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This is an extremely rare codex manuscript on paper of Machiavelli’s Il Principe (The Prince) It dates from the early 1500s and has a beautiful gold-tooled binding. As you can see it is not a printed book but a manuscript in Italian not Latin and there are only seven of these in existence. The Prince was written in 1513 and Machiavelli argued, somewhat controversially, that in order to gain power the Prince could use whatever underhand methods he deemed necessary. A case of ‘the end justifying the means’ hence the use of Machievellian as a pejorative term.,.

 

 

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