers to it as a single entity - albeit divided. More importantly, he wields history as a weapon, spinning powerful rhetoric out of the flaws and foibles of men from the past.

The fall of the Roman Empire began with the hiring of Goths as soldiers. Charles VII of France, after having freed his kingdom from the English, immediately saw how necessary it was for France to have her own armies. He subsequently passed laws to train cavalry and infantry. Unfortunately, his son Louis XI gave up on this initiative and began to hire Swiss troops. Hence France’s current weakness: “the kingdom of France would be invincible if the laws of Charles had been kept in force or strengthened.”

Relying on the Swiss, Machiavelli argues, was shortsighted expediency. As a judge of human behavior, Machiavelli has little tolerance for lack of foresight. Purely short-term policies are often acts of cowardice, ways of avoiding the festering problems that come back with a vengeance years later. A good prince must look ahead and recognize evils the minute they are born. History is the best demonstration of this point; Machiavelli follows his France and Rome narratives with an admonition for princes to read about the past, to study war as if it were an art, and to continually exercise their minds and strive to emulate the great ancients. “Above all,” Machiavelli writes, a prince “should do as great men have done before him, and take as a model for his conduct some great historical figure who achieved the highest praise and glory by constantly holding before himself the deeds and achievements of a predecessor.”

And what of Italy? Machiavelli’s analysis of the country/territory’s ills comes earlier, in Chapter XII, “On Different Kinds of Troops, Especially Mercenaries.” When the Roman Empire began to fade and the Pope started to gain power, Italy split into several states, which soon saw a flurry of uprisings. Cities took up arms against nobles who had reigned over them with the help of the Empire; the Pope, meanwhile, favored these developments, as they helped increase his own power. Private citizens became princes, and Italy, out of this chaos, morphed into a jumble of republics surrounding and scattered among the Church’s holdings. Neither the Church nor the private citizens knew much about war, so foreigners were hired to constitute their armies. The reliance on mercenaries began here, and has persisted since.

As a result, Machiavelli argues, Italy is in “a state of slavery and contempt.” The Prince places much emphasis on sovereignty, on standing on one’s own feet. It is fitting that the newer title of the book be a singular noun, reflecting a solitary character who, on his own, makes something of himself. In its own strange way, The Prince is a celebration of individuality; the better state is the one that uses its own troops, and that resists too much outside influence; the better prince is the one who rises by his own force, rather than by the help of friends or by good luck. No wonder this manual of monarchy has found such a wide audience in the democracies of the 20th and 21st centuries.

In Chapter XV, “On the Reasons Why Men Are Praised or Blamed – Especially Princes,” Machiavelli argues that a prince should be good as long as that goodness is politically useful. It is impossible for a prince to be perfect and to exercise all virtues; therefore, he should not worry about guarding against vices that will not cost him his state. He should avoid those vices that lead to the kind of disgrace that could precipitate a fall from power, but while he should try to avoid those vices that are not as damaging, if he cannot prevent them, he is allowed to indulge them.

In Chapter XVI, “On Liberality and Stinginess,” Machiavelli complicates what initially seems like a relatively unfettered apologia for unscrupulous politics. His underlying point seems to be that virtue in office is often just a sham; true virtue is not seen and has no ulterior motive, whereas visible virtue is often exhibited only so that the prince may be loved and maintain a virtuous reputation. For example, the ostentatiously generous prince, in order to keep his “generosity” up, will have to burden the people with “exorbitant taxes and squeeze money out of them in every way he can” once he has used up his own revenue. This will in turn make him hated, so that his generosity will have backfired. What Machiavelli seems to object to is careless spending; better for a prince to be thought a “miser,” for his parsimony will enable him to live on his income, not raise taxes, and defend against enemies, all of which will in turn earn him greater respect in the long run. “Hence a prince who prefers not to rob his subjects,” Machiavelli writes, “who wants to be able to defend himself, who wants to avoid poverty and contempt, and who doesn’t want to become a plunderer, should not mind in the least if people consider him a miser; this is simply one of the vices that enable him to reign.” Machiavelli concludes that when a citizen is trying to rise to princedom, generosity is important; thereafter, it is harmful.

Chapter XVII, “On Cruelty and Clemency: Whether It Is Better To Be Loved or Feared,” posits the seemingly simple argument that, though it is ideally better to be merciful than cruel, clemency should be handled in moderation. Again, Machiavelli complicates the notion of good as purely subordinate to power, invoking utilitarian reasoning to argue that an excess of “good” can actually lead to harm. In this case, too much clemency can lead to uprisings and civil war. Machiavelli cites the example of Florence, which was afraid to intervene with the required force in Pistoia and was in turn destroyed through civil conflict. If a prince needs to be cruel to keep his subjects united and loyal, so be it. Cruelty can serve the greater good.

There are two ways of fighting, Machiavelli asserts in the following chapter, “The Way Princes Should Keep Their Word”: with laws, and with force. The first is the human method, and the second belongs in theory to the beasts. That said, there are times when the first method does not suffice, in which case a prince needs to rely on force. Therefore, a prince should study the art of both laws and war, the methods of both man and beasts.

When it comes to beasts, two models exist: the lion, which represents brute force and strength, and the fox, which represents wiliness. A prince needs both, for one without the other will lead only to ruin. Machiavelli, as might be expected, proceeds to focus on the fox: “a prudent prince cannot and should not keep his word when to do so would go against his interest.” To be crafty and to be able to deceive, the mythical hallmarks of the fox, are key skills for any ruler. You can break promises and treaties as long as you can hide your duplicity; you must therefore be “a great liar and hypocrite.”

A prince need not possess all the virtues listed in Chapter XV. He need not be giving, merciful, faithful, spirited, humane, chaste, straightforward, gentle, but he needs to seem to possess these virtues. Admittedly, it is good to follow virtues both in appearance and in reality, but a prince must be able to switch to the contrary at a moment’s notice if necessary, while maintaining a consistent front.

Chapter XIX, “On Avoiding Contempt and Hatred,” brings this line of reasoning full circle, noting off the bat that a prince should be sure not to be hated, for conspiracies fail if the prince is loved. A prince should delegate unpleasant jobs to others and keep the pleasant ones – the ones that look good – for himself. France’s use of a third judicial force which was not the king’s direct responsibility is an example of such a tactic.

Analysis

If The Prince is often characterized as a treatise on unscrupulous politics and a manual of ruthless power games, Chapter XV, “On the Reasons Why Men Are Praised or Blamed – Especially Princes,” is a particularly crucial chapter. It is here that Machiavelli directly addresses the question that has been bubbling underneath the surface of his book thus far – namely, to what extent does being good matter? Machiavelli’s answer: as long as it contributes to holding onto power. The key notion here is that good is a relative concept; surface virtuosity, of the kind often showcased by rulers, is often but a disguise, and the greatest good lies in the end – the all-inclusive goal of maintaining the state and securing the reins of power. In other words, good is good insofar as it is politically expedient. The categorical crumbles in the face of efficiency, for the latter is the only true barometer. The ends justify the means, and utilitarianism (this is centuries before Mills and Bentham, one should note) is the dominant mode of reasoning.

If a prince needs to indulge a vice to save his state, so be it. “For if you look at matters carefully,” Machiavelli writes, “you will see that something resembling virtue, if you follow it, may be your ruin, while something resembling vice will lead, if you follow it, to your security and well-being.” One might compare this argument to the thrust of Chapter XIII, “On Those Who Have Become Princes By Crime,” which measures when and to what extent a prince’s cruelty can be justified. Machiavelli is arguing something far more complex than a call to disregard morality. His example of the generous prince begins as a seemingly hard-lined argument and emerges as a humanist consideration of the faults of man. A prince should not be miserly just for the sake of it; miserliness, by resulting in the safeguarding of funds and greater financial security, winds up helping the people in quite direct ways. It is up to the prince to see beyond short-run desires and superficial appearances and to not give away money he cannot afford to spend just to put on a lovable face and to curry favor, but instead to weather the occasional criticism and plan for the future.

It is all about the greater good. Machiavelli sublimates the individualistic treatment of the prince as solitary agent into a larger view of society as contingent on long-term planning and sacrifice. The Prince reads here as less a how-to for the aspiring prince than a social manifesto; Machiavelli puts faith in the people’s judgment, arguing that they will come around to loving the miserly prince who saves money out of necessity. As in his earlier distinctions between the common people and the nobles, he emerges as more of a populist and democrat than popular conceptions of The Prince tend to allow for.

That said, Chapter XVII, “On Cruelty and Clemency,” presents a thoroughly pessimistic view of humanity. Men are inherently “rotten,” Machiavelli argues, explaining that they are “ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers, fearful of danger and greedy for gain.” For this reason, it is safer for a prince to be feared than to be loved: “love is link of obligation which men, because they are rotten, will break any time they think doing so serves their advantage.” Fear, on the other hand, “involves dread of punishment, from which they can never escape.” As always, Machiavelli tempers what seems at first like a thoroughly cynical position, noting that moderation is the key, and that a prince should try to make himself feared in a way that does not make him hated. More specifically, he should only shed blood when he has good reason to, he should not confiscate property, and he should keep his hands off his subjects’ women. Certain lines cannot be crossed.

As Machiavelli writes a few pages later, a prince “should be ready to enter on evil if he has to,” but he must have to. (At least Machiavelli implies this last point.) In any case, virtues are often difficult to define; they are only virtuous insofar as they help people. Virtue for its own sake can be harmful, and for a prince to possess and exercise all virtues at all times is a mistake. Appearances are a different matter: the masses are impressed by the superficial appearance of things so long as the prince’s ends are achieved. It matters little, therefore, who the prince really is.

Machiavelli closes Chapter XVIII with a reference that deserves mention. “A certain prince of our own time,” he writes, “whom it’s just as well not to name, preaches nothing but peace and mutual trust, yet he is the determined enemy of both.” This seems to be a condemnation, but Machiavelli continues: “if on several different occasions he had observed either, he would have lost both his reputation and his throne.” The prince in question is Ferdinand of Spain, and the passage is something of a swipe at him. The first line suggests untempered scorn, while the second modifies this position and recasts Ferdinand as an example of how hypocrisy can be useful. These last few words are perhaps the veil Machiavelli uses to hide a more acute criticism of Ferdinand, who secured his power through often bloodthirsty tactics, expelling the Muslims and Jews from Spain, waging war, and persecuting the masses. These repellent maneuvers, Machiavelli is forced to admit, did work. We can sense here the writer having reached a sort of theoretical impasse: how to both condemn and praise? How to reconcile a need for human goodness (Machiavelli repeatedly states that cruelty should only be used when necessary) with the demands of power and the vicissitudes of international relations? Ferdinand provides a particularly difficult case, since Machiavelli, writing of him as a “determined enemy” of peace and trust, seems to disapprove of him, while his own writings provide a framework whereby Ferdinand’s actions are thoroughly justifiable.

What is perhaps most important is that Machiavelli faces Ferdinand head-on. Contradictions may abound as Machiavelli maps out his philosophy, but he seems to implicitly acknowledge this. The Prince is more than a simplistic argument for cold-heartedness in politics, and these chapters reflect Machiavelli’s efforts to grapple with the various problems his more cynical positions engender.

A new prince cannot disarm his subjects, which would cause a backlash; rather, he should arm them, thereby instilling loyalty. The opposite applies for a prince who has just acquired a new state and attached it to his old one. In this case the prince must disarm the new state, for all arms must be in the hands of the prince’s own soldiers - those who are used to his rule.

Machiavelli disagrees with the adage that encouraging factionalism (dividing and weakening the people) is a good way to keep power. Yes, this tactic may work in peacetime, but as soon as a foreign enemy comes along, the factionalized state is that much easier to conquer. Also, a faction can sometimes win out and overthrow the whole state, as has happened in Venice.

Machiavelli approves of the deliberate planting of obstacles to a prince’s rise and his power, in order for him to gain in reputation by overcoming them. “Many hold that a shrewd prince will, when he can, subtly encourage some enmity to himself, so that by overcoming it he can augment his own reputation,” he writes. Machiavelli then argues that men who are at first suspect to the prince can often be trusted more than those who seem immediately loyal to him; the former feel that they need to win the prince over, while the latter feel too secure in their positions. With a newly conquered state, “it is much easier to gain as friends those men who were satisfied with the earlier state, and therefore hostile to the conqueror, than those men who, because they were discontented in the earlier state, looked with fervor on the new prince and helped him take over.” The discontented often remain discontented.

Machiavelli concludes this chapter, entitled “Whether Building Fortresses and Other Defensive Policies Often Adapted By Princes Are Useful or Not,” with a mention of, suitably enough, fortresses: “the prince who fears his own people more than he does foreigners ought to build fortresses, but a prince who is more afraid of foreigners than of his own people can neglect them.” Why? Because the best fortress of all is the support of the people. Moreover, a prince should never rely entirely on fortresses and feel that they mean he need not worry about whether or not his people support him.

The next chapter, “How a Prince Should Act to Acquire Reputation,” presents Ferdinand of Spain as a key example. Ferdinand acquired his reputation through military projects, constantly following up one campaign with another – Granada, expelling the Moors, attacking Africa, campaigning in Italy, assaulting France – as a way of distracting from his more private machinations – unifying Aragon and Castille. Machiavelli refers to Ferdinand’s behavior as “despicable,” yet he argues that these policies, by preoccupying the king’s subjects and enthralling them, ultimately worked.

A prince should take a stand if neighbors come to blows. Neutrality is not the way to go. If the neighbors are powerful, then the victor will invariably hate you if you were neutral; if the neighbors are weak, then you find yourself in an ideal position to render a state indebted to you by taking its side. Internally, a prince should reward the talents and endeavors of his subjects. He should encourage their work, should not confiscate holdings (as Machiavelli has argued before), should entertain the people with “festivals and spectacles,” and should show himself attentive to their needs while never diminishing his dignity.

“On a Prince’s Private Counselors” makes a more straightforward claim: that it is crucial for a prince to pick good ministers, because they in turn reflect on the prince himself. A good minister should think only of what is good for his master; that said, a prince should be sure to keep a minister obedient by honoring him and respecting his welfare.

Next, Machiavelli turns to the subject of flatterers, in “How to Avoid Flatterers.” A prince should accept advice, but only when he has sought it out; uncalled-for advice is never welcome. A prudent prince will bring wise men into his council and give them alone “free license to speak the truth.” For his part, the prince should ask many questions, should seek opinions, and should hear out the views of others.

The final three chapters of The Prince – “Why the Princes of Italy Have Lost Their Dominions,” “The Influence of Luck on Human Affairs and the Ways to Counter It,” and “An Exhortation to Restore Italy to Liberty and Free Her From the Barbarians” – return the book to that idealized vision: a unified Italy, brimming with renewed strength and vigor, a single nation rising above its divisions, healing its wounds, and striding like a colossus upon the world’s stage. What has become of Italy’s glorious potential? The problem, as Machiavelli identifies it, is essentially laziness. The rulers of Italy have not maintained their armed forces, idly figuring that quiet times never go away. This “is a common failing of men,” Machiavelli writes. They “never think of storms so long as the sky is blue.” When trouble comes, such princes run away, hoping to be called back when their former subjects tire of their conquerors.

In the second of these three last chapters, Machiavelli discusses luck and its impact on political affairs. Italy is in trouble today, he argues, because of bad luck, but also because she has not guarded against it sufficiently. “I think it may be true that Fortune governs half of our actions,” Machiavelli writes, “but that even so she leaves the other half more or less in our power to control.” Machiavelli then closes The Prince with, as he puts it, an “exhortation”: he directly addresses Lorenzo de Medici, as he did in the book’s prefatory letter, arguing that he could be the prince who unites Italy. This hope for unification is echoed again in his mention of Cesare Borgia, who, “at the zenith of his career [was] deserted by Fortune.” Machiavelli reminds Lorenzo to look at the examples of the past and restates the necessity of building one’s own armies. “The occasion must not be allowed to slip away,” he argues. “Italy has been waiting too long for a glimpse of her redeemer.”

Finally, Machiavelli concludes with a verse from Petrarch, translated as follows: “Then virtue boldly shall engage/And swiftly vanquish barbarous rage,/Proving that ancient and heroic pride/In true Italian hearts has never died.”

Analysis

Once again, Machiavelli’s slippery, flip-flopping view of human nature is on full display. In Chapter XXI, he writes: “Men are never so dishonest that they will show gross ingratitude by turning immediately on their helpers. Besides, victories are never so decisive that the victor does not have to maintain some moderation, some show of justice.” Did he not, only a number of pages earlier, argue that men are intrinsically “rotten,” liars and hypocrites of the highest magnitude, ready to turn against a helping hand as soon as it suits their needs? And what of justice? What became of keeping the end in sight, of wielding cruelty when necessary, of aiming for the decisive victory, whatever the cost?

No, Machiavelli reasons: moderation is the way to proceed. Far more than is generally assumed, The Prince adopts an almost thesis-antithesis approach to politics and human nature, arguing in near-dialectical fashion through the thickets of human behavior. Machiavelli, despite his occasional categorical assertion and broad generalization, tends to acknowledge the complexity of mankind, of social structures, and of civilization. The apparent contradictions that riddle The Prince are arguably indicative of an actively searching mind; this is a restless book, replete with gaps and back-tracks, obfuscations and impasses, that in its entirety seeks to offer a vision of man as a political animal, groping for power but continually off-set by his own contrary impulses. It is almost a study in psychology, teasing out the aforementioned contradictions in an effort to arrive at some synthesis.

Indeed, man as agent of his own destiny is a central theme for Machiavelli. In his chapter on luck, he writes that “a prince who depends entirely on Fortune comes to grief immediately she changes.” That said, a prince should adjust his behavior “to the temper of the times.” It is all about finding the happy medium, that precise balance between absolute individualism and an ability to adapt to the winds of change and to the mood of the era. Luck does play a major role in politics. Men have natural inclinations that are not easily adjusted, and in this case it is a matter of chance whether such temperaments fit the times or not.

But even here, in the heart of this argument, Machiavelli invokes the importance of the self, of man's capacity to introduce change and to mold the times. He writes that it is “better to be rash than timid, for Fortune is a woman, and the man who wants to hold her down must beat and bully her.” This statement assumes that Fortune can be held down – which was far from a universal belief in Machiavelli’s time. He goes on: “Like a woman, too, [Fortune] is always a friend of the young, because they are less timid, more brutal, and take charge of her more recklessly.” For all his prior emphasis on prudence and calculation, Machiavelli here prizes recklessness, boldness, and brutality.

Therein lies perhaps the central struggle in The Prince: that between the need for bold, speedy maneuvers, the necessity of action, and the treatment of politics as a science, full of rules and conditions. A prince must be both human and beast, and as beast he must be both lion and fox. He must embrace the contradictions of humanity; he must rely on both thought and action; he must look to the past as he heads toward the future. Machiavelli’s treatise is more than a prolonged letter intended to curry favor with the Medici or a how-to manual for power-grabbing; it is, fundamentally, an inquiry into the nature of man, and the ways in which that nature can be harnessed and used both for and against other men. The “Prince” of the title is neither hero nor villain. He is, quite simply, human.

• Biography of Niccolo Machiavelli
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• Summary and Analysis of Section 1: Chapters I-III
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• Summary and Analysis of Section 3: Chapters VIII-IX
• Summary and Analysis of Section 4: Chapters X-XI
• Summary and Analysis of Section 5: Chapters XII-XIV
• Summary and Analysis of Section 6: Chapters XV-XIX
• Summary and Analysis of Section 7: Chapters XX-XXVI
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