The Prince Niccolò Machiavelli (best books to read for beginners .txt) 📖

the modern equivalent of Machiavelli’s thought when he speaks of crudelta than the more obvious “cruelties.” ↩

Nabis, tyrant of Sparta, conquered by the Romans under Flamininus in 195 BC; killed 192 BC. ↩

This event is to be found in Machiavelli’s Florentine History, Book III. ↩

Charles VIII invaded Italy in 1494. ↩

Pope Leo X was the Cardinal de’ Medici. ↩

“With chalk in hand,” col gesso. This is one of the bons mots of Alexander VI, and refers to the ease with which Charles VIII seized Italy, implying that it was only necessary for him to send his quartermasters to chalk up the billets for his soldiers to conquer the country. Cf. The History of Henry VII, by Lord Bacon:

“King Charles had conquered the realm of Naples, and lost it again, in a kind of a felicity of a dream. He passed the whole length of Italy without resistance: so that it was true what Pope Alexander was wont to say: That the Frenchmen came into Italy with chalk in their hands, to mark up their lodgings, rather than with swords to fight.”

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Battle of Caravaggio, 15th September 1448. ↩

Johanna II of Naples, the widow of Ladislao, King of Naples. ↩

An English knight whose name was Sir John Hawkwood. He fought in the English wars in France, and was knighted by Edward III; afterwards he collected a body of troops and went into Italy. These became the famous “White Company.” He took part in many wars, and died in Florence in 1394. He was born about 1320 at Sible Hedingham, a village in Essex. He married Domnia, a daughter of Bernabo Visconti. ↩

Francesco Bussone, born at Carmagnola about 1390, executed at Venice, 5th May 1432. ↩

Bartolomeo Colleoni of Bergamo; died 1457. Roberto of San Severino; died fighting for Venice against Sigismund, Duke of Austria, in 1487. “Primo capitano in Italia.” —⁠Machiavelli. Count of Pitigliano; Niccolò Orsini, born 1442, died 1510. ↩

Battle of Vaila in 1509. ↩

Alberico da Barbiano, Count of Cunio in Romagna. He was the leader of the famous “Company of St. George,” composed entirely of Italian soldiers. He died in 1409. ↩

Ferdinand V (F. II of Aragon and Sicily, F. III of Naples), surnamed “The Catholic,” born 1542, died 1516. ↩

Joannes Cantacuzenus, born 1300, died 1383. ↩

Charles VII of France, surnamed “The Victorious,” born 1403, died 1461. ↩

Louis XI, son of the above, born 1423, died 1483. ↩

“Many speakers to the House the other night in the debate on the reduction of armaments seemed to show a most lamentable ignorance of the conditions under which the British Empire maintains its existence. When Mr. Balfour replied to the allegations that the Roman Empire sank under the weight of its military obligations, he said that this was ‘wholly unhistorical.’ He might well have added that the Roman power was at its zenith when every citizen acknowledged his liability to fight for the State, but that it began to decline as soon as this obligation was no longer recognized.”

—⁠Pall Mall Gazette, 15th May 1906

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Philopoemen, “the last of the Greeks,” born 252 BC, died 183 BC. ↩

During the rioting between the Cancellieri and Panciatichi factions in 1502 and 1503. ↩

… against my will, my fate
A throne unsettled, and an infant state,
Bid me defend my realms with all my pow’rs,
And guard with these severities my shores.

—⁠Christopher Pitt

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“The present chapter has given greater offence than any other portion of Machiavelli’s writings.”

—⁠Burd, Il Principe, p. 297

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“Contesting,” i.e. “striving for mastery.” Mr. Burd points out that this passage is imitated directly from Cicero’s De Officiis: “Nam cum sint duo genera decertandi, unum per disceptationem, alterum per vim; cumque illud proprium sit hominis, hoc beluarum; confugiendum est ad posterius, si uti non licet superiore.” ↩

“Nondimanco sempre gli succederono gli inganni (ad votum).” The words ad votum are omitted in the Testina addition, 1550.

Alexander never did what he said,
Cesare never said what he did.

—⁠Italian Proverb

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“Contrary to fidelity” or “faith,” contro alla fede, and tutto fede, “altogether faithful,” in the next paragraph. It is noteworthy that these two phrases, “contro alla fede” and “tutto fede,” were omitted in the Testina edition, which was published with the sanction of the papal authorities. It may be that the meaning attached to the word fede was “the faith,” i.e. the Catholic creed, and not as rendered here “fidelity” and “faithful.” Observe that the word religione was suffered to stand in the text of the Testina, being used to signify indifferently every shade of belief, as witness “the religion,” a phrase inevitably employed to designate the Huguenot heresy. South in his Sermon IX, p. 69, ed. 1843, comments on this passage as follows: “That great patron and Coryphaeus of this tribe, Niccolò Machiavel, laid down this for a master rule in his political scheme: ‘That the show of religion was helpful to the politician, but the reality of it hurtful and pernicious.’ ” ↩

Ferdinand of Aragon. “When Machiavelli was writing The Prince it would have been clearly impossible to mention Ferdinand’s name here without giving offence.” —⁠Burd’s Il Principe, p. 308 ↩

Giovanni Bentivogli, born in Bologna 1438, died at Milan 1508. He ruled Bologna from 1462 to