# Frederick of Prussia’s Anti-Machiavel is published with Voltaire’s help

Date: 1740

## The fact

In 1740 Anti-Machiavel appeared, a royal-Enlightenment critique of The Prince issued under Frederick’s name with [Voltaire](/people/voltaire)’s editorial labour. [Machiavelli](/people/niccolo-machiavelli) is the target, not the author of 1740.

## Context

A king denouncing raison d’état while practising it is mixed.

Niccolò Machiavelli is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Official or archival pages and an independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Anti-Machiavel — Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/antimachiavelou02voltgoog; Internet Archive).

## Significance

A published rebuttal of princely cynicism is a small improving path. It is not a constitution.

A published rebuttal of princely cynicism is a small improving path. It is not a constitution.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is [democratic-resilience](/drivers/democratic-resilience). The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here. Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is democratic-resilience. The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Niccolo Machiavelli: https://factrail.ai/people/niccolo-machiavelli

## Drivers

- Democratic Resilience: https://factrail.ai/drivers/democratic-resilience

## Sources

- https://archive.org/details/antimachiavelou02voltgoog
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/machiavelli/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/mc-frederick-antimachiavel-1740