States the translator in his twenty-four page introduction: Among the reasons why this translation attempts to preserve the difficulties and ambiguities of the text is that Machiavelli is providing a puzzle that must be carefully and ...

This is only partly because it was written in the vernacular Italian rather than Latin, a practice which had become increasingly popular since the publication of Dante's Divine Comedy and other works of Renaissance literature.The Prince is ...

The Prince is a 16th-century political treatise, by the Italian diplomat and political theorist, Niccolò Machiavelli.

Nicolo Machiavelli was employed by the infamous Prince Lorenzo de Medici at the Italian Court in the 16th Century and released these diaries for publication when he was made redundant as the Empire started to crumble.

Tells how to obtain and hold on to power unencumbered by ethical considerations, and includes modern commentary

The treatise is not representative of the work published during his lifetime, but it is the most remembered, and the work responsible for bringing "Machiavellian" into wide usage as a pejorative term.(wikipedia)

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 - 21 June 1527) was an Italian Renaissance diplomat, philosopher and writer, best known for The Prince (Il Principe), written in 1513.