Dedication · Chapter I

Niccolò Machiavelli to the Magnificent Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici

Those who wish to win the favour of a prince usually come before him with the things they hold most dear, or in which they see him take most delight; hence princes are often presented with horses, arms, cloth of gold, precious stones and similar ornaments worthy of their greatness. Wishing, then, to offer myself to Your Magnificence with some token of my devotion to you, I have found among my possessions nothing that I hold so dear or value so highly as my knowledge of the actions of great men, learned through long experience of modern affairs and continual study of ancient ones. Having pondered and examined it long and with great diligence, I have now reduced it to a small volume, which I send to Your Magnificence. And although I judge this work unworthy of your presence, I trust greatly that in your humanity you will accept it, considering that I could give you no greater gift than the means of understanding in a very short time all that I have learned and understood over so many years and through so many hardships and dangers. I have not embellished this work or filled it with long periods, or with pompous and magnificent words, or with any other extrinsic allurement or ornament with which many are accustomed to describe and adorn their subjects; for I have wished either that nothing should honour it, or that only the truth of the matter and the gravity of the subject should make it welcome. Nor do I wish it to be thought presumptuous if a man of low and humble station dares to discuss and lay down rules for the government of princes. For just as those who draw maps of the land place themselves low in the plain to consider the nature of mountains and high places, and to consider the low places place themselves high on the mountains, so, to know well the nature of peoples, one must be a prince, and to know well the nature of princes, one must be of the people. Take, then, Your Magnificence, this little gift in the spirit in which I send it; if you read it and consider it diligently, you will find in it my utmost desire that you may attain the greatness which fortune and your other qualities promise you. And if Your Magnificence will at some time turn your eyes from the summit of your height towards these low places, you will see how undeservedly I endure a great and continual malignity of fortune.

Chapter I: How Many Kinds of Principality There Are, and by What Means They Are Acquired

All the states, all the dominions that have had and have power over men, have been and are either republics or principalities. Principalities are either hereditary, in which the family of their lord has long been ruling, or they are new. The new ones are either entirely new, as was Milan to Francesco Sforza, or they are like members added to the hereditary state of the prince who acquires them, as is the kingdom of Naples to the king of Spain. Dominions so acquired are either accustomed to living under a prince or used to being free; and they are acquired either with the arms of others or with one's own, either by fortune or by virtue.