# Is "The Prince (Il Principe)" by Niccolò Machiavelli a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Prince (Il Principe) by Niccolò Machiavelli (Antonio Blado, Rome, 1532) is identified by: The true first is the posthumous Roman edition: [Il principe di Niccholo Machiavello al magnifico Lorenzo di Piero de Medici], Rome: Antonio Blado d'Asola, dated 4 January 1532, printed five years after Machiavelli's death under a privilege granted to Blado by Pope Clement VII on 23 August 1531. Original-language precedence: Blado, Rome, 4 January 1532 is the first; Bernardo Giunta's Florence edition of 16 March 1532 follows about ten weeks later and is the SECOND edition, not a rival first.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The true first is the posthumous Roman edition: [Il principe di Niccholo Machiavello al magnifico Lorenzo di Piero de Medici], Rome: Antonio Blado d'Asola, dated 4 January 1532, printed five years after Machiavelli's death under a privilege granted to Blado by Pope Clement VII on 23 August 1531
- Sotheby's catalogued a copy as 8vo and 4to (174 x 120mm) with a final blank leaf; the bibliographical reference is Edit16 24013, with USTC recording 11 copies
- It is exceptionally rare: Sotheby's recorded only 12 copies in institutional libraries, just six of them outside Italy, and catalogued a newly surfaced copy in 2024 as previously unknown
- Confirm the Blado imprint and the January 1532 date, and confirm the title leaf is present — it is the leaf most often lacking (the Sotheby's copy itself lacked it)
- Any copy offered outside an established auction house or an ILAB/ABAA specialist should be assumed to be the Giunta second edition, a later Italian edition, or a modern facsimile until collated by a specialist
- Publisher imprint reads Antonio Blado, Rome
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Niccolò Machiavelli |
| Publisher | Antonio Blado, Rome |
| Year | 1532 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The true first is the posthumous Roman edition: [Il principe di Niccholo Machiavello al magnifico Lorenzo di Piero de Medici], Rome… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
The true first is the posthumous Roman edition: [Il principe di Niccholo Machiavello al magnifico Lorenzo di Piero de Medici], Rome: Antonio Blado d'Asola, dated 4 January 1532, printed five years after Machiavelli's death under a privilege granted to Blado by Pope Clement VII on 23 August 1531. Sotheby's catalogued a copy as 8vo and 4to (174 x 120mm) with a final blank leaf; the bibliographical reference is Edit16 24013, with USTC recording 11 copies. It is exceptionally rare: Sotheby's recorded only 12 copies in institutional libraries, just six of them outside Italy, and catalogued a newly surfaced copy in 2024 as previously unknown. Confirm the Blado imprint and the January 1532 date, and confirm the title leaf is present — it is the leaf most often lacking (the Sotheby's copy itself lacked it). Any copy offered outside an established auction house or an ILAB/ABAA specialist should be assumed to be the Giunta second edition, a later Italian edition, or a modern facsimile until collated by a specialist.

## Is this the true first?
Original-language precedence: Blado, Rome, 4 January 1532 is the first; Bernardo Giunta's Florence edition of 16 March 1532 follows about ten weeks later and is the SECOND edition, not a rival first. The census note is correct on this point. Both 1532 editions are separately collected, and Giunta copies are the more frequently encountered of the two — Giunta held his own 1531 privilege for Machiavelli's works, which is why two authorized editions appear in the same year. The first edition in English is Edward Dacres's translation: 'Nicholas Machiavel's Prince. Also, The life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca. And The meanes Duke Valentine us'd to put to death Vitellozzo Vitelli... Translated out of Italian into English by E.D.', London: printed by R. Bishop for Wil. Hils, 1640, 12mo — STC 17168; the work is Printing and the Mind of Man 63. The census note is correct that the 1640 Dacres is the realistic high-spot for an English-language collection; it is itself rare, and was published in the window when episcopal censorship had broken down.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Book-club tells do not apply to the 1532 or 1640 editions. The overwhelming reality for any donated copy is a modern reprint or translation: Everyman, Penguin Classics, Modern Library, Oxford World's Classics, Dover Thrift, the Tudor Translations reprint of the early English versions, and a very large volume of print-on-demand and 'facsimile' reissues, plus 19th- and 20th-century Italian reprints of the Blado or Giunta text. A 1532 or 1640 date printed on a modern reset title page is not a hand-press book: check for laid paper with chain lines, woodcut initials and ornaments, no ISBN, and period binding structure before treating any copy as antiquarian. Note also that Dacres's translation reappeared in later 17th-century printings (the sources consulted place the next English appearance more than twenty years after 1640, censorship having been re-established by 1643), so a Dacres text is not by itself a 1640 first — read the imprint.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Prince (Il Principe)* by Niccolò Machiavelli a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-prince-il-principe
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.