Niccolò Machiavelli is a famous Italian philosopher and politician of the Renaissance, who held the position of secretary of state in Florence and was responsible for the diplomatic relations of the republic. His treatise On the Art of War is Machiavelli's only political work published during his lifetime. This work is one of the best books on military affairs, along with "Notes on the Gallic War" by Gaius Julius Caesar and "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu. But Machiavelli gained the greatest, special fame with his famous work "The Statesman" (1513), in which he made an attempt to formulate the general laws of political life, explain the essence of the "politician's craft", as well as define the role and place of the statesman in Europe and Italy of the 16th century. Translated into Ukrainian by Yaroslav Myshanych.