The Reception of The Prince 1513–1700, or Why We Understand Machiavelli the Way We Do

This article traces the reception of Machiavelli's The Prince amongst political writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At different times, The Prince was considered a manual for tyrants, and also a radical book of political criticism. Much of the evolution of how readers perceived the book took place in discussions about Machiavelli's revolutionary idea of practical prudence, in particular, chapter 18 of The Prince. Following debates about Machiavellian prudence shows how essential the Dutch political writer and humanist, Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) was in disseminating Machiavelli's ideas and setting the basis for the modern, republican reading of The Prince. Lipsius both popularized and rendered palatable Machiavelli's radical interpretation of political morality and prudence.