Machiavelli, the Prince and the Idea of Justice

Machiavelli has been conventionally considered the founder of the autonomy of politics because he was thought to have completely ignored ethics and justice in his analysis of the most important princely virtues. This new reading of The Prince, the Discourses, and other works of Machiavelli, demonstrates that the principle of justice is often invoked according to the traditional forms of legal and political literature. This is particularly evident in two of his minor works: the so-called legal comedy Belfagor, il demonio che prese moglie, and in the Allocuzione ad un magistrato, which is a humanistic paean to justice.