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Douglas_Knight comments on [Link] Machiavelli in historical context - Less Wrong
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It's actually the passage immediately following the one I quoted which exemplifies consequentialism, in sharp contrast to the classically influenced, religiously founded deontology that public figures in Europe claimed to espouse if they wanted to avoid the wrath of the Church.
If he is making public that which everyone is thinking, but afraid to say, then his historical importance is not in any of the passages you quote, but that he writes a book about it.
Yup. From the OP:
One of the claims Dietz makes is that Machiavelli made no attempt at all to publicize The Prince; he wrote & delivered it to the respective palace, and that was it.
So what if he meant to do it gently in the Discourses on Livy rather than brazenly in the Prince?
Added: note that the Discourses were also banned. Subtracted: actually, that might have been a blanket ban, providing no evidence.
It seems entirely plausible to me that it was written with no other goal than gaining patronage. I'll update the post.