principalities --

III.

Composite principalities --

IV.

Why the kingdom of Darius conquered by Alexander did not rebel against his successors after his death --

V.

How cities or principalities which lived under their own laws should be administered after being conquered --

VI.

New principalities acquired by one's own arms and prowess --

VII.

New principalities acquired with the help of fortune and foreign arms --

VIII.

Those who come to power by crime --

IX.

The constitutional principality --

X.

How the strength of every principality should be measured --

XI.

Ecclesiastical principalities --

XII.

Military organization and mercenary troops --

XIII.

Auxiliary, composite, and native troops --

XIV.

How a prince should organize his militia --

XV.

The things for which men, and especially princes, are praised or blamed --

XVI.

Generosity and parsimony --

XVII.

Cruelty and compassion; and whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse --

XVIII.

How princes should honour their word --

XIX.

The need to avoid contempt and hatred --

XX.

Whether fortresses and many of the other present-day expedients to which princes have recourse are useful or not --

XXI.

How a prince must act to win honour --

XXII.

A prince's personal staff --

XXIII.

How flatterers must be shunned --

XXIV.

Why the Italian princes have lost their states --

XXV.

How far human affairs are governed by fortune, and how fortune can be opposed --

XXVI.

Exhortation to liberate Italy from the barbarians.

Rejecting the traditional values of political theory, Machiavelli drew upon his own experiences of office in the turbulent Florentine republic to write his celebrated treatise on statecraft. While Machiavelli was only one of the many Florentine "prophets of force," he differed from the ruling elite in recognizing the complexity and fluidity of political life.