Anti-Machiavel

Anti-Machiavel is an 18th-century essay by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia and patron of Voltaire, consisting of a chapter-by-chapter rebuttal of The Prince, the 16th-century book by Niccolò Machiavelli.

Frederick had, of course, read Machiavelli long before; it is not exactly clear what drew his attention to this subject in the late 1730s, although his affiliation with Voltaire and his impending change in rank most certainly contributed to the project.

Living in Huis Honselaarsdijk, the Prussian residence near The Hague, and working with a dubious printer named Jan van Duren, Voltaire revised the text extensively on purpose and in order to get the manuscript back.

His own views appear to reflect a largely Enlightenment ideal of rational and benevolent statesmanship: the king, Frederick contends, is charged with maintaining the health and prosperity of his subjects.

On the one hand, then, Machiavelli erred by assigning too great a value on princely machinations that, Frederick claims, ended in disaster, as the king's evil actions are taken up by his subjects.