The Prince

The Prince (Italian: Il Principe [il‘print'ipe]; La­tin: De Principatibus) is a 16th-century political treatise written by Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli as an instruction guide for new princes and royals. The general theme of The Prince is of accepting that the aims of princes – such as glory and survival – can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends.

From Machiavelli's correspondence, a version appe­ars to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, De Principatibus (Of Principalities). However, the prin­ted version was not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. This was carried out with the per­mission of the Medici pope Clement VII, but “long before then, in fact since the first appearance of The Prince in manuscript, controversy had swirled about his writings”.