The first Latin translation

Although Agostino Nifo produced a Latin reworking of Il Principe before Machiavelli’s treatise saw print, the first proper Latin translation was not completed until 1560. Commissioned by the publisher Pietro Perna, it was carried out by the Reformed Umbrian exile Silvestro Tegli and published in Basle as a work of politico-religious Reformist propaganda. The translation was essentially faithful to the original, except for the omission of some passages whose content was too compromising and a stylistic reworking marked by the use of rhetorical amplificatio, as was typical of literary prose in the sixteenth century. With its 14 republications and re-printings in the space of 60 years, it helped spread Machiavelli’s text throughout Europe, and its fame was only surpassed by Hermann Conring’s Latin translation published in 1660, which however largely recast the original for ideological reasons.