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''The Prince'' ((イタリア語:Il Principe) (:il ˈprintʃipe)) is a 16th-century political treatise by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From correspondence a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, ''De Principatibus'' (''About Principalities''). However, the printed version was not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. This was done with the permission of the Medici pope Clement VII, but "long before then, in fact since the first appearance of the ''Prince'' in manuscript, controversy had swirled about his writings".〔 page 14.〕 Although it was written as if it were a traditional work in the ''mirrors for princes'' style, it is generally agreed that it was especially innovative. This is only partly because it was written in the vernacular Italian rather than Latin, a practice which had become increasingly popular since the publication of Dante's ''Divine Comedy'' and other works of Renaissance literature.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Italian Vernacular Literature )〕〔 emphasizes similarities between ''the Prince'' and its forerunners, but still sees the same innovations as other commentators.〕 ''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.〔Although Machiavelli makes many references to classical sources, these do not include the customary deference to Aristotle which was to some extent approved by the church in his time. says that "Machiavelli indicates his fundamental disagreement with Aristotle's doctrine of the whole by substituting "chance" (''caso'') for "nature" in the only context in which he speaks of "the beginning of the world." Strauss gives evidence that Machiavelli was knowingly influenced by Democritus, whose philosophy of nature was, like that of modern science, materialist.〕 Although it is relatively short, the treatise is the most remembered of Machiavelli's works and the one most responsible for bringing the word "Machiavellian" into usage as a pejorative. It also helped make "Old Nick" an English term for the devil, and even contributed to the modern negative connotations of the words "politics" and "politician" in western countries. In terms of subject matter it overlaps with the much longer ''Discourses on Livy'', which was written a few years later. In its use of near-contemporary Italians as examples of people who perpetrated criminal deeds for politics, another lesser-known work by Machiavelli which ''The Prince'' has been compared to is the ''Life of Castruccio Castracani''. The descriptions within ''The Prince'' have the general theme of accepting that the aims of princes—such as glory and survival—can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends:〔: "Machiavelli is the only political thinker whose name has come into common use for designating a kind of politics, which exists and will continue to exist independently of his influence, a politics guided exclusively by considerations of expediency, which uses all means, fair or foul, iron or poison, for achieving its ends – its end being the aggrandizement of one's country or fatherland – but also using the fatherland in the service of the self-aggrandizement of the politician or statesman or one's party."〕 == Summary == The work has a recognizable structure, for the most part indicated by the author himself, which can be summarized as follows:〔See for example page viii; and 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Prince」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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