These _Discourses_, which do not form a continuous commentary on Livy, give Machiavelli an opportunity to express his own views on the government of the state, a task for which his long and varied political experience, and an assiduous study of the ancients rendered him eminently qualified.

The _Discourses_ and _The Prince_, written at the same time, supplement each other and are really one work.
Indeed, the treatise, _The Art of War_, though not written till 1520 should be mentioned here because of its intimate connection with these two treatises, it being, in fact, a further development of some of the thoughts expressed in the _Discorsi_.

_The Prince_, a short work, divided into twenty-six books, is the best known of all Machiavelli's writings.

Herein he expresses in his own masterly way his views on the founding of a new state, taking for his type and model Caesar Borgia, although the latter had failed in his schemes for the consolidation of his power in the Romagna.

The principles here laid down were the natural outgrowth of the confused political conditions of his time.