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MACHIAVELLI, NICCOLO. Nicholas Machiavel's Prince. Also, the Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca. And the meanes Duke Valentine us'd to put to death Vitellezzo Vitelli, Oliverotto of Fermo, Paul, and the Duke of Gravina. Translated out of Italian into English By E[dward] D[acres]. London: R. Bishop for W. Hils, sold by D. Pakeman 1640. 12mo, contemporary blind-ruled sheep, rebacked, modern calf-backed folding case. FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. STC 17168.
"'The Prince' is far more than a book of directions to any one of the many Italian princelings. Machiavelli had profited by his journeys to France and Germany to make the most able analyses (in his reports to his government) of a national government, and he now wrote for the guidance of the ruler by whom alone Italy, desparately divided, could be restored to political health. Hitherto political speculation had tended to be a rhetorical exercise based on the implicit assumption of Church or Empire. Machiavelli founded the science of modern politics on the study of mankind--it should be remembered that a parallel work to 'The Prince' was his historical essay on the first ten books of Livy. Politics was a science to be divorced entirely from ethics, and nothing must stand in the way of its machinery. Many of the remedies he proposed for the rescue of Italy were eventually applied. His concept of the qualities demanded from a ruler and the absolute need of a national militia came to fruition in the monarchies of the seventeenth century and their national armies" -- Printing and the Mind of Man 63 (Rome: Blado 1532 edition).
Provenance:
John Crewe, contemporary ink signature on title-page and extensive neat underlinings and marginal notes throughout. This is probably John, first Baron Crew of Stene (1598-1679), an M.P. for Amersham, Bucks., in 1624 and 1625, for Brackley, Northants., in 1626, for Banbury, Oxon., in 1628, and for Northamptonshire in the first parliament of 1640. In the Long Parliament he sat for Brackley and was returned to parliament for Northamptonshire twice, under Cromwell's interregnum in 1654, and in 1660. Described by Clarendon as a man of the 'greatest moderation', he disapproved of bringing Charles I to justice, later moved a resolution condemnatory of his execution and was one of the delegation sent to meet Charles II at the Hague.
"'The Prince' is far more than a book of directions to any one of the many Italian princelings. Machiavelli had profited by his journeys to France and Germany to make the most able analyses (in his reports to his government) of a national government, and he now wrote for the guidance of the ruler by whom alone Italy, desparately divided, could be restored to political health. Hitherto political speculation had tended to be a rhetorical exercise based on the implicit assumption of Church or Empire. Machiavelli founded the science of modern politics on the study of mankind--it should be remembered that a parallel work to 'The Prince' was his historical essay on the first ten books of Livy. Politics was a science to be divorced entirely from ethics, and nothing must stand in the way of its machinery. Many of the remedies he proposed for the rescue of Italy were eventually applied. His concept of the qualities demanded from a ruler and the absolute need of a national militia came to fruition in the monarchies of the seventeenth century and their national armies" -- Printing and the Mind of Man 63 (Rome: Blado 1532 edition).
Provenance:
John Crewe, contemporary ink signature on title-page and extensive neat underlinings and marginal notes throughout. This is probably John, first Baron Crew of Stene (1598-1679), an M.P. for Amersham, Bucks., in 1624 and 1625, for Brackley, Northants., in 1626, for Banbury, Oxon., in 1628, and for Northamptonshire in the first parliament of 1640. In the Long Parliament he sat for Brackley and was returned to parliament for Northamptonshire twice, under Cromwell's interregnum in 1654, and in 1660. Described by Clarendon as a man of the 'greatest moderation', he disapproved of bringing Charles I to justice, later moved a resolution condemnatory of his execution and was one of the delegation sent to meet Charles II at the Hague.