Just four hundred years ago, on the twenty second of June, Niccolo Machiavelli died in Florence. After devoting fourteen years of his early life to the service of the public, the Medici had returned and had deprived him of his office. In this political inactivity he had written some of his best literary works but the most brilliant of his works remained unpublished at his death and for centuries after it. It is said the Machiavelli’s “Prince” was to be the statesman’s supreme guide and after a lapse of four centuries, does the answer actually lie within the great work of “Prince”? It is possible that Machiavelli’s advice may still be of use to the modern statesmen, its value of the political system was believed to have been limited to the time period it was writing but it is now believed to have more meaning today than it did four centuries ago.
The popular movement in both state and church during the fifteenth century had become nothing, the power of papacy had been neutralized, feudal privileges had been abolished, and dangerous rivals were destroyed until gaining the crown had become virtually the sole effective power in the nation. There was much tyranny and oppression but it was also true that individuals had been restrained, private wars had been abolished and a single system of royal justice had been established. Finally, a national independence was made safe. Machiavelli clearly saw that the church alone has prevented the union of Italy and having her seat there help the temporal power that neither had been strong enough to occupy entirely. Machiavelli believed that there must be one strong ruler able to apply intelligently and thoroughly the ways to effectively rule a