The People among Princes: a Reading of Niccolò Machiavelli’s Il principe

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the references that Niccolò Machiavelli makes on the figure of people in The prince. Based on his analysis, we may find tools to examine how people operate in his work, and how people interact with the leader. For these purposes, this article will proceed in the following way: in first place, we will sequentially restore the mentions on people in Machiavelli’s work. Once this information is provided, we will focus on the treatment of the relevant concepts in order to address the theoretical innovation that these references portray.