In 1512 the Medici family returned to power in Florence, ending the republican government Machiavelli had served. He lost his post in the Florentine chancery and was pushed out of public life. This political setback set the conditions for his major political writings.
In early 1513 Machiavelli was arrested on suspicion of involvement in an anti-Medici conspiracy and was tortured in prison. After Giovanni de’ Medici became Pope Leo X, a general amnesty was declared and Machiavelli was released in March 1513. He then withdrew to his small property outside Florence, where he focused on writing.
Machiavelli prepared The Prince with a dedication to Lorenzo de’ Medici, positioning the book as practical advice rather than abstract philosophy. The dedication helped shape how readers understood the work: as a guide for a “new prince” trying to stabilize rule. It also shows Machiavelli’s hope that writing could reopen a path back into government service.
After his release and exclusion from office, Machiavelli began drafting a short political treatise known in his correspondence as De Principatibus (“On Principalities”). The work aimed to analyze how rulers gain and keep power in a world shaped by conflict, luck, and human ambition. This early drafting stage explains why the book first circulated as manuscripts before it ever reached print.
The Prince did not appear in print during Machiavelli’s lifetime; instead, it circulated in handwritten copies. This private circulation helped the work spread among elites while also increasing controversy, since readers discussed it without a stable, official edition. The lack of an autograph (author’s own manuscript) and reliance on copies also contributed to later textual variation.
Around the same period as The Prince, Machiavelli worked on the Discourses on Livy, a longer study of republican government and political life drawn from Roman history. Together, the two projects show him analyzing politics from two angles: how princes rule and how republics can be built and preserved. This pairing became central to later debates over whether Machiavelli was mainly a teacher of princes or a thinker of republican freedom.
In 1520 Machiavelli was commissioned by Pope Leo X to write a history of Florence, a major assignment that temporarily improved his standing with Medici patrons. The project tied his political analysis to historical narrative, letting him explain how faction, leadership, and chance shaped the city over time. This commission also shows how his writing career became a substitute for the public office he could not regain.
In 1521 Machiavelli published The Art of War, a dialogue arguing that a state’s security depends on disciplined citizen forces rather than unreliable mercenaries. It was one of the few major political works of his to be printed while he was alive. The book extended his political thinking from court strategy to military organization, linking power to arms and institutions.
After years of work, Machiavelli presented Florentine Histories to Pope Clement VII in 1525. The finished history offered lessons about division and weakness in Florence, connecting past conflicts to ongoing political problems. It marked a late-career effort to influence powerful patrons through scholarship rather than direct governance.
Machiavelli died in Florence on June 21, 1527. At the time of his death, The Prince and the Discourses on Livy had not yet been printed, meaning his most influential political arguments were still largely known through manuscript circulation. This timing shaped his legacy, because publication and debate expanded rapidly only after he was gone.
In 1531 Discourses on Livy was published with papal privilege, making Machiavelli’s republican arguments available to a wider reading public. The printed book encouraged readers to compare his advice to republics with his advice to princes. That comparison became a key part of how later generations interpreted “Machiavellian” politics.
In 1532 the first printed edition of The Prince appeared in Rome, published by Antonio Blado, several years after Machiavelli’s death. Printing turned a politically sensitive manuscript into a widely readable text, accelerating both admiration and condemnation of its hard-edged view of power. From this point, The Prince became central to European debates about rule, ethics, and statecraft.
Also in 1532, Florentine Histories was first published, bringing Machiavelli’s major historical work into the public sphere. With The Prince and his history available in print, readers could see how his political ideas connected to concrete examples from Florence’s past. This publication moment helped solidify Machiavelli’s lasting place in Renaissance political writing.
Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince and Political Writings (1513–1532)