# The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli Source: https://thegisthub.com/books/the-prince-by-niccolo-machiavelli Last updated: 2026-10-24 Published 1532 · 160 pages · ISBN 9780192804266 · Categories: Philosophy and stoicism, Society and history Machiavelli's 1513 manual on how a ruler gains and keeps power, written for the Medici after his fall from office in Florence. For readers who want the argument behind the word Machiavellian. ## The gist Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513, after the Medici returned to Florence and removed him from office. It tells a new ruler how to take and hold a state as politics actually works, not as it should. A prince must rely on his own army, never on mercenaries. He must study war above all else. He should be feared rather than loved if he cannot be both, but never hated: leave people their property and their women. He must be a **lion** to frighten wolves and a **fox** to see traps, keep promises only while they serve him, and appear merciful, honest and religious whatever he does. **Fortune** rules half of human affairs; **virtù**, meaning skill and boldness, can master the rest. The book ends with a call to free Italy from foreign armies. ## Key ideas ### 1. Write about how things are, not how they should be In chapter 15 Machiavelli breaks with the mirror-for-princes tradition that told rulers to be good. Many have imagined republics and principalities that never existed. He will describe the real truth of the matter. A man who tries to be good in everything, among so many who are not, will be ruined. A prince must therefore learn how not to be good and use that skill as the situation requires. The book judges every quality by one test: does it help the prince keep the state? ### 2. Armed prophets win, unarmed prophets fail Princes who gain a state by their own ability, such as Moses, Cyrus, Romulus and Theseus, owed fortune only their opportunity. Each then had to introduce a new order, the most dangerous task there is, because everyone who prospered under the old order becomes an enemy and the possible winners are lukewarm. Only force sees it through. Savonarola ruled Florence by preaching until the crowd turned and he was burned in 1498. Machiavelli's conclusion: all armed prophets have conquered and all unarmed ones have been destroyed. ### 3. Cesare Borgia: the model new prince, undone by one error Borgia gained the Romagna through his father, Pope Alexander VI, and French troops. He then freed himself from both, lured his treacherous mercenary captains to Senigallia and killed them, and pacified the region by giving the cruel Remirro de Orco full power and then having him cut in two in the square at Cesena. The people were satisfied and afraid at once. Borgia lost everything when his father died while he was ill. His one real error was to let Julius II, whom he had injured, become pope. ### 4. Use cruelty well: all at once, then stop Agathocles of Syracuse killed the senators and the rich in a single morning and ruled securely for life. Machiavelli says crime can win power but not glory, and he draws a rule from it. Cruelty well used is done all at once, at the start, so that it need not be repeated and the people can forget it. Cruelty badly used grows over time and makes the prince hated. Benefits should work the opposite way: given little by little so they are savored. The worst prince is the one who keeps the knife in his hand. ### 5. Never rely on mercenaries or borrowed troops Good laws need good arms. Mercenaries are disunited, ambitious and faithless; they rob you in peace and run in war, and their captains, such as Sforza and Braccio, turned on the cities that hired them. Italy was ruined by them. Auxiliaries borrowed from another prince are worse, because when they win you become their prisoner. Borgia's reputation rose only when he fielded his own men. A prince should study nothing but war, hunt to learn terrain and read history to imitate great commanders, as Scipio imitated Cyrus. ### 6. Feared rather than loved, but never hated Both would be best, but people are ungrateful and fickle. Love is a bond they break when it suits them; fear of punishment holds. So a prince who cannot be both should choose to be feared. He must avoid hatred, which comes from seizing property and women, because men forget the death of a father sooner than the loss of an inheritance. Hannibal held a huge mixed army together by cruelty. Scipio's excess of mercy let his troops mutiny in Spain. Borgia's cruelty brought order to the Romagna while Florence's mercy let Pistoia tear itself apart. ### 7. The lion and the fox There are two ways to fight: by law, which belongs to men, and by force, which belongs to beasts. A prince needs both, as the centaur Chiron taught Achilles. Among beasts he should be a lion, to frighten wolves, and a fox, to recognize traps. A prudent prince breaks a promise when keeping it would harm him and the reasons for it are gone, since others will do the same to him. He must hide this. He should appear merciful, faithful, humane, honest and religious, and be ready to be none of them. People judge by appearances and results. ### 8. Fortune rules half; boldness can master the rest Machiavelli grants fortune half of human affairs and leaves the other half to free will. Fortune is a river that floods and destroys where nobody has built dikes. A prince builds in calm times so the flood finds channels. Men fail because they cannot change their nature when times change: the cautious man is lost when boldness is needed. Julius II succeeded by acting impetuously in every case. Machiavelli prefers boldness, because fortune is a woman who favors the young and the daring. The book ends by urging the Medici to use that boldness to free Italy. ## Questions this book answers ### What is The Prince about? The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli is a short treatise, written in 1513 and printed in 1532, on how a ruler gains and keeps a state. Machiavelli, a former Florentine official, draws on the Italian wars and on Roman history to argue that a prince must rely on his own army, be feared rather than loved if he cannot be both, never be hated, keep promises only while they serve him and appear virtuous whatever he does. It ends with a call to free Italy from foreign armies. ### What is the main message of The Prince? Politics must be judged by results, not by the morals that apply to private life. A ruler who tries to be good in all things among people who are not will be ruined. Machiavelli therefore tells the prince to learn how not to be good, to build his own army, to use cruelty once and then stop, and to combine the force of the lion with the cunning of the fox. Fortune rules half of events; skill and boldness can master the rest. ### Why does Machiavelli say it is better to be feared than loved? Because people are ungrateful, fickle and self-interested. Love is a bond they break when it suits them, while fear of punishment never fails. A prince who cannot be both loved and feared should choose fear. He must avoid hatred, however, which comes from seizing subjects' property or women, since men forget the death of a father sooner than the loss of an inheritance. ### Does The Prince say the ends justify the means? No. The phrase does not appear in the book. The closest passage, in chapter 18, says that in the actions of princes, where there is no court of appeal, people look at the result, and that a prince who keeps his state will have his means judged honorable by the common people. Machiavelli describes how rulers are judged; he does not state a general moral rule that any means is justified. ### Why did Machiavelli write The Prince? He wrote it in 1513 after the Medici returned to Florence, dismissed him from his post as secretary, accused him of conspiracy and tortured him. He dedicated it to Lorenzo de' Medici, the younger, in the hope of being employed again. The final chapter also urges the Medici to raise a citizen army and drive the French, Spanish and Swiss armies out of Italy. ### Is The Prince a satire? Readers disagree. Rousseau and some later scholars read it as a satire that exposes how princes behave by stating it plainly. Leo Strauss called Machiavelli a teacher of evil who meant what he wrote. Others read it alongside the Discourses, where Machiavelli praises republics, and see The Prince as a diagnosis of a corrupt time rather than his ideal. The book itself gives no sign that it is a joke. ## Quotes > It is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. (Chapter 17, W. K. Marriott translation (1908)) > Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are. (Chapter 18, W. K. Marriott translation (1908)) > It is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves. (Chapter 18, W. K. Marriott translation (1908)) ## Full summary ### A gift from a disgraced secretary Niccolò Machiavelli served the Florentine republic for fourteen years as secretary of its second chancery, which handled diplomacy and the militia. He went on missions to Cesare Borgia, King Louis XII of France, Pope Julius II and Emperor Maximilian, and he watched each of them up close. In 1512 Spanish troops restored the Medici family to Florence. Machiavelli lost his post, was accused of conspiracy, was tortured with the strappado and was released to his farm outside the city. There, in late 1513, he wrote The Prince. In a letter to his friend Francesco Vettori he described spending his days in the tavern and his evenings in his study, dressed in his court robes, talking with the ancients. The book is dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, the younger, in the hope of a job. It circulated in manuscript and was printed in 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. In 1559 the Church placed it on the Index of forbidden books. It is short, 26 chapters, and it reads as advice to a new ruler who holds power by his own effort rather than by inheritance. ### Kinds of states and how to hold them Machiavelli opens by sorting states. Republics he sets aside for another book, the Discourses. Principalities are either hereditary, which are easy to hold because people are used to the ruling family, or new. New states are the problem, and a mixed state, where a prince adds new territory to old, is the hardest case. His model of failure is **Louis XII** of France, who took Milan twice and lost it twice. Machiavelli lists his errors: he strengthened a powerful rival (the Church), brought in a foreign power (Spain), did not settle in the new territory or plant colonies, and crushed the minor lords who could have been allies. Colonies cost little and offend only the people displaced. Garrisons cost much and offend everyone. A prince who takes a new state should either live there, as the Turks did in Greece, or send colonists. He compares two kinds of state through Alexander the Great. The Persian empire of Darius was ruled by one king with servants; it was hard to conquer but easy to hold once the king was dead. France was ruled by a king among barons; it was easy to enter, because some baron was always discontented, but impossible to hold, because the barons remained. Free cities are hardest of all. A conqueror must ruin them, live in them or set up a dependent oligarchy, because a city that remembers its liberty will always rebel. Pisa rebelled against Florence after a hundred years. ### New princes: ability, fortune and crime Chapter 6 treats princes who win states by their own arms and **virtù**, a word that means ability, energy and boldness rather than moral virtue. Moses, Cyrus, Romulus and Theseus owed fortune only their opportunity. Each then had to introduce a new order, the most dangerous task there is, because everyone who did well under the old order is an enemy and those who might do well under the new one are lukewarm. The lesson is that **armed prophets** win and unarmed ones fail. Girolamo Savonarola, who ruled Florence by preaching until the crowd turned on him and he was burned in 1498, is the unarmed example. Chapter 7 is the longest and the most personal. It concerns **Cesare Borgia**, Duke Valentino, son of Pope Alexander VI, who gained the Romagna through his father's influence and French arms. Machiavelli, who had been with Borgia in 1502, treats him as the model new prince. Borgia freed himself from the French and from mercenary captains, whom he lured to Senigallia and strangled. He pacified the Romagna by giving a cruel officer, Remirro de Orco, full power to crush disorder, then had Remirro cut in two and displayed in the square at Cesena, so that the people felt both satisfied and afraid. Borgia fell only because his father died while he himself lay sick, and because he let Julius II, a man he had injured, become pope. Machiavelli calls that his one error. Chapter 8 covers princes who rise by crime. **Agathocles** of Syracuse called an assembly, had his soldiers kill the senators and the rich, and ruled for life. Oliverotto da Fermo killed his uncle and the town's leading men at a banquet. Machiavelli says crime can win power but not glory. He adds the rule of cruelty **well used** or badly used: do all the harm at once, at the start, and then stop, so that people forget it. Spread benefits out little by little so they are savored. Cruelty that grows over time ruins a prince. Chapter 9 treats the civil principality, where a citizen becomes prince by the favor of either the nobles or the people. The people are the better base. They ask only not to be oppressed, while the nobles want to oppress. A prince raised by the nobles is surrounded by equals who think themselves his peers. ### Armies: never rely on mercenaries Chapters 12 to 14 are about arms, which Machiavelli calls the foundation of every state. The laws cannot be good where the arms are bad. **Mercenaries** are useless and dangerous: they are disunited, ambitious, faithless and brave only among friends. In peace they rob you and in war the enemy does. Italy, he says, was ruined by them. Captains such as Carmagnola, Sforza and Braccio fought slow wars for pay and turned on their employers. **Auxiliaries**, troops borrowed from another prince, are worse, because when they win you become their prisoner. Cesare Borgia's reputation rose only when he replaced French troops and mercenaries with his own men. The Swiss and the Romans show what citizen armies can do. A prince should therefore have no other study than war. In peace he should hunt, to learn terrain and harden his body, and read history, imitating great men as Scipio imitated Cyrus. A prince who neglects arms will be despised, and no state can be held by a man his soldiers do not respect. ### How a prince should behave Chapter 15 states the book's method. Many have written about imaginary republics and princedoms. Machiavelli will write about how things are, because a man who tries to be good in all things among so many who are not will come to ruin. A prince must learn how not to be good and use that knowledge as need requires. On **generosity and parsimony**, he advises stinginess. A prince famous for generosity must tax his people to keep it up and ends up hated. A prince thought miserly can defend himself without burdening anyone, and in time his people will see him as generous for not taking from them. Julius II, Louis XII and Ferdinand of Aragon all ruled on thrift. Generosity with other people's property, taken in war, is another matter. On **cruelty and mercy**, he argues that Borgia's cruelty brought order to the Romagna while Florence's mercy let Pistoia destroy itself. A new prince cannot avoid a reputation for cruelty. The famous question follows: is it better to be loved or feared? Both would be ideal, but since men are ungrateful, fickle and self-interested, love is a bond they break when it suits them, while fear of punishment never fails. So a prince should be feared if he cannot be both. He must never be hated, however, and he avoids hatred by keeping his hands off his subjects' property and their women. Men forget the death of a father sooner than the loss of an inheritance. Hannibal held a huge mixed army together through cruelty; Scipio's excess of mercy let his army mutiny in Spain. Chapter 18, on **keeping faith**, gives the book its reputation. There are two ways to fight, by law and by force. The first belongs to men, the second to beasts, and a prince must know both, as the centaur Chiron taught Achilles. Of the beasts he should pick the **lion**, who frightens wolves, and the **fox**, who sees traps. A prudent prince does not keep his word when keeping it would harm him and the reasons for the promise are gone. Men are bad and will not keep faith with him, so he need not keep it with them. He must, however, hide this. Alexander VI never did anything but deceive and always found someone to deceive. A prince should appear merciful, faithful, humane, honest and religious, and be ready to act otherwise. Everyone sees what he appears to be; few touch what he is. The common people judge by results. ### Avoiding contempt and choosing ministers A prince is despised for being changeable, frivolous, effeminate, cowardly or irresolute, and hated for seizing property. His two fears are internal conspiracy and foreign attack. Against conspiracy the best defense is not to be hated by the people, because a conspirator who expects the people to rejoice has courage and one who expects their anger does not. The Bentivogli of Bologna survived an assassination because the people loved them. France's parliament exists to keep the nobles in check without the king taking the blame. The chapter on the Roman emperors shows the trap: a prince must satisfy the soldiers or the people, and Severus managed both by being a lion and a fox, while Commodus, Caracalla and Maximinus died for their cruelty and Pertinax and Alexander Severus for their mildness. On fortresses, Machiavelli is skeptical. The Countess of Forlì held her castle against a revolt only to lose it to a foreign army. The best fortress is not to be hated by the people. On reputation, Ferdinand of Aragon rose from a weak king to the first in Christendom through great enterprises, including the conquest of Granada, that kept his subjects in suspense. A prince should also take clear sides. Neutrality earns the hatred of the winner and the contempt of the loser. On **ministers**, Machiavelli says a prince is judged by the men around him. A good minister thinks of the prince before himself, and the prince should keep him loyal with honors and wealth. On **flatterers**, the only defense is to choose a few wise men, give them alone the freedom to speak the truth, ask them about everything, and then decide alone. Emperor Maximilian told no one his plans and changed them at the first objection, so nobody knew what he would do. ### Fortune and the call to free Italy Chapter 24 asks why the princes of Italy, in Naples and Milan, lost their states. They blamed fortune. Machiavelli blames them: they had no armies, made enemies of their people and failed to secure the nobles. Chapter 25 is the book's reflection on **fortune**. He grants that fortune rules half of our actions but leaves the other half to us. Fortune is like a river that floods and destroys when nobody has built dikes; a prince builds in quiet times so that the flood finds channels. No man can change his nature as times change, which is why a cautious man fails when the times call for boldness. Julius II succeeded by acting impetuously in every case. It is better to be bold than cautious, Machiavelli writes, because fortune is a woman and favors the young who treat her roughly. The final chapter is an exhortation to the Medici to seize the moment and liberate Italy from the barbarians, meaning the French, Spanish and Swiss armies that had fought over it since 1494. Italy, he says, lies beaten and waiting for someone to heal its wounds. The Medici have the chance, the Church's favor and the lesson of the book: raise a citizen army and lead it. He closes with lines from Petrarch about ancient valor not yet dead in Italian hearts. ### What the critics say Readers have never agreed on what the book is. Rousseau and others read it as a satire that exposes how princes behave. Leo Strauss called Machiavelli a teacher of evil. Scholars who read it beside the Discourses, which praise republics, see it as a diagnosis of a corrupt time rather than a creed. The word Machiavellian came to mean cunning and deceit, though the book never says that the ends justify the means, a phrase it does not contain. ### Who should read it Read it if you want to understand the origin of modern political realism, or if you work in any organization where power, loyalty and reputation decide outcomes. It is short, concrete and more precise than its reputation. Pair it with a translation that explains the Italian wars. ## Do this week - Read chapters 15 to 18 in one sitting, then write in one paragraph what Machiavelli claims and what he only appears to claim. - Pick one decision you lead and list which parts depend on fortune and which parts you can prepare for now. - Identify the mercenaries in your work: tasks you have outsourced that nobody loyal to you controls. Decide which one to bring back in. - Write down who on your team is allowed to tell you the truth, and ask one of them a hard question this week. - Read the dedication and the final chapter, and discuss with a friend whether the book is advice, a job application or a warning. Summary by The Gist Hub (https://thegisthub.com). In our own words, not the book's text.