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Niccolò Machiavelli
THE ART OF WAR & THE PRINCE
Two Machiavellian Masterpieces in one eBook
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
2017 OK Publishing
ISBN 978-80-272-1800-4
Table of Contents
The Prince
Dedication: To the Magnificent Lorenzo Di Piero De’ Medici
Chapter 1 - Of the Various Kinds of Princedom, and of the Ways in Which They Are Acquired
Chapter 2 - Of Hereditary Princedoms
Chapter 3 - Of Mixed Princedoms
Chapter 6 - Of New Princedoms Which a Prince Acquires With His Own Arms and by Merit
Chapter 7 - Of New Princedoms Acquired By the Aid of Others and By Good Fortune
Chapter 8 - Of Those Who By Their Crimes Come to Be Princes
Chapter - 9 Of the Civil Princedom
Chapter - 10 How the Strength of All Princedoms Should Be Measured
Chapter 11 - Of Ecclesiastical Princedoms
Chapter 12 - How Many Different Kinds of Soldiers There Are, and of Mercenaries
Chapter 13 - Of Auxiliary, Mixed, and National Arms
Chapter 14 - Of the Duty of a Prince In Respect of Military Affairs
Chapter 16 - Of Liberality and Miserliness
Chapter 17 - Of Cruelty and Clemency, and Whether It Is Better To Be Loved or Feared
Chapter 18 - How Princes Should Keep Faith
Chapter 19 - That a Prince Should Seek to Escape Contempt and Hatred
Chapter 21 - How a Prince Should Bear Himself So As to Acquire Reputation
Chapter 22 - Of the Secretaries of Princes
Chapter 23 - That Flatterers Should Be Shunned
Chapter 24 - Why the Princes of Italy Have Lost Their States
Chapter 25 - What Fortune Can Effect in Human Affairs, and How She May Be Withstood Chapter 26 - An Exhortation to Liberate Italy from the Barbarians
Dedication: To the Magnificent Lorenzo Di Piero De’ Medici
It is customary for such as seek a Prince’s favour, to present themselves before him with those things of theirs which they themselves most value, or in which they perceive him chiefly to delight. Accordingly, we often see horses, armour, cloth of gold, precious stones, and the like costly gifts, offered to Princes as worthy of their greatness. Desiring in like manner to approach your Magnificence with some token of my devotion, I have found among my possessions none that I so much prize and esteem as a knowledge of the actions of great men, acquired in the course of a long experience of modern affairs and a continual study of antiquity. Which knowledge most carefully and patiently pondered over and sifted by me, and now reduced into this little book, I send to your Magnificence. And though I deem the work unworthy of your greatness, yet am I bold enough to hope that your courtesy will dispose you to accept it, considering that I can offer you no better gift than the means of mastering in a very brief time, all that in the course of so many years, and at the cost of so many hardships and dangers, I have learned, and know.
This work I have not adorned or amplified with rounded periods, swelling and high-flown language, or any other of those extrinsic attractions and allurements wherewith many authors are wont to set off and grace their writings; since it is my desire that it should either pass wholly unhonoured, or that the truth of its matter and the importance of its subject should alone recommend it.
Nor would I have it thought presumption that a person of very mean and humble station should venture to discourse and lay down rules concerning the government of Princes. For as those who make maps of countries place themselves low down in the plains to study the character of mountains and elevated lands, and place themselves high up on the mountains to get a better view of the plains, so in like manner to understand