Lehal Library

crushed at Prato a few miles to the north of the city. ­Soderini escaped and the Medici returned. Machiavelli was unemployed and unemployable. The scandalous nature of The Prince was largely deter- mined by its structure rather than any conscious desire to shock. Originally entitled On Principalities, the book opens with an attempt to categorize different kinds of states and governments at different moments of their development, then, moving back and forth between ancient and modern history, to establish some universal principles relative to the business of taking and holding power in each kind of state. Given Machiavelli’s experience, wide reading and determined intellectual honesty, the project obliged him to explain that there were many occasions when winning and holding political power was possible only if a leader was ready to act outside the moral codes that applied to ordinary individuals. Public opinion was such, he explained, that, once victory was achieved, nobody was going to put the winner on trial. Political leaders were above the law. Had Machiavelli insisted on deploring this unhappy state of affairs, had he dwelt on other criteria for judging a leader, aside from his mere ability to stay in power and build a strong state, had he told us with appropriate piety that power was hardly worth having if you had to sell your soul to get it, he could have headed off a great deal of criticism while still delivering the same information. But aside from one or two token regrets that the world is not