PBA Galleries

[10 (of 12)], 305, [7] pp. A6 (-A2), B-O12. (12mo) 14.1x7.5 cm. (5½x3"), early sheep, rebacked with later calf ruled in gilt, morocco lettering pieces. First Edition in English.

Very rare first edition in English of Machiavelli's most famous and influential work, an unsentimental salute to realpolitik, the effects of which have rippled through history to this day. As analyzed in Printing and the Mind of Man, "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." Lacks the first leaf of the dedication, otherwise complete. Old ownership signature at top of title-page. PMM 63; STC 17168.