Genesis
In one of the letters that Machiavelli wrote to one of his friends, he details The Prince came into existence: “a product of long experience with modern things and a continuous reading of the ancient ones.”
Introductory dedication
While the letter in the book’s introduction is explicitly addressed to the likes of Lorenzo de Medici, Machiavelli acknowledges that the ideal target of the book is “new princes” that move beyond hereditary authority (towards one achieved through their own guile).
A radical break from past (ancients) and tradition (Christians)
politics: By introducing his new modes and orders, Machiavelli sought to break away from Christian universalism and the ancient model of the “small autonomous republican state.”
perspective: Another important aspect of Machiavelli’s break from the ancient tradition (e.g., Plato’s Republic) is that his approach to politics focuses on the preservation of the individual. Thus, he moves away from the utopian or “ought to be” regimes and focuses on the “is” (turning into a realpolitik of sorts).
morality: While the ambition of Machiavelli mirrors that of Christian and Roman rulers, the morality required from his conception of a ruler is emancipated from both Christian and classical (virtue-based) morality. Machiavelli’s ideal ruler is the prince, a person with “a new species of ambition, love of glory, and elements of prophetic authority that we might call charisma.” This morality revolves around one’s own force or virtú (a strictly Machiavellian term).
Founder of the modern state
By breaking away from Christian and ancient political tradition, Machiavelli is often acknowledged as the founder or inventor of the modern state. His legacy, the secular and sovereign state, is the bedrock of most subsequent contemporary political writing (Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau).
Moreover, in Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli explicitly presents himself as the Christopher Columbus of politics for having discovered “new modes and orders.”
Form and matter
Machiavelli is influenced by Aristotle when he offers the perspective that great founders (Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus) created new regimes using the good fortune of (enough) “matter,” which allowed them to impose their desired “form.”
“They had nothing else from fortune than the opportunity that have then the matter enabling them to introduce any form they please.”
Armed prophet
A critical aspect of the Machiavellian doctrine is that one must be ready for physical fighting. Still, that ability has to be paired with superior ruling abilities and exceptional virtues to make them ideal for shaping (new) societies. An individual that doesn’t pair the two (ability for violence and shaping new societies) is not the armed prophet that Machiavelli alludes to in his work.
“’All armed prophets, ‘he says, ‘conquered and the unarmed were ruined.’ This seems to be and is clearly, a kind of classic statement of sheer Machiavellian power politics. ‘All politics grows out of the barrel of the gun,’ as a famous twentieth-century Machiavellian once put it.”