Machiavelli › Reading room
The reading room
The original sources that are free online, and what each one is good for.
Machiavelli's own words
- The PrinceNinety pages, and it can be read in an evening. Chapters 7, 15, 17 and 18 are the ones everyone argues about. Project Gutenberg.
- Discourses on the First Decade of Titus LiviusFour times as long as The Prince, and better. Book I.9 on Romulus; III.41 on the trapped army. Project Gutenberg.
- History of FlorenceCommissioned by a Medici pope and delivered in 1525. Project Gutenberg.
- The dispatches, in English (Detmold, 1882)Christian Detmold's translation of the legations, including Cesena, the conclave and Germany. The edition this book quotes. Online Library of Liberty (volume 3; volumes 1 to 4 are all there).
His life
- Pasquale Villari, The Life and Times of Niccolò MachiavelliThe great Victorian life, in Linda Villari's English of 1891, which quotes many of the letters. Volume 1, Internet Archive; volume 2 is beside it.
Places
- The house at Sant'Andrea in PercussinaThe farm outside Florence where he wrote the letter about the four hours with the dead, and The Prince. Now a museum.
Links checked October 2026. If one has moved, tell me.
More about Machiavelli
- Did Machiavelli say “the ends justify the means”?
- Did Machiavelli say it is better to be feared than loved?
- Was Machiavelli tortured?
- What did Machiavelli see Cesare Borgia do?
- What was Machiavelli’s job?
- Did Machiavelli invent political science?
- Was The Prince meant as satire?
- On the day, and years later
- The timeline
Something to read first
The trial file
A short piece, free: what the documents in Galileo’s own trial file actually say, including the two pages that decided it. It isn’t sold anywhere, and it’s the fastest way to see how these books are built.
One email when there’s a new book. Nothing else, and you can leave any time.