Machiavelli in the British Isles. Two Early Modern Translations of The Prince

The aim of this book is to analyse the impact of Machiavelli’s Principe in sixteenth-century England and Scotland through the analysis of the early English translations of the text. It is a philological as well as historical inquiry with traces allusions and references to the Principe in English and Scottish writings, as well as proof of ownership of the book in various languages (French, Latin and Italian), before concentrating on the four extant translations prior to Edward Dacres’s first printed version, published in 1640, and now surviving in eight manuscripts in British and American libraries. The history of the various manuscripts and their circulation is reconstructed, and a stemma codicum is proposed. Then the book concentrates on two versions, a Scottish one (and the only one for which the translator, William Fowler, is known) and an English one that has hitherto been ignored by scholars. The history of these translations is traced, as far as possible, and they are analysed; the final section of the book consists of the annotated edition of the two texts. This work should help scholars towards a re-assessment of the impact of Machiavelli in Tudor England, and in Scotland prior to the Union of the Crowns, as well as put to their disposal two little-known texts.