1532 · Skopia

Showing 12 works across all media from 1532

The Prince

1532 · 176 pages

Machiavelli threw out the question of how a ruler ought to behave and asked how power is taken and kept. His answer, that a prince does better feared than loved, still unsettles people.

★ 8.5

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 7.9

Portrait · Northern Renaissance

Martin Luther

Lucas Cranach the Elder

1532 · Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

Cranach was Luther's friend and godfather to his children, and his workshop turned out this face by the score for Protestant Germany.

★ 6.7

Mythological painting · Mannerism

Leda and the Swan (Correggio)

Correggio

1532 · Gemaldegalerie, Berlin

The story runs across the canvas in stages, arrival to departure. A later owner cut Leda's head out in disgust and it was repainted.

★ 5.7

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 5.5

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 4.7

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 4.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

He [the prince] holds to what is right when he can but knows how to do wrong when he must.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 4.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honour, they are satisfied.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 4.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

This leads to a debate: is it better to be loved than feared, or the reverse? The answer is that it is desirable to be both, but because it is difficult to join them together, it is much safer for a prince to be feared than loved, if he is to fail in one of the two.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 3.9

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 3.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live; that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin that his preservation.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 3.0