Hello,

I am pretty sure You all heard the often mispelled quote from 1513. book 'Il principe' (The Prince) by Niccolò Machiavelli

Before all else, be armed.

So, seeing as my italian is worse than bad, I am in need of help.
Could somebody please provide me with the original quotation from the book, written in 16.century italian language?
I would be eternaly grateful to that person.

Cheers,

Boris

I was bored and looking for something to do so I did a google search for Before all else be armed original italian translation and it came up with this.

Prima di ogni altra cosa, siate armati!

I won't post the site I found this on as it turned out to be a forum for a group of people that to be honest make me sick :mad:

Anyway I hope this helps. :)

Well, this is the closest that I could get, now I just need a verification from a native italian speaker:
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VI - De principatibus novis qui armis propriis et virtute acquiruntur (I principati nuovi conquistati con le proprie armi e capacità)
Il principe prudente deve attenersi all'esempio degli uomini grandi, perché le vicende umane si ripetono (imitazione «storica»). Al principato si arriva o per fortuna o per virtù: in quest'ultimo caso la conquista è più stabile, come mostrano gli esempi di Mosè, Ciro, Romolo, Teseo e Gerone siracusano.
È indispensabile però il possesso di una propria forza militare: i profeti armati vincono, quelli disarmati periscono. Esempio clamoroso,
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so, I run it through the google translator, and this is the result:

È indispensabile però il possesso di una propria forza militare ~ It is essential to retaining possession of its own military force

It is essential the possession of a military force of one's own.

One has to rely on his own military, not on a mercenary force. A mantra of machiavelli. I have lost in a move my copy of the Principe, the original text is available here http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Il_Principe . You seem to have a modern italian resume.

"Di qui nacque che tutti li Profeti armati vinsono, e li disarmati rovinarono;" from here it was born out that all the armed prophets won, the unarmed ones went into ruin ... etc etc