The Translation of Machiavelli’s Prince and the Political Climate in Mid Eighteenth-Century Sweden

The first translation of Machiavelli’s Prince into a Nordic language was published in Stockholm by Carl von Klingenberg (1757), together with the translation of its confutation, The Anti-Machiavel by Frederick II of Prussia. Klingenberg was an Enlightenment intellectual of a period in Sweden that was characterized by the conflict between the Crown and Parliament. The volume, dedicated to the eleven-year-old Crown Prince Gustaf, the future king of Sweden Gustavus III had a limited influence and circulation notwithstanding the growing interest in Machiavelli’s treatise. In this paper other events are also taken into consideration, i.e. the factors which boosted the Swedish book market and helped to loosen censorship. From this perspective, Klingenberg’s work can also be seen as an attempt to make Machiavelli’s treatise available to a larger public and to achieve personal success.