Jacob Soll

Introduction: Translating The Prince by Many Hands

The 1741 edition of the English translation of Frederick II’s 1740 Anti- Machiavel, is entitled The Anti-Machiavel or, an Examination of Machiavel’s Prince with Notes Historical and Political. Published by Mr. De Voltaire. Translated from the French (London: T. Woodward, 1741). According to this title page, apparently by T. Woodward, this is an English translation of the text and a commentary on Machiavelli’s The Prince, originally published by Voltaire in French. However, the title page is somewhat confusing, for it is not clear what the primary text is: The Prince or the commentaries on it? While the publisher names Machiavelli as an author, the translator and editor (Amelot) and the author of the commentaries (Frederick II) are not. It is only in the “advertissement” that the publisher addresses the complex nature of this translation:

It may not be improper to acquaint the Reader, that the following Translation of Machiavel’s PRINCE is newly made from the Original; and that the Quotations from Tacitus and other authors are translated into English, to make this book of more general Use. There are already two English Translations of the PRINCE; the one by Dacres, though not unfaithful, is literal and antiquated; the other, but an unknown Hand, is more intelligible and Spirited, but much less correct than the former; it has too much the Nature of a Paraphrase, and departs from that Simplicity of Style which Machiavel keeps up through the whole Book, and which we have endeavored to imitate. There is a Translation of this Piece in French by Mr. Amelot de La Houssaye, which has several Beauties; but they are rather his own than the Author’s; and we did not think ourselves allowed to abridge and curtail Ma- chiavel so much as that Gentleman has done. As for the ANTI-MACHIAVEL, the Author, who is said to be a person of the highest Rank, has but little regard for his Stile: Nevertheless, we have followed it as much as we could; and have not presumed to take any Freedoms but such as we thought absolutely necessary.

I have included this entire text to illustrate the complexity of translating The Prince. In some cases, The Prince was translated from original Tuscan, in others from Latin, and in other cases from French. In this case, the English publisher is translating a new version of the original Italian text, discarding the French, translation of Amelot de La Houssaye of 1683. At the same time, he keeps Amelot’s notes and his maxims from Tacitus, as well as Frederick II and Voltaire’s Anti-Machiavel commentary, and has them translated from French. The original editor, Voltaire, used Amelot’s translation and notes as a vehicle for Frederick II’s anti-Machiavellian commentary. Thus the layers of 10 Jacob Soll

intellectual sediment are deep in the process of appropriating, translating and editing. While many early modern books, classical and contemporary, went through a relatively straightforward process of translation, The Prince (1513) did not. Translating Machiavelli’s text was often a complicated affair for a book considered both scandalous and potent. In the sixteenth century, an age of religious strife and continuing political instability, Machiavelli’s work would prove fundamental in the initial formulation of reason of state theory and a method, or techné of statecraft based on historical knowledge and prudence. It would be translated, represented and reinterpreted in numerous new contexts. Thus the history of The Prince is a history of constant cultural translation. Remarkably, until this edition conceived of and edited by Roberto De Pol, no book has ever attempted to examine this phenomenon in a European context. Here, therefore, we have a series of studies in national contexts, each one seeking to understand how and in what form The Prince entered into respective national markets. What we learn from De Pol’s collective, pan-European enterprise is that translating The Prince was a complex affair, often entailing several linguistic steps. Today, The Prince is a central text of the Western, and indeed world political tradition. Teachers regularly assign it; historians study it; and journalists and politicians regularly refer to it. In many ways, while there are regular re-editions of The Prince, the book has found relative peace. No longer banned and outlawed, it is accepted as a stable text with several basic meanings which students and general readers alike should be able to grasp on their own, or through the commentaries of modern editors. And yet, instability characterized the early modern process of translating and publishing The Prince, for Machiavelli’s founding work of secular political science was problematic. While the text is clearly the founding work of secular pragmatic political science, it has never been clear as to whether the book was a defense of princely reason of state, or a republican attack on it. For early modern interpreters, this problem of meaning was crucial, and thus created a perennial problem of interpretation that gives the book the quality of a religious text whose secrets remain to be unlocked by a perfect hermeneutics. For those who publish or translate the book, there is a basic act of decontextualization not present to the same extent in works intended for public circulation. Machiavelli wrote the The Prince in Tuscan Italian, giving the impression that he did not intend for the book to be read outside the circle of his friends. Even more, in a world of widespread humanist printing, Machiavelli never had his manuscript published. Thus, when The Prince was