The Prince (Italian: Il Principe) is a political treatise by the Italian diplomat historian and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From correspondence a version appears to have been distributed in 1513 using a Latin title De Principatibus (About Principalities). But the printed version was not published until 1532 five years after Machiavelli's death. This was done with the permission of the Medici popeClement VII but "long before then in fact since the first appearance of the Prince in manuscript controversy had swirled about his writings"