Machiavelli enters the sublime porte: The introduction of the prince to the eighteenth-century ottoman world

Abstract

The chapter joins the debate about the influence of Western political thought on the Ottoman modernisation by focusing on a manuscript held at the Topkapı Palace Museum Library, which contains an Ottoman Turkish translation of Anti Machiavel (1740), a refutation of Machiavelli’s Prince written by King Frederick II of Prussia with the supervision of Voltaire. The identity of the translator, the reason for translating this work, the technique of translation, its language and content, and other related issues related are carefully analysed. Since Anti Machiavel also includes The Prince, this translation can be seen as the introduction of Machiavelli’s work into Turkey. For the first time in English, this chapter presents the discovery of this manuscript and develops hypotheses about its author and date. © The Editor(s) and The Author(s) 2018.