4Written during the tumultuous Renaissance period, 'The Prince' is Niccolo Machiavelli's best known work on the problems of government. Considered one of the first modern works on statecraft, it is a foundational text for western civilization and had a profound impact on the development of nation states and political science.Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, during the Renaissance period. The Italian peninsula was rife with internal struggles, dynastic jockeying, foreign invasion, an aggressive papal state, scientific discovery and extreme wealth. He was contemporaries with Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the infamous Medici and Borgia families. He served as a minister of state during the short lived Florentine Republic at the turn of the 16th century. 'The Prince' was written as an attempt to get back into the good graces of the Medici family, who had retaken control of Florence.