CHAPTER 1
A PROVISION FOR INFANTRY
[A selection from the Preamble]
[Dated 6 December 1506. This document indicates the partial acceptance by Florence of Machiavelli's idea, prominent in THE PRINCE and THE ART OF WAR, that a country should be defended by her own citizens. Though justice is the foundation of Machiavellian theory, he seldom, as here, speaks directly on it]
Whereas it has been observed by the Magnificent and Exalted Signors that all republics which in times past have preserved and increased themselves have always had as their chief basis two things, to wit, justice and arms, in order to restrain and to govern their subjects, and in order to defend themselves from their enemies; and whereas they have observed that your republic is well founded on good and holy laws, and organized for the administration of justice, and that she lacks only to be well provided with arms; and since through long experience, indeed with great expense and danger, she has learned how little hope it is possible to place in foreign and hired arms, because when they are numerous and of high repute they are either unendurable or suspected, and if they are few and without reputation, they are of no use, these signors judge it well that she should be armed with her own weapons and with her own men.
THE PRINCE
List of Chapters
[DEDICATION]
1. THE VARIOUS TYPES OF PRINCEDOM AND HOW THEY ARE GAINED
2. HEREDITARY PRINCEDOMS
3. MIXED PRINCEDOMS
4. WHY DARIUS' KINGDOM THAT ALEXANDER CONQUERED DID NOT REVOLT FROM HIS SUCCESSORS AFTER HIS DEATH
5. HOW STATES OR PRINCIPALITIES ARE TO BE MANAGED THAT, BEFORE THEY WERE CONQUERED, LIVED UNDER THEIR OWN LAWS
6. NEW PRINCEDOMS GAINED THROUGH A MAN'S OWN ARMIES AND ABILITY
7. NEW PRINCEDOMS GAINED WITH OTHER MEN'S FORCES AND THROUGH FORTUNE
8. MEN WHO GAIN A PRINCEDOM THROUGH WICKED DEEDS
9. THE "CIVIL PRINCEDOM"
10. HOW THE MILITARY POWER OF ANY PRINCEDOM IS TO BE ESTIMATED
11. ECCLESIASTICAL PRINCEDOMS
12. VARIOUS KINDS OF ARMY; MERCENARY SOLDIERS
13. AUXILIARY AND MIXED ARMIES; SUBJECTS AND CITIZENS AS SOLDIERS
14. A PRINCE'S DUTY ABOUT MILITARY AFFAIRS
15. THOSE THINGS FOR WHICH MEN AND ESPECIALLY PRINCES ARE PRAISED OR CENSURED
16. LIBERALITY AND STINGINESS
17. CRUELTY AND MERCY: IS IT BETTER TO BE LOVED THAN FEARED, OR THE REVERSE?
18. HOW PRINCES SHOULD KEEP THEIR PROMISES
19. A PRINCE MUST AVOID BEING DESPISED AND HATED
20. WHETHER FORTRESSES AND MANY THINGS THAT PRINCES DO EVERY DAY ARE USEFUL OR HARMFUL
21. HOW A PRINCE CONDUCTS HIMSELF IN ORDER TO GAIN A HIGH REPUTATION
22. A PRINCE'S CONFIDENTIAL OFFICERS
23. HOW FLATTERERS CAN BE AVOIDED
24. WHY THE PRINCES OF ITALY HAVE LOST THEIR STATES
25. FORTUNE'S POWER IN HUMAN AFFAIRS AND HOW SHE CAN BE FORESTALLED
26. AN EXHORTATION TO GRASP ITALY AND SET HER FREE FROM THE BARBARIANS
[In a letter of 10 December 1513, Machiavelli says that he had written a little work on princedoms, and that he was still enlarging and revising it. This process of improvement may have gone on for years. Yet in 1513 The Prince, or the part he had then written, was so nearly finished that he was showing it to one of his friends and considering the wisdom of presenting it to Giuliano de'Medici. On Machiavelli's death in 1527 it was still unprinted, appearing only in 1532.
The work falls into several sections. Chapters 1–11 deal with various types of princedom, emphasizing the new prince. In Chapters 12–14, the independent but related topic of warfare is treated, with the dominating belief that a wise ruler relies on an army of citizens rather than of mercenaries.
