Philosophical considerations on the reading and dissemination of The Prince in early modernity

The Prince is a founding political text of modernity. Its dissemination was so controversial that it is quite difficult to have an exact notion of Machiavelli’s own ideas regarding the purposes of his work. Created from the repercussions of the Florentine thinker’s text, the concept of Machiavellianism identifies modern political thought in such a way that the emergence of the terms sovereignty and States were associated with it almost as synonyms. I will analyze some of the main immediate reactions to The Prince to show the genesis of Machiavellianism in the scenario of interpretive conflicts in dispute in the boiling of the modern State. My objective is to support the thesis that Machiavelli’s thought was fundamental to the ruptures that gave rise to political modernity, regardless of its real intentions.

Keywords: The Prince – Machiavellianism – sovereignty – State – dissemination