machiavelli and the prince Essay

Niccolò Machiavelli was born on May 3, 1469, in Florence, Italy during the Renaissance. He was born into nobility so his childhood was quiet; he received the standard humanistic education popular during the Renaissance, but he always desired to obtain political office. Going into his young adult life, he witnessed the removal of the Medici family and the political conflict that was to follow. At this time, Italy was in political chaos; a number of city-states including Florence, Milan, Venice, and Naples all fought for control of Italy, along with Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire. Each one attempted to manipulate one another as to get the upper hand, they resorted to malicious practices such as blackmail and crude violence. These acts heavily influenced Machiavelli’s attitudes toward government, creating the foundation for The Prince.

The political history of Italy is quite extensive. The Greeks were the first to settle in Italy and established colonies in the southern part of the country and in Sicily. There was not a sense of political reality as much as there was a civilization (Windows on Italy- History). While the Greeks controlled the south the Gauls, or Celtic people, ruled the north and the Po Valley. But the most important group to settle in Italy was the Etruscans. Because of their advanced civilization, the Etruscans were the only ones to establish political and cultural ideas before the Roman Empire (Windows on Italy- History). At the end of the Etruscans rule, Rome began a unification of Italy and established Latin to be the general language (Defusco).

The political situation that prompted Machiavelli to write The Prince was that Italy wasn’t a unified country yet. It was a bunch of city states.

Italy’s problems started with the fact that it didn’t have one main ruler, but two people and a concept, resulting in a different approach to the unification. Gulseppe Mazzini had a radical program focusing on a centralized democratic republic based on universal suffrage and the will of the people. Vincenzo Gioberti, who was a catholic priest called for a federation of existing states

Italy, for the most part of its contemporary history, has been leveraged by external and internal influences. The vastness of these influences predominated Italy in the early 19th century, which at the time was already a disconnected region in Europe. Foreign influence was among the influences in Italy that pushed it apart, such in the way of France and Austria, but what fragmented Italy further were its principalities and religious catholic base with Rome at the center. Rome was in the middle of much of these opposing sides; it had many foreign occupants during its time and was the last city to be unified into the Italian state. Therefore, this makes Rome a great example when looking into this time period when trying to understand these fragmentations.

Following the Napoleonic Wars, there was a great amount of diplomatic instability within Europe, and in the Italian states there was a call to unify every state into one nation, Italy (text, 717). A leader of the unification movement, Camillo di Cavour (1810-1861) wanted to prevent chaotic revolutions to unite Italy, rather he wanted to unify the Italian states by promoting the economic developments of the Italian states (text, 717). Cavour was a prime minister of the Piedmont-Sardinia territory, he was a great leader who pushed for the advancement and increase of the region’s economic and military powers, which he believed would help promote a unified Italy (text, 717). Cavour’s territory had much to gain from a unified Italy including a larger amount of available labor, and also a

Before the organization of Italy as a country, it was broken into city-states one of which Machiavelli called home. He was a Florentine and was deeply concerned with how the political governments of Italy worked because the city-states were almost constantly at war with each another. Machiavelli wrote The Prince when the Republic of Florence fell and was replaced by an autocrat

For fourteen years Machiavelli engaged in a bustle of diplomatic activity on behalf of his

The Prince is essentially a guide book on how to acquire and maintain political power. We can think of it as a collection of rules and methods to achieve a level of superior authority. Its main focus is that the ends—no matter how immoral—justify the means for preserving political authority. While some may agree with this mindset of thinking many today dismiss Machiavelli as a cynic. The book shows rulers how it is that they should act to survive in the real world to maintain authority. While Niccolo Machiavelli’s ideas can be radical, they helped to spark a revolution in political philosophy. Although his ideas might have not been completely original, they were very different and unheard of at the time, The Prince, was published. Machiavelli uses many methods to convey his messages including biblical comparisons and of course metaphors. This character can be viewed in several manners. He is almighty and powerful, stopping at nothing to achieve his goals or have his ways. While this quality does qualify him to be a might leader it also raises the question of immorality. How far will one go to maintain order? Would you stop at nothing to achieve this task? Machiavelli shows this by saying, “it is

The Prince, written by Niccolo Machiavelli in 1513 in his native Italian language, was a book dedicated to Florence’s then leader Lorenzo de’Medici in an effort for Machiavelli to gain a position in Florence’s new government. The book was intended to help guide Lorenzo and other present and future leaders in gaining and maintaining power, more specifically to aid Lorenzo in unifying Italy under one ruler. Machiavelli lived during a time of great political strife in Italy as the small city-states of Italy, the Papal States, and the powerful states of Spain and

Hundreds of years later in 1469, Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy to a wealthy family. Though his father was poor, Machiavelli was able to live a very comfortable lifestyle. He was born into an Italy where there was no hereditary monarch, no centralized government, and corruption running rampant. Machiavelli decided to serve in the military and became defense secretary. In this job, he traveled on diplomatic missions for his principality, met influentials like Louis XII of France, Pope Julius II, and Cesare Borgia, and visited the Spanish courts. In 1512, the Medici family (not supportive of Machiavelli) took back power and dissolved the new Italian republic forged by the Borgia family. The family then accused Machiavelli of conspiracy, and he was imprisoned, tortured, and sent to exile south of Florence. This is where and when Machiavelli wrote his famous work, The Prince, loosely based off Cesare Borgia and his fairly successful acquisition of much of central Italy. In The Prince, we see that Machiavelli’s views are straightforward and point towards a goal. Machiavelli’s end goal is to create a unified Italy under a leader whose primary concern is to keep the state united. The Prince simply and logically

The Prince is a study of how to obtain and maintain political power, this book which has 26 chapters can be categorized in four parts; the types of principalities, the type of armies, the character and behavior of the prince and Italy's political situation. Machiavelli describes the kinds of states at the first of the book, arguing that all states are either republics or principalities. Machiavelli explains some key points in what it takes to be a successful Prince. He is giving us an exact image of the cold-hearted reputation he has carried through the years. He explains his thoughts on taking over a Free State or republic and how to overcome and rule with the people loyalty and respect. He also argues

Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince was written in a time of political and civil unrest in Italy. For decades the city-state of Florence suffered several political uprisings and the establishment of new governments. From tyrannical rule to the creation of a democratic republic, and finally the re-establishment of the Medici family, The Prince comes from Machiavelli’s lived experiences in these political regimes. Machiavelli blames the division of Italy into city-states and the socio-political unrest on ecclesiastical authorities and the Church. The Church’s reliance on mercenary arms, and the influence of the papacy are blamed for the power struggle amongst the city-states.

1. The Prince was written by Niccolo Machiavelli in 1513, but it was not published until 1532. The book is basically a long analysis of how a prince earns, and then maintains, political power. It has 26 chapters, which can be separated into four sections. In Chapters 1 to 11, Machiavelli lists the four different types of states that a prince can rule over. These include hereditary states (which are inherited), mixed states (territories that are added into existing territories), brand-new states (which may be acquired by several methods: by the ruler’s own power, by the power of others, by invasion, or by the people’s will) and ecclesiastical states (the states that belong to the Catholic Church). Chapters 12 to 14 discuss the different types of militaries and the proper conduct of a prince as the leader of the military. Chapters 15 to 23 discuss how a prince should behave in general, and how his character should be. The final three chapters are about Italy's political situation in the early 1500’s.

Niccolo Machiavelli is considered the father of modern political science. Living in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth-century's, Machiavelli was a citizen of the city-state of Florence where he served as a secretary to the city council and as a diplomatic envoy for 14 years. The Prince was published five years after his death and is regarded as his most famous work. The Prince is an articulate and precise explanation of the way to use the lesson of history in politics as an example to learn and build ideas from. The Prince can be broken up into four parts. Firstly, Machiavelli explains how a prince gets a state. Secondly, he explains how a prince holds on to a state. Thirdly, he