Abstract

In a note added to the 1782 edition of The Social Contract, Rousseau interpreted Machiavelli's The Prince in an unusual way: “Machiavelli was a gentleman and a good citizen; but being attached to the house of Medici, he was forced during the oppression of his country to disguise his love of liberty. The very choice of an execrable hero reveals his secret intentions, and the antithesis between his principles in his book The Prince and those in his Discourses on Livy and The History of Florence proves that this profound political thinker has so far had only superficial or corrupted readers.