The Prince is a political treatise by the Italian diplomat, historian and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. The Prince is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, especially modern political philosophy, in which the effective truth is taken to be more important than...

The Prince is a political treatise by the Italian diplomat, historian and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. The Prince is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, especially modern political philosophy, in which the effective truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal. It was also in direct conflict with the dominant Catholic and scholastic doctrines of the time concerning how to consider politics and ethics.