The Prince Lesson Plan

Machiavelli highlights the Papal States for having remained secure despite great odds and a lack of temporal (that is, worldly or material) power. What accounts for the fact that the Roman Catholic Church still survives today in the form of a state (i.e. the Vatican City)?

One of the things that the Pope has always had going for him is that he heads one of the single largest religious communities on Earth. As a result of that, and as a result of the extraordinary symbol power of the Papal Office to billions of people around the world, numerous governments have seen fit to live and let live with the Papacy, even despite its meddling in the secular affairs of many...