De Regno Adversus Nic. Machiavellum libri tres. – Innocent Gentillet

In Latin language. Printed by Lugd. Batavorum : Apud Hieronymum de Vogel, 1647. Early Edition. Size 5 ¼ x 3 ½ in. Complete. Contemporary full vellum binding with very faint, inked title to spine. Minimal wear to age toned extremities. No ownership markings. Engraved title. Virtually no signs of use, soiling, staining, or foxing to the text block. High paper quality.  A very well-preserved copy of a truly rare 17th-century book on anti-Machiavellian political science.

Innocent Gentillet (1535-1588) was a French lawyer and politician. He wrote in 1576 of the Sermon on the means of governing (Anti-Machiavelli), in which he condemned the ideas of Nicolas Machiavelli, suspected of trying to introduce impiety and immorality in government. He accused the Italians of the entourage of Catherine de’ Medici to make the propagators. The book published first in Latin (around 1611), then in French and English, has considerable diffusion throughout Europe until the mid-seventeenth century. Gentillet argues that the source of wealth of a state is its large population. He believes that the infighting and bad laws are contrary to the development of population and condemned luxury as detrimental to national welfare.

“Machiavellianism” is a widely used negative term to characterize unscrupulous politicians of the sort Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) described most famously in “The Prince.” Machiavelli described immoral behavior, such as dishonesty and killing innocents, as being normal and effective in politics. He even seemed to endorse it in some situations. The book itself gained notoriety when some readers claimed that the author was teaching evil and providing “evil recommendations to tyrants to help them maintain their power.” The term “Machiavellian” is often associated with political deceit, deviousness, and realpolitik. On the other hand, many commentators, such as Baruch Spinoza, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot, have argued that Machiavelli was a republican, even when writing The Prince, and his writings were an inspiration to Enlightenment proponents of modern democratic political philosophy.