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STOICS
AND
NEOSTOICS
ι . Frontispiece: P. P. Rubens, The Four Philosophers. Florence. Pitti Palace (Scala/Art Resource)
/P
Stoics and Neostoics RUBENS AND THE CIRCLE OF LIPSIUS
BY MARK MORFORD
PRINCETON
UNIVERSITY
PRINCETON,
PRESS
NEW JERSEY
Princeton Legacy Library edition 2017 Paperback ISBN: 978-0-691-60886-0 Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-691-62943-8
Copyright © 1991 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 0 8 5 4 0 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Oxford All Rights
Reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION
DATA
Morford, Mark P. O., 192.9— Stoics and neostoics : Rubens and the circle of Lipsius / Mark Morford. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 0 - 6 9 1 - 0 4 0 8 1 - 8 1. Lipsius, Justus, 1547—1606. 2. Rubens, Peter Paul, Sir, 1577—1640—Philosophy. 3. Philosophy, Renaissance. 4. Stoics. I. Title. B785.L44M67 1991 199'.493—dczo 90-9115 This book has been composed in Linotron Sabon Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey 1 3 5 7 9
10
8 6 4 2
FOR
MARTHA
My Bright Particular Star
Le Bonheur de Ce Monde Sonnet Compose par Christophe Plantin A voir une maison commode, propre et belle, Un jardin tapisse d'espaliers odorans, Des fruits, d'excellent vin, peu de train, peu d'enfans, Posseder seul, sans bruit, une femme fidele. N'avoir dettes, amour, ni proces, ni querelle, Ni de partage a faire avecque ses parens, Se contenter de peu, n'esperer rien des Grands, Regler tous ses desseins sur un juste modele. Vivre avecque franchise et sans ambition, S'adonner sans scrupule a la devotion, Domter ses passions, Ies rendre obeissantes. Conserver l'esprit libre, et Ie jugement fort, Dire son Chapelet en cultivant ses entes, Cest attendre chez soi bien doucement la mort.
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS PREFACE ABBREVIATIONS C H A P T E R I : The Four Philosophers
xi xiii
xvii 3
C H A P T E R 2: The Friends and Pupils of Lipsius
14
C H A P T E R 3 : Self-Portrait with Friends
52
C H A P T E R 4: Lipsius, the Church, and Posterity
96
C H A P T E R 5: Tacitus and Seneca
139
C H A P T E R 6 : Neostoicism and Peter Paul Rubens
181
C H A P T E R 7: Omnia Vincit Amor
211
BIBLIOGRAPHY
225
INDEX
237
ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrations follow p. 246
1. Frontispiece: P. P. Rubens, The Four Philosophers. Florence, Pitti Palace (Scala/Art Resource)
12. C. Galle, title page of J. Lipsius, Opera Omnia, vol. 2 (Antwerp, 1637). Washington, Folger Shake speare Library 13. Medals with busts of Woverius, from G. van Loon, Histoire Metallique des XVII Provinces des Pays-Bas (The Hague, 1732). Washington, Library of Congress 14. Title page of M. Smetius, Inscriptionum Antiquarum . . . Liber (Lei den, 1588). Houghton Library, Harvard University 15. T. de Bry, portrait of J. Lipsius, from J. J. Boissard, Thesaurus Virtutis et Gloriae (Frankfurt, 1598-1632). Washington, Folger Shakespeare Library 16. J. Lipsius, Politiea 4.3, from Opera Omnia (Antwerp, 1637), 4:47. Washington, Folger Shakespeare Library 17. C. Galle, title page of J. Lipsius, Opera Omnia (Antwerp, 1637). Washington, Folger Shakespeare Library 18. J. Neeffs, title page of C. Gevartius, Pompa Introitus . . . Ferdinandi Austriaei (Antwerp, 1642). Wash ington, Library of Congress 19. J. Harrewijn, Courtyard of the Rubenshuis, 1684. Antwerp, Rubenshuis 20. P. P. Rubens, Portrait of J. Lipsius. London, British Museum 21. C. Galle, Portrait of J. Lipsius, from L. Annaei Seneeae . . . Opera . . . Omnia (Antwerp, 1652). Rare Book Division, Special Collections, Uni versity of Virginia Library 22. Virtuti Fortuna Comes, from A. Al ciati, Emblemata (Padua, 1621), no.
2. T. Galle, title page of J. Lipsius, L. Anrtaei Senecae Philosophi Opera Quae Exstant Omnia (Antwerp, 1605). Princeton University Library 3. C. Galle, title page of J. Lipsius, L. Annaei Senecae Philosophi Opera Quae Exstant Omnia (Antwerp, 1652) (reissue of 1615 edition). Rare Book Division, Special Collec tions, University of Virginia Library 4. Bust of Seneca. Antwerp, Rubenshuis 5. The African Fisherman. Paris, Louvre 6. C. Galle, Dying Seneca, from L. Annaei Senecae . . . Opera . . . Omnia (Antwerp, 1652). Rare Book Divi sion, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library 7. C. Galle, bust of Seneca, from L. Annaei Senecae . . . Opera . . . Omnia (Antwerp, 1652). Rare Book Divi sion, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library 8 . Amicitia etiam post mortem durans, from A. Alciati, Emblemata (Padua, 1621), no. 160. RareBook Divi sion, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library 9. P. P. Rubens, Self-Portrait with Friends. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum 10. Timetable for Lipsius' contubernales, Arch. Plant. 1150a, fol. 22. Ant werp, Museum Plantin-Moretus 11. C. Galle, portrait of Philip Rubens, from P. Rubens, S. Asterii Episeopi Amasiae Fiomiliae (Antwerp, 1615). University of Illinois Library Xl
ILLUSTRATIONS 119. Rare Book Division, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library 23. P. P. Rubens, The Death of Seneca. Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen 24. Pompeia Paulina, Determined to Die with Her Husband, Seneca, with Him in the Bath, from A. Dufour, Les Vies des Femmes Celebres, MS XVII, fol. 48. Musees Departementaux de Loire-Atlantique, Musee Thomas Dobree, Nantes 25. J. Harrewijn, after J. van Croes, The Pavilion, Garden, and Studio of the Rubenshuis (showing only the bases of the courtyard archway; below, the Sculpture Gallery converted to a chapel, street elevation of the Rubenshuis, and bedroom) in 1692.. Ant werp, Rubenshuis 26. P. P. Rubens (?), Tbe Hero Crowned by Victory. London, British Mu seum 27. T. van Thulden, Hercules Prodicius, from C. Gevartius, Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi (Antwerp, 1642). Wash ington, Library of Congress 28. P. P. Rubens, Decius Mus Relating His Dream. Liechtenstein, SammIungen des Regierenden Fiirsten 29. P. P. Rubens, The Consecration of Decius Mus. Liechtenstein, SammIungen des Regierenden Fiirsten 30. P. P. Rubens, The Death of Decius Mus, detail. Liechtenstein, Sammlungen des Regierenden Fiirsten 31. P. P. Rubens, The Obsequies of De ems Mus. Liechtenstein, Samrnlungen des Regierenden Fiirsten 32. P. P. Rubens, Ceiling of the Banquet ing House, Whitehall. (Royal Com mission on the Historical Monu ments of England)
33. P. P. Rubens, The Apotheosis of James I. Whitehall, Banqueting House (Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England) 34. P. P. Rubens, The Benefits of Good Government. Whitehall, Banqueting House (Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England) 35. P. P. Rubens, The Unification of En gland and Scotland. Whitehall, Ban queting House (Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England) 36. P. P. Rubens, Minerva Conquering Sedition. Antwerp, Koninklijk Mu seum voor Schone Kunsten 37. P. P. Rubens, Hercules as Heroic Vir tue Overcoming Discord. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund 38. P. P. Rubens, The Apotheosis of ]ames I. London, National Gallery, Glynde Place Collection 39. T. van Thulden, The Arch of Saint Michael, from C. Gevartius, Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi (Antwerp, 1642). Washington, Library of Con gress 40. G. van Veen, Alessandro Farnese as Hercules Guided by Religion. Am sterdam, Rijksmuseum-Stichting 41. P. P. Rubens, Achilles Instructed by Chiron. Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen 42.. Consiliarii Principum, from A. Alciati Emblemata (Padua, 1621), no. 146. Rare Book Division, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library 43. P. P. Rubens, The Death of Achilles. Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen 44. P. P. Rubens, The Apotheosis of Her cules. Brussels, Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts
PREFACE
J U S T U S L I P S I U S (1547-1606) is now little known except to students of Seneca and Tacitus and to intellectual historians of the northern Renais sance. In his time he was one of the most influential classical scholars and teachers in Europe, to be ranked with J. J. Scaliger, his successor at Lei den, and Isaac Casaubon. His edition of Tacitus, first published when he was twenty-seven years old, has remained to this day one of the founda tions of Tacitean scholarship. His edition of the philosophical works of Seneca, although less influential, is nevertheless one of the great early edi tions, along with those of Erasmus, Muretus, and Gruter. Born a Catho lic, Lipsius taught at the Lutheran University of Jena, the Calvinist Uni versity of Leiden, and the Catholic University of Leuven, where he died a devout Catholic. His changes of religious allegiance distressed Scaliger and Casaubon and made him the target of relentless criticism. Yet he did more, perhaps, than any other scholar of his time to make classical au thors relevant to his contemporaries. Paraphrasing a well-known sen tence from Seneca, he boasted that he had returned philology to the realm of philosophy—ego e Philologia Philosophiam feci—and he constantly stressed the practicality of his teaching. From his early days as Dean at Jena to his last years at Leuven, he used antiquity to educate an elite class of municipal, ecclesiastical, and military leaders. Some of these were members of his contubernium at Leuven, and two, Philip Rubens and Jan van de Wouwer, appear in the painting by Peter Paul Rubens, The Four Philosophers, that is the starting point of this book. The book explores the relationship between the teaching of Lipsius and the work of Peter Paul Rubens. It inquires into the friends and students of Lipsius, his pre sentation of himself, and his attitudes towards religion and the Catholic church, and it examines his work on Tacitus and Seneca, who were the foundations of his two most popular and influential works, the De Constantia of 1584 and the Politica of 1589. The Neostoicism of Lipsius was the first systematic revival of Roman Stoicism since antiquity. In the troubled times of the religious wars and the struggles of the Netherlands, his philosophy provided comfort for in dividuals faced with disruption of their lives, loss of their liberty, and death, and his political and military doctrines were studied and followed by leaders on both sides of the struggles. Peter Paul Rubens adopted many of the tenets of Neostoicism in his private life, while the political doctrines of Lipsius were in sympathy with his own moderate conservative views.
PREFACE
The extent of his concern with Neostoicism is a principal subject of my inquiries. My own classical research has long focused upon the Neronian Stoic authors, Lucan, Persius, and Seneca, and on Tacitus. In extending my studies to the classical influence on the Renaissance in northern Europe I have been helped by many colleagues who have generously shared their scholarship with me. Walter Liedtke first guided me in studying Rubens systematically and introduced me to Rubens' designs for title pages. An thony Grafton, Erik Midelfort, and Gordon Braden helped me at crucial stages in the exploration of Renaissance history and intellectual move ments, and Elaine Fantham and Charles Babcock have given me stimulat ing advice and prudent criticism. Helen North and Zeph Stewart gave generous help when it was most needed. And I am especially grateful to Joanna Hitchcock for her interest, criticism, and support. I have been generously supported by relief from teaching duties at the Ohio State University for one quarter each in 1981 and 1984, and for two semesters at the University of Virginia in 1986 and 1987.1 am grateful to the Deans of the Graduate School and of the College of Humanities at Ohio State and to the Dean of the Faculty at the University of Virginia for making it possible for me to have these periods of uninterrupted study. In 1986-1987 I was supported by a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, which enabled me to write the greater part of the book during that year. Most of my work has been done in the rare book rooms of research libraries. I am especially grateful to the staff of the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia, and particularly to Jack Rossi, for patient and expert help; to Robert Tibbetts and his staff at the Ohio State University Library, whose splendid copy of the 1637 edition of Lipsius' Opera Om nia was the catalyst for the early stages of my research; to the staffs of the Houghton Library at Harvard University; to the rare book librarians at the Library of Congress; and to the staff at the Folger Shakespeare Li brary. The chill and damp of an exceptionally cold May in Leiden were dispelled by the generous reception afforded me by Dr. Robert Breugelmans and his expert staff in the Dousa Room of the University's library. It was a memorable experience to study Lipsius' own books in the room named for the curator whose acumen and friendship brought him to Lei den and gave him the security to do his best work over a period of thirteen years. All translations are my own. I have generally translated quotations in the main text but have been more selective in the notes, where quotations
PREFACE
that are likely to be of interest only to specialists have been left untrans lated. 1 have tried to be consistent in citing sources, but there are special difficulties in dealing with Lipsius and his contemporaries. The works of Lipsius were often reissued, not always with his knowledge or approval, and he himself frequently edited his texts for publication or changed pub lished texts when he was preparing new editions. Thus it has not been easy to establish a consistent method of reference. Where I could not refer to original editions of individual works I have most frequently referred to the 1675 edition of Lipsius' Opera Omnia, which is held by many more libraries than the 1637 edition, to which it is far inferior in accuracy and appearance. The quantity of Lipsius' published works has also brought problems. In the Bibliotheca Belgica the entries for Lipsius occupy 244 folio pages and 426 entries, and even this massive record has had to be supplemented by the discoveries of recent scholars, appearing in diverse and often obscure publications. I am especially grateful to Julie Marvin for her help in establishing a fairly consistent system of reference in the notes and bibliography. To study the political, religious, and intellectual history of the Renais sance and the art of Peter Paul Rubens is an ambitious undertaking for a classicist. It has been an increasingly pleasant labor, as I have learned how the Roman authors whom I have studied and taught for so many years gained fresh influence in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. My enthusiasm has been shared and sustained by my wife, whose companion ship and intellectual integrity have been a constant source of inspiration, and to her I owe my deepest debt of gratitude. Charlottesville, Virginia July 1990
ABBREVIATIONS
ANRW Temporini, H., and W. Haase, Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt. Berlin, 1972BB Van der Haeghen, F. Bibliotheca Belgica. 7 vols. Brussels, 19 6 4-75. BHAPB Gerlo, A., and H.D.L. Vervliet, Bibliographie de I'Humanisme des Anciens Pays-Bas. Instrumenta Humanistica 3. Brussels, 1972 BN Biographie Nationale. 44 vols. Brussels, 1866-1985 BT Cockx-Indestege, E., and G. Glorieux, eds. Belgica Typographica, 154 1 1600: Bibliotheca Regis Bruxellensis. 2 vols. Nieuwkoop, 1968, 19 80 BU Nouvelle Biographie Universelle. 46 vols. [vols. 10-46 appeared as Nouvelle Biographie Generale]. Paris, 1852-70 Cat. Liechtenstein: The Princely Collections. New York, 1985 CDR Rooses, M., and C. Ruelens. Correspondance de Rubens et Documents Epistolaires Concernant Sa Vie et Ses Oeuvres. 6 vols. Antwerp, 1887-1909 CHRP Schmitt, C. B., ed. The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge, 1988 CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin, 1863Conti Comes, Natalis. Mythologiae. Venice, 1567 CRLB Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. Brussels, London, and Philadelphia, 1968CTC Cranz, F. E., V. Brown, and P. O. Kristeller. Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum. Washington, 1971DCE Erasmus, D. De Conscribendis EPistolis, Strasburg, 1522. Reprinted in J. C. Margolin, ed., Erasmi Opera Omnia, vol. 1, pt. 2 (Amsterdam, I97I), 153-579
Decades XlIX Justi Lipsi Epistolarum (quae in centuriis non extant) Decades XlIX. Harderwijk, 1621 Delcourt-Hoyoux Delcourt, M., and J. Hoyoux. Laevinus Torrentius: Correspondance. 3 vols. Paris, 195 0-54 DNB Dictionary of National Biography. London, 1885Electorum Iusti Lipsi Electorum Libri II. Antwerp and Leiden, 1585 [reprinted in Opera Omnia, vol. I, 1637, 1675] Ene. It. Enciclopedia ltaliana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. 36 vols., 4 suppl. Milan and Rome, 1933- 81 Ep. ad Belg. Iusti Lipsi Epistolarum Selectarum Centuriae ad Belgas. 3 vols. Antwerp, 1602 [reprinted in Opera Omnia, vol. 2, 16 37, 16 75] Ep. ad Germ. Iusti Lipsi Epistolarum Selectarum Centuria Singularis ad Germanos et Gallos. Antwerp, 1602 [reprinted in Opera Omnia, vol. 2, 16 37, 16 75]
Ep. ad Ita/. lusti Lipsi Epistolarum Selectarum Centuria Singularis ad Italos et Hispanos, Quive in iis locis. Antwerp, 1602 [reprinted in Opera Omnia, vol. 2, 1637, 16 75]
Ep. Misc. Iusti Lipsi Epistoiarum Selectarum Centuriae Miscellaneae: 1, Antwerp and Leiden, 1586; 2, Leiden, 1590; 3, Antwerp, 1601; 4 and 5, Antwerp, 1607 [reprinted in Opera Omnia, vol. 2, 16 37, 16 75] xvii
ABBREVIATIONS Ep. Quaest. Iusti Lipsi Epistolicarum Quaestionum Libri V. Antwerp, 1 5 7 7 t re ~ printed in Opera Omnia, vol. 1 , 1 6 3 7 , 1 6 7 5 ] EUI Enciclopedia Universal Illustrada. 70 vols., annual suppl. to 1 9 8 4 . Bilbao, 19ZO—30
G V Gerlo, A., H . D . L . Vervliet, and I. Vertessen. Correspondance de Juste Lipse Conservee au Musee Plantin-Moretus. Antwerp, 1 9 6 7 1LE Gerlo, A., M . A . Nauwelaarts, H . D . L . Vervliet, S. Sue, and H. Peeters. Iusti Lipsi Epistolae. 3 vols. Brussels, 1 9 7 8 , 1 9 8 3 , 1 9 8 7 II S Dessau, H. Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. 3 vols. Berlin, 1 8 9 Z . Reprint. Chicago, 1 9 7 9 Inventaire Gerlo, A., and H . D . L . Vervliet. lnventaire de la Correspondance de Juste Lipse, 1564—1606. Antwerp, 1 9 6 8 JV Judson, C . R . , and C . Van de Velde. Book-Illustrations and Title-Pages. 2. vols. CLRB z i . London and Philadelphia, 1 9 7 8 Kl. Pauly Der Kleine Pauly: Lexikon der Antike. 5 vols. Munich, 1 9 7 9 LU Lunsingh Scheurleer, T. H., and G . H . M . Posthumus Meyjes. Leiden University in the Seventeenth Century. Leiden, 1 9 7 5 Manud. Iusti Lipsi Manuductionis ad Stoicam Philosophiam Libri Tres. Antwerp, 1 6 0 4 Mon. et Ex. Pol. Iusti Lipsi Monita et Exempla Politica. Libri Duo. Antwerp, 1605
NBC Nouvelle Biographie Generale. Continuation of BU. Paris, 1862—70 NBW Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek. 1 0 vols. Brussels, 1964—83 NNBW Molhuysen, P. C., and P. J . Blok. Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek. 1 0 vols. Leiden, 1 9 1 1 — 3 7 O C D z Oxford Classical Dictionary, zd ed. O x f o r d , 1 9 7 0 O L D Oxford Latin Dictionary. O x f o r d , 1 9 8 Z Op. Omn. Iusti Lipsi Opera Omnia. 4 vols. Wesel, 1 6 7 5 Phys. Stoic. Iusti Lipsi Physiologiae Stoicorum Libri Tres. Antwerp, 1 6 0 4 Pol. Iusti Lipsi Politicorum sive Civilis Doctrinae Libri Sex. Leiden, 1 5 8 9 ; Antwerp, 1 5 9 6 , 1 6 0 4 R.-E. Pauly's Real-Encyclopddie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Z4 vols., 1 5 suppl. vols. Stuttgart, 1 8 9 3 - 1 9 7 Z ROL Warmington, E. Remains of Old Latin. 4 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1 9 3 6 SVF Von Arnim, J. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta. 4 vols. Leipzig, 1 9 0 5 Thieme-Becker Thieme, U., and F. Becker. Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Kiinstler. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907—50
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STOICS AND NEOSTOICS
1
THE FOUR PHILOSOPHERS
T H E P A I N T I N G usually called The Four Philosophers (frontispiece) was
painted by Peter Paul Rubens in or shortly after 1611, as a memorial to his brother Philip, who had died on August z8, 1611, and to his teacher Justus Lipsius, who had died on March 23, 1606. 1 Philip was the favorite pupil of Lipsius, with whom he shares the center of the picture. It was he who had presented Lipsius' final work, the edition of the works of Seneca, to the Pope, Paul V, in 1605, and Lipsius had hoped that he would suc ceed to his chair of History and Latin at Leuven. Lipsius' executor was another pupil and close friend, Jan van de Wouwer (usually known by his Latin name, Woverius), who is seated at the right-hand side of the picture. In 1611 Woverius was thirty-five years old, two years younger than Philip Rubens. The great humanist and classical scholar and his two students are seated at the table, whose symbolic importance as the locus of scholarship is made clear by the three volumes lying upon it. Lipsius himself points to a passage in a fourth, open, volume before him—perhaps his Seneca— upon which he is discoursing. Philip Rubens holds his pen, poised to write, and Woverius holds another open volume. The three scholars are dressed in somber and formal clothes appropriate to their intellectual calling, and Lipsius wears the fur-trimmed robe that he bequeathed to the church of Notre Dame at Halle. (The bequest was criticized with much sarcasm by the Protestants, and in Lipsius' defense Woverius published his pamphlet entitled Lipsiani Donari Assertion) ' The painting is in the Pitti Palace in Florence, and there is a copy in the Plantin-Moretus Museum at Antwerp. Various dates have been proposed, but one after the death of Philip Rubens in 1611 is generally accepted. Similarly the identification of the figure on the view er's right with Woverius is now generally accepted. The fullest discussions of the painting are by Prinz, "The Four Philosophers," and Vlieghe, Rubens Portraits, 128-3Z; cf. Warnke, Kommentare, 33—34, 9 1 · 1 In Op. Otnn. 1:171—86. Cf. Miraeus, Vita Iusti Lipsi, in Op. Omn. 1:2.6. For the aca demic dress of the three seated scholars see Leloir, Dictionnaire, s.vv. "Col," "Fraise," and "Universitaires." The two ruffs and Woverius' collar are especially noteworthy, contrasted with Peter Paul Rubens' informal neckwear.
CHAPTER 1
Lipsius and his two students are apparently the chief focus of the pic ture. There are, however, three other beings whose presence gives the pic ture its full meaning—the artist, the Roman philosopher Seneca, and (in the right foreground) Lipsius' dog Mopsus, one of the three described in Lipsius' letter on dogs written to his students (including Philip Rubens and Woverius) in 1599.' Lipsius' love for dogs was well known and often commented upon by his friends and enemies. 4 He himself said that his love for dogs and gardens was second only to his love for books, 5 and his biographer, Miraeus, reports that Lipsius even took his dog with him to his lectures at the University of Leuven. Miraeus also says that Mopsus was his special favorite and was often included in portraits of Lipsius. He is described in detail in the letter on dogs, but the physical description is far less significant for Rubens' painting than the virtues of dogs that Lip sius enumerates. For it is fitting, he says, for a scholar to have a dog and to emulate it by passing day and night without sleep. Besides the virtue of vigilantia dogs have the virtues of physical strength (robur), intelligence (ingenium), and loyalty (fides). Thus Mopsus signifies more in the paint ing than the traditional canine virtue of fidelity. He is both a tribute to a well-known characteristic of Lipsius and an allegory of scholarly virtues. The two final characters in the picture, and the objects associated with them, complete its meaning. On the left is Peter Paul Rubens himself, standing separately from the group at the table. Like his brother, he looks out at the viewer, whose world is already his theater of action. Thus it is significant that he is not seated at the table with the scholars, that his eyes have quite a different focus from those of Lipsius, that his gesture appears to reveal the distant landscape as the curtain is drawn back. 6 The land scape is that of classical antiquity, with recognizable elements of the Pal atine HiII at Rome, and it is framed by two marble columns, suggesting a portico or Stoa, and therefore symbolic of Stoic philosophy. (A similar use of ancient columns is to be seen in Theodore Galle's design for the title page of the 1605 and 1615 editions of Lipsius' Seneca [Figs. 2 and 3].) We may suppose, if we wish, that Peter Paul Rubens is leaving the closed world of the Stoic scholars for practical and contemporary fields ' Ep. ad Belg. 1.44. 4 Miraeus, Vita Iusti Lipsi, in Op. Omn. 1:33—34. ' Letter to G. Diemen, Ep. Misc. 5.77, November 13, 1605. s Cf. Prinz, "The Four Philosophers," 420. The Palatine landscape is the subject of Land scape with the Palatine, now in the Louvre. See Evers, Ruhens und sein Werk, 327, who dates the painting "after 1615." Vlieghe, Rubens Portraits, 131, suggests that Peter Paul Rubens "painted himself slightly apart from the others: not seated at the table but stand ing," because he was not "a classical scholar or disciple of [Lipsius]."
THE FOUR PHILOSOPHERS
of action, or we may see in his gaze, fixed directly upon us, the viewers, an invitation to join him as he reveals the world of antiquity through his painting. The placing of the individuals in the painting leads to complex group ings and counterbalances. One pair, for example, is formed by the two brothers (on the left), balanced by Lipsius and Woverius. Another—and one most significant for the program of the painting—is formed by the two human figures who are placed to the left and right of the three schol ars and on a higher plane, Peter Paul Rubens and Seneca, the final char acter in the group. Although the position of Rubens in relation to the group is ambiguous, there can be no ambiguity at all about the bust of Seneca (Fig. 4). It balances Rubens (in one grouping), or (in another) it is paired with the head of Lipsius, or (in a third) it is diagonally opposite the two closed volumes at the left-hand corner of the table, possibly the works of Tacitus and of Seneca himself. However one interprets Seneca's place in the composition, he is the presiding influence over the group, and his relationship to Lipsius and Peter Paul Rubens will be a central matter in this book. The bust was owned by Peter Paul Rubens and appears in several of his drawings and engravings, as well as in The Four Philosophers. It is one of two antique sculptures used by Rubens as the model for Seneca, the other being the so-called African Fisherman (Fig. 5), which was identified in Rubens' time with the dying Seneca and will be discussed in a later chap ter. The bust is a replica of a Hellenistic bust that in the time of Lipsius and Rubens was in the Farnese collection at Rome and is now in the Museo Nazionale at Naples. 7 It was first published by the distinguished clas sical scholar and Farnese librarian, Fulvio Orsini, in 1598, with an en graving by Theodore Galle and a commentary by Faber Bambergensis. 8 7 The fullest discussion of the bust is by Prinz, "The Four Philosophers." The Hellenistic original and the thirty-eight extant examples are described and discussed by Richter, Por traits, 1 :58-66, figs. 131-130. Richter's no. 15, figs. 162-64, is Orsini's bust (Orsini's date is given as 1498, one hundred years too early [1 :63]). Richter mentions the bust owned by Rubens (1-.62.) but implies that it is lost; she does not mention the bust in the Rubenshuis, although it was purchased in 1952 and published by F. Baudouin in 1961 according to Prinz, 412 and 417, with η. 14, and Muller, Rubens, 151, no. 7. The original bust is consid ered by Richter to have been a portrait of Hesiod: there have been twenty-six suggested
identifications in all. 8 No. 131 in Illustrium imagines ex antiquis marmoribus, nomismatibus, et gemmis expressae, quae exstant Romae, maiorpars apud Fulvium Vrsinum (Antwerp: Plantin, 15 9 8 ) . The title page expressly says that Theodore Galle did the engravings at Antwerp from draw ings made directly from the originals in Rome. I have used the 1606 Plantin edition, which includes some additional engravings but is otherwise the same as the 1598 edition. Faber's commentary is on p. 74 and gives a contorniate in Cardinal Maffei's collection as the source for the identification with Seneca: quod autem ista sit Senecae imago, ex numo (sic) aeneo S
CHAPTER 1
Orsini identified the bust (which had no inscription) as Seneca, relying on an ancient medal now lost. In his autobiography Lipsius specifically men tions that he came to know Orsini during his time in Rome in 1568—1570 (innotui Fulvio Ursino), and he speaks of his friendship in the warmest terms, although there are only two letters from Lipsius to Orsini surviv ing. 9 In the earlier letter Lipsius credits Orsini with generous help and encouragement in his studies during his visit to Rome, not least in form ing his taste for Roman antiquities. The later letter warmly talks of the fides et amor of their thirty-year friendship and (quite accurately) praises Orsini as almost the sole lamp of learning (eruditio & virtus) still shining in Italy (quae ut fax unica in Italia nunc lucet). If Orsini deserved this praise (as he did), we can better understand the authority of his identifi cation of the bust with Seneca. Lipsius certainly must have been a fre quent visitor to the Farnese library, although he only mentions the Vati can Library by name in his autobiography. So it is possible that he saw the bust nearly thirty years before its publication in Orsini's Imagines, and it has been suggested that he may have helped Orsini make the iden tification with Seneca. 10 Faber Bambergensis, also, in his introduction to the Imagines, describes how he and other visitors were welcomed by Orsini to the Farnese library and there saw and handled the antique marbles, coins, and gems that were described in the Imagines. Lipsius seems to have had the same experience, to judge from his letter to Orsini written on September 19, 1570, not long after his return to Leuven from Rome. Whether or not Lipsius saw the bust of Seneca, there can be no doubt of the importance of Orsini's collection in forming the taste for and knowl edge of ancient monuments in Lipsius and the Rubens brothers.' 1 Orsini died in 1600, at the age of seventy, about a year before the first visit to Rome of Peter Paul Rubens. Thus the bust of Seneca was almost certainly part of the experience of Lipsius and his students. Rubens would have seen it in 1601 or in 16051606, when he lived in Rome with his brother, for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese looked upon his collection of antique sculpture as a scuola pubblica, and therefore he opened it to visiting scholars. 11 Peter Paul Rubens, grandiusculo (contorniatum vulgo dicunt) intellegitur, quem olim Bernardinus Cardinalis Maffaeus habebat, cum nomine inscripto, SENECA. Galle's engraving is reproduced in Prinz, "The Four Philosophers," 411, fig. 3. ' ILE 1.10, September 19, 1570, and Ep. ad Ital. 47, May 17, 1597. The 1570 letter is also printed in de Nolhac, Bibliotheque, 437-38. De Nolhac's book is valuable for Orsini's relations with the northern humanists; see p. 57 for Lipsius. 10 Prinz, "The Four Philosophers," 412. " De Nolhac, Bibliotheque, 57; Ruysschaert, "Le Sejour," 149—50. 11 Prinz, "The Four Philosophers," 412.
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at any rate, bought a replica of the bust, which he took back to Antwerp in 1608 as part of his collection of ancient pieces. It was set in a niche in the apsidal sculpture gallery in his house, and visitors sometimes came specially to see it. 13 Rubens may have sold the bust in 1625 to the Duke of Buckingham, although this is not known for certain. A similar bust, which was bought in Paris in 1952, now stands in the restored sculpture gallery of Rubens' house in Antwerp, and it is quite possible that it is the actual replica owned by Rubens, now restored to its place in the artist's house. 14 The use of this bust in The Four Philsopbers is especially significant because of the personal involvement with it of Lipsius and Peter Paul Ru bens. As we have seen, there is no reliable authority for the identification of the original bust itself with Seneca, of whom no authentic portraits were known until the discovery of the Berlin double herm in 1813. 1 ' Nev ertheless, the identification was immensely important for the cult of Sen eca in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially in connection with the revival of Stoicism. In order to understand more fully its use in Rubens' painting, it is worthwhile to look at its appearance in the 1615 edition of Lipsius' Seneca (Fig. 3). 16 The first edition appeared in 1605 (Fig. 2), and it was this that Philip Rubens presented to Pope Paul V. The title page, designed by Theodore Galle, shows the title framed by a tri umphal arch in front of whose columns stand the founders of the Stoic school, Zeno and Cleanthes. In the attic of the arch, framed by columns that are perhaps symbolic of the Stoa, are three medallions, the central one showing Pallas Athena (goddess of wisdom) and the side ones show ing the heads of the two great Stoic mythological exempla virtutis, Her cules and Ulysses. Below the arch are three other medallions, in the center personifications of the Stoic ideals of Honor and Virtue, and at each cor ner busts in profile of the chief exponents of Stoicism among the Romans, Epictetus and Seneca. It is the bust of Seneca that concerns us here. There are two portraits of Seneca in the 1605 edition, in addition to the medallion on the title page. Both are busts, one portraying the dying " See Muller, Rubens, 45-46 and 151. After seeing the catalogue of Rubens' collection, Peiresc wrote in a letter to Gevaerts, "Je vouldrois bien pouvoir faire un voyage en ce pais la, pour en avoir Ia veue, et surtout de cez belles testes de Ciceron, de Seneque, et de Chrysippus" (CDR z.198, January 17, 1620). Cf. CDR 2.204, October 3, 1620, for Peiresc's delight at Rubens' promise to send him drawings of the heads. This is the firm belief of Prinz, "The Four Philosophers," 412 and 417; cf. Muller, Rubens, 151. " Prinz, "The Four Philosophers," 428, and 424, fig. 28. JV 1:154—56 and vol. 2, figs. 102—3; Van de Velde, "Rubens' lllustraties," 207—16, with figs, ι and 2.
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Seneca, in profile, framed by a Latin inscription, which includes Lipsius' own words (italicized in the following translation): "[This] exists at Rome in marble, and it is a likeness, as one can see, of [Seneca] actually breathing bis last in the bath and uttering as be dies golden words and precepts. They say also that a similar likeness can be found engraved on gems. It expresses something lively, forceful, and fiery." 17 Below the por trait is an Invitatio ad Senecam in scazons (that is, iambic trimeters with a spondaic last foot), in which Lipsius invites the reader to follow Seneca as his guide for the attainment of wisdom and virtue. Unfortunately, Galle's engraving falls miserably short of the ideals expressed in the fram ing inscription, and, according to the following passage from Moretus' preface to the edition of 1615, Lipsius himself was unhappy with it: In order to add greater splendor to the new edition of Annaeus Sen eca, I have seen fit to make diligent inquiry about the true represen tation of the Philosopher. For the portrait that his wisest interpreter, Justus Lipsius, had once received from Rome itself and had ordered to be put into the first edition, being depicted by the hand of a friend with greater elegance than truth, he later found to be imperfect. 18 Moretus then goes on to say that Peter Paul Rubens, "the Apelles of our age," has agreed to replace the portrait with two versions of his own, out of respect for Lipsius and for Seneca. 19 These are the two portraits, en graved by Cornells Galle, that are to be seen in the 1615 edition and the subsequent editions (using the same plates) of 1632 and 1652. The Dying Seneca (Fig. 6), based upon the so-called African Fisherman (Fig. 5) now in the Louvre, will be discussed in Chapter 6, but the portrait-bust (Fig. 7) concerns us here. 10 It replaces the L. Senecae Imago, engraved by Theo dore Galle, which was opposite the lntroductio lectoris in the 1605 edi tion. It shows Seneca in three-quarter profile set in a niche, drawn by Rubens from the bust in his possession, as Moretus' preface explains: " The portrait and framing inscription are reproduced by Van de Velde, "Rubens' Illustraties," no, fig. 6. Lipsius' words, as given by Moretus, are est effigies in balneo animam iam exbalantis & in verbis monitisque aureis deficientis; vwidum, acre, igneum aliquid re fer t. ,8 I have translated this passage and those that follow from the 1652 edition, which is the same as those of 1615 and 1632.The Latinofthe present passage is transcribed in JV 1:162. Opportune Petrus-Paullus Rubenius, aevi nostri Apelles, adiuvit. qui cum huberrimum ret antiquariae tbesaurum Roma Antuerpiam attulerit, nec eximii Pbilosophi itnaginem, prae aliis veteris aevi deliciis, neglexit: atque adeo pro suo in L1PSIVM, atque ipsum SENEC AM, affectu, duplicem earn liberaliter suppeditavit. ^JV 1:165-66, no. 32; vol. 2, figs. 111-13; Van de Velde, "Rubens' lllustraties," 212- , 14, figs. 10-11. Van de Velde believes thatT. Galle's portrait-bust was also based on Orsini's bust. Cf. Orsini, Imagines, 131.
THE FOUR PHILOSOPHERS
The second portrait that you see was made by the same Rubens from a marble original, which he brought with him from Rome and keeps in his own most elegant Museum. It is clearly the same as the likeness of the same philosopher in the possession of the most illustrious Car dinal Farnese and published with insufficient accuracy by Fulvius Ursinus in his Imagines Illustrium with a commentary by Faber of Bam berg. 11 Despite the shortcomings of Orsini's publication, Moretus continues, it is consistent with representations of Seneca on coins, and Rubens' portrait, he says, although different from the Dying Seneca, is an excellent repre sentation of the philosopher: It differs to some extent from the earlier portrait [i.e., the Dying Sen eca] in that the hair is long and unkempt. But it most excellently represents the leader of a manly school of philosophy, a man of pow erful intellect and great courage, a man almost worn out by sleepless nights spent in study. Thus even the likeness of his face itself attracts the viewer to the noble writings of his most wise intellect." Moretus seems to be thinking here also of Faber's description, in which he says that the bust shows Seneca as an old man, at the age when Nero ordered him to die. Faber specifically goes on to refer to the literary sources for Seneca's death (Tacitus and Dio), thus closely linking the writ ten word with the visual image. From this, and still more from the words of Moretus quoted above, we can understand the power that was thought to reside in the portrait of Seneca. In Renaissance books the visual image was the partner of the written word in persuading the reader, so that the symbolism of the title page conveyed a message that complemented, rather than illustrated, the text. In this sense George Sandys, translator of Ovid, says in his address "To the Reader" in the second edition of his Ovid's Metamorphosis: And for thy farther delight I have contracted the substance of every Booke into as many Figures (by the hand of a rare Workman . . . ), since there is betweene Poetry and Picture so great a congruitie: the one called by Simonides a speaking Picture, and the other a silent " Moretus' text is given in JV ι :166. " CapiUitio intonso & promisso, ab imagine priori nonnihil ista differt: sed virilis sectae principem, acerrimi ingenii maximique spiritus virum, vigiliis ac lucubrationibus paene confectum, egregie repraesentat; ut vel ipsa vultus effigies ad praeclara sapientissimae mentis scripta ultro alliciat.
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Poesie: Both Daughters of the Imagination, both busied in the imi tation of Nature. 13 It was extremely important for Moretus that he should have been able to secure the services of "the Apelles of our age" for the portraits of Seneca, for the principle of ut pictura poesis was fundamental to the understand ing of illustrated editions. Therefore Lipsius had every right to be dis mayed at the poor quality of the portraits in the 1605 edition, for they did not match the high ideals and the power of Seneca's text (and his own commentary). With so inept an invitation, what reader would be at tracted to the text of Seneca? It was impressive that Rubens himself should undertake to replace the portraits for the second edition; doubly so when it was remembered that Rubens was the brother of Lipsius' most esteemed student and the possessor of what was thought to be an authen tic portrait of Seneca. In 1615 Lipsius' Seneca finally had a visual invita tion to the reader worthy of the Roman philosopher and his Renaissance interpreter. In the same way, the most obvious shortcoming of the 1605 title page was replaced by an engraving based upon the bust in Rubens' possession. Although it is almost certain that the 1615 medallion was not drawn by Rubens, 14 it is far superior to the hairless and virtually characterless head of the 1605 engraving. Once again the Farnese bust of Seneca was used as eloquent testimony to the immediacy of his influence. The bust appears in many other seventeenth-century contexts, which have been documented by Prinz and others/ 5 so that there is ample evi dence for its importance during and after the Stoic revival. If we return, however, to 1611 and Rubens' Four Philosophers, we can see that its use by Rubens in that particular context and at that date was both poignant and symbolic. By giving it a prominent place in the composition Rubens reminds the viewer of the ancient Roman philosopher and statesman whose works were the common focus of the four living human partici pants. Set on a higher plane, the dead Seneca is still a dynamic influence upon the living. The monumental quality of the bust adds to the solemn and austere authority of Roman antiquity, yet the close relationship of the bust to Lipsius in the composition (behind and at almost the same angle as his head) makes more immediate the influence of Seneca upon his most important Renaissance interpreter. Oxford: J. Litchfield, 1632. The subtitle in full reads, "Englished, Mythologiz'd, and Represented in Figures." ^ ]V 1:155. " Prinz, "The Four Philosophers," 423—28.
THE FOUR PHILOSOPHERS
There is an interesting piece of evidence from Philip Rubens himself in support of this interpretation. In his Electorum Libri Duo, published in 1608, Philip Rubens includes his Latin poems, one of which celebrates Lipsius' publication of Seneca's works. He imagines Seneca himself looking down upon the newly published book and asks what his feelings must be: Quis tibi nunc, Annaee, videnti talia sensus, quidve modo est animi, cum praestantissima cernis ingenii monimenta tui? 16 What are your feelings now, Annaeus [Seneca], as you look on such things, or what are your thoughts, when you see the glorious me morial to your genius? It is not unreasonable to suppose that Peter Paul Rubens (who cooperated with Philip in the production of the book) had this passage in mind as he planned The Four Philosophers. The bust of Seneca connects the living with the dead. It is set in a niche with a shell half-dome, probably itself a symbol of the dead. 17 Beside the bust is a vase containing four tulips, two full blown and two in bud. There is no doubt that these are meant to symbolize the four friends—the two full blown referring to the two dead friends, Lipsius and Philip Rubens, and the two in bud to the living, Peter Paul Rubens and Woverius. 18 In addition, tulips were especially associated with Lipsius and his friends. As we have already seen, gardens and dogs were his two passions after schol arship, and his correspondence is full of references to gifts of tulips from his friends. 19 Nor are the tulips the only botanical symbol in the painting; winding round the left-hand column in the background is a clematis, which has been taken to refer to the faithful love of friends. io Certainly the motif of the living vine entwining itself around the leafless elm trunk was recognized in Rubens' time as a symbol of friendship enduring after death (Fig. 8), and it would be appropriate for Rubens in this case to have substituted the smooth column of the Stoa for the trunk of the elm." 16 Antwerp: Plantin, 1608. See B B 4:914-16, for bibliographical details; c f . J V 1 : 7 7 - 7 8 . The poem In Senecam a I. Lipsio Restitutum comes on pp. 112-15: II. 40-42 are quoted. 17 JV ι:151—5 2. The symbolism of the shell is discussed by Heckscher, Rembrandt's Anat omy, xi8—19 and 176, n. 22.8. ι» Prinz, "The Four Philosophers," 421; Warnke, Kommentare, 91, n. 131. See Morford, "Stoic Garden." Among the friends who gave Lipsius tulip bulbs was the distinguished botanist, Clusius, who very probably introduced the tulip to northern Europe. It was Busbecq (also a friend of Lipsius) who provided Clusius with the bulbs chat he had brought back from Turkey. Prinz, "The Four Philosophers," 421, 423. " Alciati's Emblemata was first published in 1531; fig. 8 reproduces emblem no. 160 in
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The Four Philosophers is a complex statement of Rubens' views on Stoicism in the time immediately after the death of his brother. It is pro grammatic, for its symbolic and overt images involve many aspects of Peter Paul Rubens' life, and they bring before us a wide range of issues addressed by the Stoics. The painting involves a series of contrasts—pres ent and past, the life of the scholar and that of the man of action, the living and the dead, the Roman philosopher and the Flemish professor, and many others.' 2 Although Lipsius and Philip Rubens are at the center of the picture, it is the living participants who must continue to be in volved in the world's affairs: they must solve the dilemmas raised by the painting. Peter Paul Rubens invites us to share with him the task of relat ing the world of the past to that of the present, while the figure of Seneca compels the viewer to consider the extent to which Stoicism, as inter preted to the contemporary world by Lipsius, is a practical guide to life. In responding to the invitation of Rubens we shall also be taking up the challenge of Seneca. The Four Philosophers represents an idealized, imaginary scene. Its fig ures were associated through the teaching of Lipsius, but their meeting never happened in a particular place or at a particular time. It is true, however, that the two brothers and Woverius met at Verona in July of 1602.," an occasion referred to in an earlier painting (Fig. 9), now in Co logne. 54 The painting, Self-Portrait with Friends, dates from 1606, and it commemorates the death of Lipsius earlier that year. The three living friends, Woverius and the two brothers, occupy the center, and Lipsius, the 1621 edition (Padua: Tozzi), 676. Rubens could have used the edition with the com mentary of El Brocense (Francisci Sartcti Brocensis Commentarius in Andreae Aleiati Emblemata (Lyon: Rovillius, it 573]), 453—54, no. 159, for Amicitia etiam post mortem durans. There were, however, many other editions published between 1573 and 161 j, including one by Plantin (Antwerp, 1584) and many by Raphelengius (Leiden, 1591, and frequently re printed). The Raphelengius duodecimo edition (Leiden, ιήιο) contains Alciati's emblems and poems, with Mignault's commentary added at the back. Its small size and clarity (com pared with the lengthy commentaries of the 1573 Lyon and 1621 Padua editions) would have made it attractive for a busy man like Rubens. El Brocense (who was admired by Lipsius) provided a translation into Latin elegiac couplets of the Greek epigram (Anth. Graee. 9.231) that was the source of Alciati's allegory. Its author was probably Antipater of Thessalonika (late first century B.C.) rather than Antipater of Sidon, who flourished about a century earlier. 12 Cf. Warnke, Kommentare, 34. " See the letter of Philip Rubens to Woverius, CDR 1.11, June 26, 1602, and commen tary, pp. 54-55. 'ι Full discussion and references in Huemer, Portraits, no. 37 (pp. 163-66) and fig. 115, who lists the various identifications of the friends and the different dates between 1602 and 1608 proposed by scholars. The most likely date seems to be 1606. See also Evers, Peter Paul Rubens, 29, fig. 5; Warnke, Kommentare, 23-24 and 84-85, nn. 78-81, analyzes the motifs of death and consolation in n. 80. Jaffe, Rubens, 75, prefers 1602 as the date.
THE FOUR PHILOSOPHERS
whose profile is seen at the right, is the presiding genius of the group, which is completed by two other friends on the left, also seen in profile. In the center is a small distant landscape, showing Mantua (for Peter Paul Rubens was in the service of the Duke of Mantua in i6oz), with a scene of the burial of the Virgin and a boat crossing the water. Again it is the love of friends—amor post mortem durans—that conquers death, and the living, here as in The Four Philosophers, continue their lives influenced by the Stoic doctrine of Lipsius. Although this painting is not nearly so rich in allusions as The Four Philosophers, it still brings before us the circle of Lipsius, with the Rubens brothers at the center. In the later paint ing Peter Paul Rubens stands separate from the group at the table, as he continues his life without his brother and his brother's Stoic philosophy.
2 THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPSIUS
The Four Philosophers focuses upon the close relationship between the teacher and his students. It invites us to look more closely at Lipsius and his students, to see who were the people whom he influenced, and how he maintained his association with them. To do this we must consider Lipsius' ideas on friendship, which led him to revive classical, and espe cially Stoic, doctrines about friendship. We shall find that these were im portant to his work as a teacher. The most influential classical work on friendship in the Renaissance was Cicero's dialogue De Amicitia, written in 44 B.C. Its dramatic date is 129 B.C., and its principal speaker is Laelius, the friend of the great Ro man statesman and military leader, Scipio Aemilianus, and also of the Stoic philosopher, Panaetius. Cicero used a number of Greek sources, but it is most probable that his principal source was Panaetius' work On Duty, which was the source also for the first two books of Cicero's De Officits. 1 Panaetius of Rhodes (ca. 185—109 B.c) came to Rome in 144 and was a member of the circle of friends that gathered round Scipio Aemilianus. In 129, the year of Scipio's death, Panaetius became head of the Stoic school in Athens, which was his home for the rest of his life. His experi ence of the Roman aristocratic governing class led him to develop a more practical Stoic doctrine, one more concerned with the relationships be tween people who shared in the political and military duties of the Roman state. 1 Thus we find a greater emphasis being placed in the Middle Stoa (the term by which Panaetius' Stoicism is generally known) upon the in teractive virtues such as magnanimity, benevolence, and generosity, as well as upon the duties of a Stoic towards the state, his family, and his friends. We can be certain that the doctrines of the Middle Stoa, trans mitted by Cicero, were fundamental to the views of Lipsius and his con1
See R. Philippson in R-E. suppl. 7, 1164—67. See M. Pohlenz in R-E. 18:418-40; Pohlenz, Stoa,1:191-107, 2:97-101; Van Straaten, Panetius and Vragmenta; and Labowski, Ethik, esp. 112-24. 1
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPSIUS
temporaries upon friendship. Indeed, Lipsius himself praises Panaetius as "the renowned philosopher and one of the greatest" (sc. of the Stoics).' This practical Stoic doctrine appears in Laelius' introductory remarks about friendship: Sed hoc primum sentio, nisi in bonis amicitiam esse non posse; neque ad vivum reseco, ut illi, qui haec subtilius disserunt. . . . negant enim quemquam esse virum bonum nisi sapientem. sit ita sane: sed earn sapientiam interpretantur, quam adhuc mortalis nemo est consecutus. 4 My first point is that friendship can only be between good people. I do not want to "cut this to the quick" [i.e., delve into this too deeply], as do those who discuss the subject more precisely. For they say that only the wise man can be good. Well, maybe that is so: but their definition of wisdom is one that no human being so far has been able to achieve. This quotation is sufficient to show how Roman Stoicism, under the teaching of Panaetius, was adapted to the practical requirements of the Roman senatorial class. The abstractions of the early Stoics, with the fo cus upon virtue and wisdom as ideals hardly to be attained by ordinary human beings, clearly could not satisfy the practical needs of Romans burdened with the vast responsibilities of administering the state. Simi larly, a Renaissance teacher who, like Lipsius, was concerned with the education of future leaders in church and state found the doctrines of Panaetius—as they were developed by Cicero and Seneca—both intellec tually satisfying and practical. Indeed, the outstanding characteristic of Lipsius' Stoicism is its practi cality. His purpose was to adapt Roman Stoicism to the realities of life in the sixteenth century, and important in this process was the institution of friendship. Three elements in Lipsius' ideas of friendship deserve exami nation here. These are, firstly, the Roman notion of contubernium·, next, the social intercourse of congenial friends who meet occasionally; and finally, the friendship of intellectual peers, conducted principally through correspondence. By far the most important of these elements for understanding how the circle of Lipsius functioned is contubernium. This is originally a military ' Manud. I.II: ille inclytus, et inter apices.
* Cicero, Amic. χ8. Laelius' introduction, 18-24, contains many ideas fundamental to the doctrines of Seneca and Lipsius, for example, virtus as the necessary basis of friendship in 20 (cf. 84), friends sharing everything in 22, and the friend as exemplar in 23.
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term for sharing a tent (taberna) on campaign, then extended to the rela tionship of an inexperienced person living with and learning from an older man on campaign. 5 Such a relationship might be simply that of an officer and a member of his staff, or it might be almost paternal, the younger man being appointed as much for considerations of family and friendship as for professional reasons. Hence it was easy for the notion of contubernium to be extended to nonmilitary aspects of friendship: the future emperor Tiberius, for example, was said to have included the as trologer Thrasyllus in his contubernium during his years of retirement in Rhodes. 6 Among Roman intellectuals the word signified continuous and daily contact resulting in the mutual improvement of the contubernales morally and intellectually. The relationship might be one between an older man as the teacher of younger friends: thus we find Cicero, during the dictatorship of Julius Caesar, practicing declamation with his discipuli, Hirtius, Dolabella, and Pansa. 7 Pliny (the younger) writes to his friend Pontius Allifanus looking forward to the resumption of their con tubernium when they both have returned to Rome. 8 In the same letter Pliny describes the quality of his friendship with Cornutus Tertullus: Una diligimus, una dileximus omnes fere quos aetas nostra in utroque sexu aemulandos tulit; quae societas amicitiarum artissima nos familiaritate coniunxit. Together we love, together we have loved, almost all men and women of our time who should be our patterns of excellence. This common friendship has joined us in the closest bonds. Tertullus was fifteen years older than Pliny, and he was the guardian of the daughter of the younger Helvidius Priscus. 9 Therefore he was associ ated with the Stoics, and it is thus significant that Pliny refers to Tertullus not only as a colleague in public life (for they were consuls together in ioo) but also as a friend whom he revered as a father, whose success in public life was the result of virtus, the fundamental Stoic quality. 10 Pliny, although not himself a Stoic, shows how the Stoic ideas of friendship were realized in public life. If we go back a generation from Pliny to Seneca's time, we find the Stoic s
S.v. "contubernium" in OLD; KL Pauly 1:1198. Suetonius, Tib. 14.4. 7 Cicero, Fam. 9.16.7, 9.18.1. * Pliny, Ep. 5.14.9, cf. 2.11.19; 5.14.4 is quoted. » Pliny, Ep. 9.13.15—16. IO Pliny, Ep. 5.14.6. 6
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPSIUS
contubernium described by the satirist Persius in recalling his education under the Stoic philosopher and critic Cornutus. He addresses Cornutus as a friend and critic to whom he is not afraid to submit his poems: Secrete loquimur. tibi nunc hortante Camena excutienda damus praecordia, quantaque nostrae pars tua sit, Cornute, animae, tibi, dulcis amice, ostendisse iuvat. pulsa, dinoscere cautus quid solidum crepet et pictae tectoria linguae. 11 We speak privately. Inspired by the Muse 1 now give you my heart to shake out, and I want to show you, Cornutus, my dear friend, how great a part of my soul is yours. Strike it, skilled in distinguishing what rings solid and what is but the surface of a painted tongue. Despite the shifting metaphors (which are typical of the style of Persius), the ideas of friendship, sincerity, and genuine worth are prominent in this passage. Persius then recalls his contubernium with Cornutus: Cumque iter ambiguum est et vitae nescius error diducit trepidas ramosa in compita mentes, me tibi supposui. teneros tu suscipis annos Socratico, Cornute sinu. turn fallere sollers adposita intortos extendit regula mores et premitur ratione animus vincique laborat artificemque tuo ducit sub pollice voltum. tecum etenim longos memini consumere soles et tecum primas epulis decerpere noctes. unum opus et requiem pariter disponimus ambo atque verecunda laxamus seria mensa. 12 And when my way was doubtful and my wanderings, inexperienced in life, led my fearful mind along branching paths, then I made my self your child. You took up my infant years, Cornutus, in your Socratic arms. Then your rule unobtrusively straightened my crooked character, and reason disciplined my mind, which labored to submit, as the sculptor gave it features fashioned beneath your thumb. For with you, I remember, I spent long days, and with you I consumed the first hours of night as we supped together. Our work was shared " Persius, Sat. 5.21-25. Persius, Sat. 5.30—51; 34—44 are quoted from W. Clausen, ed., A. Persi Flacci et D. Iuvenalis Saturae (Oxford, 1959).
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and equally we shared our rest, relaxing our cares together with moderate meals. This famous passage is best interpreted by Isaac Casaubon, whose commentary on Persius was published in Paris in 1605, the year in which Lipsius' Seneca appeared, and we shall find Casaubon an authoritative guide as we try to understand the notion of contubernium in Lipsius' time. 13 The Stoic context is established by the metaphor of the cross roads, a reference to the parable of the choice of Hercules, in which Her cules, later the Stoic exemplum of virtue, chose the hard way of Virtue over the path of Pleasure (Voluptas).14 Similarly, the notion of the "branching paths" (ramosa compita) is philosophical, this time a refer ence to the letter Y of Pythagoras.15 Persius, therefore, pictures the stu dent as faced by a moral choice, and he turns to the teacher of philosophy as his guide in choosing his path through life, using the metaphor of in fant and father to describe his relationship to Cornutus."5 Thus the teacher directs the student in the right way with the authority and love of a father, while his teaching derives from Socrates, who proverbially sig nifies the source of moral philosophy.17 Persius then describes the moral discipline of Cornutus with two met aphors, the craftsman straightening out what is crooked, and the sculptor fashioning a portrait-bust from wax.18 Thus with a series of poetic im" References are to pp. 374—81 of the third edition, published in London in 1647. "> The parable, attributed to the sophist Prodicus of Ceos, is told at length by Xenophon, Mem. 2.zi—34, and summarized by Cicero, Off. 1.T18. It is critically examined by Guthrie Sophists, 2.77—78 (reprinted from History of Creek Philosophy, vol. 3, [Cambridge, 1969]). For discussion of the importance of the parable in Renaissance humanism and art, see Panofsky, Hercules. For its relationship to the Pythagorean Y, see Schultz, "Herakles." " Also referred to by Persius, Sat. 3.56—57. Pythagoras' Y is most fully described by Isidorus, the seventh-century bishop of Seville, Orig. 1.3.7: litteram Pythagoras Samius ad exemplum vitae humanae primus formavit. He goes on to explain that the right branch of the Y is hard but leads to the good life, while the left is easier but leads to destruction. For further references see Harvey, Commentary, 93. The reference to the Y is not invalidated by the variant MS reading in 1. 35, deducit, "leads" (sc. to the parting of the ways). "· Supposui is explained by Casaubon as in disciplinam dedi, i.e. "I put myself under your authority," a common meaning of supponere (see OLD, s.v. "suppono," 4a). In Roman comedy, however, and elsewhere, the word often has the meaning of "introducing an infant as someone's child": indeed, the plots of two of Plautus' comedies (Cistellaria and Truculentus) turn on this sense (e.g., Cist. 136, 553). See OLD, s.v. "suppono," 7b, which gives many other references. The metaphor of fatherhood, however, is ridiculed by Casaubon, but the nearby use of suscipis suggests that this is indeed Persius' intention. 17 See OLD, s.v. "suscipio," 4a, for the meaning of suscipis as "you acknowledge as your child (sc., by taking me up in your arms). On Socratico sinu Casaubon comments, "You took me up to be nourished in your bosom, for you are a Socratic philosopher. Even the Stoics came from the school of Socrates, as if from the Trojan horse. . . . In addition, all moral doctrine comes from Socrates. . . . Wherefore Socraticus sinus is education in moral philosophy." ,8 C v ita animus meus tua disciplina totus immutatur, "and so my mind is wholly trans formed by your discipline" (Casaubon). Before Persius the metaphor of the sculptor, in the
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ages the crossroads, the father and his son, the straight rule, and the sculptor he creates the student of moral philosophy, who becomes, dur ing this process of education, a fit contubernalis for the philosopher. The closeness of the relationship is shown by the emphasis upon unity," and the completeness of their common life is expressed by the inclusion of both the serious work of studying philosophy and the moderate pleasures of relaxation.Among the latter are the shared meals, whose significance as a means towards the harmony of friendship is expressed by Casaubon: "Why does Persius repeat this? Because the best witness to close friend ship is indeed the sharing of salt and food. Plutarch says with truth, 'The common meal is the tuning-peg of the mind.' Thus contubernium in Persius is founded upon the idea of changing the character, through the study of moral philosophy under the guidance of a wise teacher. It involves right choices and is suitably described by met aphors of straightness and harmony. It involves a community of life in all its aspects, a true sharing of work and relaxation, of intellectual and phys ical activity. The relationship of Persius to Cornutus has its visual coun terpart in The Four Philosophers, and, as we shall see, it is a pattern of the Stoic contubernium described by Seneca and practiced by Lipsius. The most explicit definition of friendship in Seneca is letter 6, which makes quite clear that contubernium is the ideal of friendship." Seneca, since he cannot be with Lucilius, sends him the books that he has been reading and annotating, adding these words: Plus tamen tibi et viva vox et convictus quam oratio proderit; in rem praesentem venias oportet, primum quia homines amplius oculis quam auribus credunt, deinde quia longum iter est per praecepta, context of education, was used by Horace, Epist. 2.2..8 (of clay) and Ars 163—the latter with explicitly moral reference: (iuvenis) . . . cereus in vitium flecti, "(a young man) . . . like wax to be molded to vice." Horace's metaphor seems to come from Diogenes, the Cynic (see Kiessling-Heinze on Horace, Ep. 2.2.7), quoted by Stobaeus Anthologia, vol. 4, p. 200— i, no. 87. After Persius it appears in Pliny, Ep. 7.9.11, Statius, Achil. 1.330-34, and Juvenal, Sat. 7.237—38. Persius himself is most explicit at 3.23—24: udum et molle lutum es . . . fingendus sine fine rota, "you are damp and soft clay . . . to be fashioned endlessly on the turning wheel." " Unum opus et requiem pariter disponimus ambo, "our work was one and equally we shared our relaxation" (1. 43). 20 Casaubon comments, sine ulla intermissione una eramus: una studebamus: una cessabamus. vitae universae duae sunt partes, otium & negotium, "together, without a break, we lived, together we studied, together we relaxed. There are two parts of life, work and relax ation." 11 Cur repetit? quia vel praecipuum testimonium est arctae amicitiae salts & mensae comrnunio. Ή γάρ συντροφιά, ait I'ere Plutarchus, ωσπερ έπντόνιόν έστι της διαυοι'ας. The quotation is from Plutarch, Mor. 2 (On the Education of Children) 3 d, referring to the bond created between mother and child (or twins) by feeding at the breast. 11 See Knoche, "Gedanke." Seneca, Ep. 6.5-6, is quoted here.
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breve et efficax per exempla. Zenonem Cleanthes non expressisset, si tantummodo audisset: vitae eius interfuit, secreta perspexit, observavit ilium, an ex formula sua viveret. The sound of my voice, however, and my companionship will do you more good than a sermon. You ought to be present, first, because men trust what they see rather than what they hear; second, because long is the path of learning by means of rules, short and effective by means of examples. Cleanthes would not have been like Zeno if he had only heard him; he shared Zeno's life, he knew its most private aspects, he watched Zeno to see if he lived according to his doctrine. Lipsius' commentary on letter 6 is illuminating. He paraphrases it as follows: Velle se cum eo, ut vero amico, omnia communicare, quae sint utilia: idque proprium sapientis. consuetudinem bonorum valde efficacem, & supra ipsa praecepta videri. [Seneca says that he] wishes to share everything with [Lucilius] which could be useful, and this is appropriate to the wise man. [He says that] the close association of good men is highly effective and is seen to be superior to the very precepts [of philosophers]. In fact, this definition of friendship was not peculiar to the Stoics. In his eleventh letter Seneca gives a quotation from Epicurus as being "useful and salutary": Aliquis vir bonus nobis diligendus est ac semper ante oculos habendus, ut sic tanquam illo spectante vivamus et omnia tamquam illo vidente faciamus. 2 » We must love some good man and always have him before our eyes, so that we may live as if he is watching us and that all our actions may be as it were in his sight. Seneca continues by extolling the improvement in one's moral stan dards if one acts as if the good man is watching: aliquem habeat animus quem vereatur, cuius auctoritate etiam secretum suum sanctius faciat, "let the mind have someone whom it respects, whose authority may make even its secret thoughts more pure." As such a model he suggests Cato Seneca, Ep. 11.8, citing Epicurus, frag, no Usener. Seneca was more ready than Cicero to quote Epicurean doctrine: see Cicero, Amic. $z, where the Epicureans are likened to cattle and dismissed.
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(the younger), or, if he is too austere, Laelius, the pattern of friendship in Cicero. He ends, significantly enough, with the metaphor of the regula (rule), familiar to us from Persius: opus est, inquam, aliquo ad quem mo res nostri se ipsi exigant: nisi ad regulam prava non corriges, "one needs a person by whom to measure our moral behavior. You cannot correct what is bad except by the measuring rod." Epicurean ideals of friendship, however, did not necessarily involve high moral principles like those of Stoic doctrine. Even in such a maxim as that quoted in letter n, Epicurus' goal was to make friendship useful towards attaining a life free from pain rather than a life spent striving for virtue and wisdom. Lipsius makes the point in commenting upon the fol lowing passage from letter 6: Tunc amicitiae nostrae certiorem fiduciam habere coepissem, illius verae quam non spes, non timor, non utilitatis suae cura divellit, il lius cum qua homines moriuntur, pro qua moriuntur. Then I would have begun to be more confident in our friendship— that true friendship which cannot be parted by hope or fear or ex pediency, that friendship with which men die, for which men die. On the words illius verae, Lipsius rightly comments, nostrae & Stoicae, and on non utilitatis, he remarks, quae est Epicuri amicitia ("for this is Epicurean friendship"). Stoic contubernium, therefore, had moral im provement as its goal, rather than the Aristotelian idea of enlightened selfinterest 14 or the Epicurean principle of pleasure and expediency (in this case the utilitas consists in increasing, through friendship, the pleasure of life and decreasing its pain). The Epicurean ideal was, at least in Stoic eyes, selfish, for the good that resulted from friendship benefited only the individuals involved, and the relationship was entered into with pleasure (ηδονή) as its end. To Seneca friendship was, first, an opportunity for moral improvement. Letter 6 starts with these words: intellego, mi Lucili, non emendari me tantum sed transfigurari, "I realize, dear Lucilius, that I am not only being improved but transformed." The metaphor of the sculptor's clay, which we have studied in Persius, gives way here to the literal description of moral education, but the idea is the same. Second, the improvement is ideally achieved through intercourse with a friend who is morally superior. Seneca probably saw himself as the moral guide to Lucilius; he looked to the paragons of Stoic virtue for his moral guides, 14 E.g., Eth. Nic. 8, esp. ix6z—1163a. But the Stoic Seneca takes the same line at Ep. 81.19: nemo non, cum alteri prodest, sibi profuit, "no one has failed to benefit himself when he benefits another."
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and these he described in terms of correction, education, and improve ment. Thus Cato or Laelius, in the closing sentences of letter 11, is to be custodem vel exemplum (guardian or model), and Lipsius, in his com mentary on this letter, extends this to the notion of the paedagogus, the tutor assigned to guard and teach a child: Monitum deinde salutare Epicuri: semper virum bonum repraesentare nobis, qui coerceat ut paedagogus. velut illo praesente facere omnia & loqui. Then [Seneca] quotes the salutary maxim of Epicurus, that we should always put a good man before our mind, who is to correct us like a tutor. We should always act and speak as if he were present. Later Lipsius uses the word custos in commenting upon Seneca's words aliquis vir bonus nobis diligendus est, and in his concluding chapter of the Manuductio ad Stoicam Philosophiam (which will be discussed be low) he returns to the idea of the paedagogus, quoting this same passage. Elsewhere Seneca quotes Epicurus with approval, using the metaphor of the theater (which in Greek means "a place for watching a spectacle") to express the presence of the vir bonus in the disciple's life: Egregie hoc tertium Epicurus, cum uni ex consortibus studiorum suorum scriberet: "haec" inquit "ego non multis, sed tibi; satis enim magnum alter alteri theatrum surnus."* 5 Epicurus puts this third maxim excellently in writing to one of his disciples: "I say this," he says, "not to a crowd but to you; for we two are a sufficiently large audience [theatrum] for each other." The relationship implicit in the Stoic contubernium is intense and de manding, whether the friend is present or (as Seneca's letters 6 and n suggest) imagined to be present. The emphasis is upon the moral trans formation of the younger friend, with the goal of attaining virtue and wisdom. This is an austere program; indeed, it would put an intolerable strain upon any normal human being. It is a counsel of perfection as un attainable as trying to be like Cato Uticensis or becoming a Stoic sapiens. Fortunately, both the Roman Stoics and Lipsius realized that Stoicism was above all a practical system and that its ethics were related to the realities of life. The warmth of the relationships between Lipsius and his students is strong evidence for this more genial view of friendship (even if 2'
Seneca, Ep. 7.11, citing Epicurus, frag. zo8 Usener.
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we discount the element of artificiality in letters edited for publication), while the writings of Seneca and of Lipsius indicate that there were other dimensions to Stoic friendship. Of these the most important is the goal of service to mankind. In letter 6 Seneca says that his advances in moral philosophy bring him no plea sure if he cannot share his studies with another: Ego vero omnia in te cupio transfundere, et in hoc aliquid gaudeo discere, ut doceam; nec me ulla res delectabit, licet sit eximia et salutaris, quam mihi uni sciturus sum. . . . nullius boni sine socio iucunda possessio est. I long to transfer everything to you, and in this I rejoice to learn something so that I may teach. Nothing, however excellent or salu tary it may be, will delight me if my knowledge is to be kept to myself alone. . . . The possession of no good thing is pleasant without sharing. On discere ut doceam Lipsius comments, "This is a Stoic utterance, like that of Cato in Cicero's De Finibus," and he goes on to quote the passage from Cicero that says that by nature human beings wish to help their fellow-man by sharing. 16 Seneca makes the point pithily at the end of Letter 6, quoting the Stoic philosopher, Hecato: "Quaeris" inquit [Hecato] "quid profecerim ? amicus esse mihi coepi." multum profecit: numquam erit solus, scito esse hunc amicum omnibus. 17 Hecato says "Do you ask in what way I have improved? I have begun to be a friend to myself." He has improved greatly; he never will be alone. Know that this man is a friend to all men. On this Lipsius comments, "This flows from Stoic doctrine: he who loves himself, that is, who makes himself good and wise, this man also loves other men in this way—'not for himself alone, but for the whole world does he believe he was born.' " iS In contrast to the self-absorbed Epicureans, the Stoics looked outwards 16
Stoicus sensus. ita Cato apud Ciceronem III de Fin.: impellimur natura ut prodesse velitnus. (The quotation is from Cicero, Fin. 3.65·) . , , n , . " For Hecato see von Arnim in R-E. 7:2-797; Kl.Pauly 2.:984 with bibl.; and Pohlenz, Stoa, 1:240-41, 2:123-24. Hecato was a pupil of Panaetius and wrote a work on duty, referred to by Cicero, Off. 3-63· . . . . , . The quotation is from Lucan, B.C. 2.383: nec sdn, sed tot, gemtum se credere mundo. Appropriately Lipsius chose Lucan's praise of Cato as the Stoic exemplum of selfless service to mankind.
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in their friendships. The contubernium of Lipsius was ultimately meant to benefit society: Lipsius was a proficiens in Stoic philosophy, and as he advanced in wisdom he shared his knowledge with his contubernales. In their turn they, and Lipsius himself, used their wisdom for the betterment of society as a whole. That this plan of Stoic friendship was not merely an abstract ideal can be seen from the facts that Lipsius himself was prin cipally concerned in his philosophy with the practical problems of life in the world of his day, that his philosophy basically was oriented towards the political needs of the state and its leaders, and that his students en tered upon successful careers in public service. In his Manuductio ad Stoicam Philosophiam (3.16) Lipsius discusses the Stoic paradox that "only the wise [sapientes] can be friends: only they know how to love." Cicero had said that friendship was only possible between boni, that is, sapientes, whom Cicero defined realistically. For Cicero, therefore, friendship was possible between those who were mak ing progress towards the moral ideal of the Stoic sapiens: to restrict it only to the sapiens, as narrowly defined in Stoic theory before Panaetius, would be to make it impossible. Z9 Seneca makes the same assumption, when (in a passage also quoted by Lipsius) he quotes the Stoic paradox in the context of a discussion of beneficia and gratitude.' 0 For, as Seneca there says, to show gratitude is a component of love and friendship, whereas true friendship is an attribute only of the sapiens.' 1 In this con text Seneca means by the sapiens one who knows what is truly virtuous, whose actions as a friend are therefore based upon knowledge: "Let them stop defaming us [i.e., Stoics] . . . and let them know that the wise man has with him what is really good, the ordinary man has the mere appear ance and imitation of what is good."' 1 Lipsius, following Seneca, con cludes that friendship between those who are sapientes is a matter of mu tual trust and sharing, based upon knowledge that leads to virtue. Here Lipsius introduces an important element into Stoic friendship, as the fol lowing definition makes clear: Duo igitur continet [sc. amicitia]: Rerum communionem & consor tium, itemque Personarum. utrumque iunxit pariter Pythagoras iamolim κοινοί τά φίλων. Cicero, Amic. 18. J° Seneca, Ep. 81.12: solus sapiens scit amare, solus sapiens amicus est, "only the wise man knows how to love, only the wise man is a friend." '• Atqui et amoris et amicitiae pars est referre gratiam, immo hoc magis vulgare est et in plures cadit quatn vera amicitia, "and yet it is part of love and friendship to return a favor, indeed, this is more common and is the experience of more people than is true friendship." Ep. 81.13: desinant itaque infamare nos . . . et sciant apud sapientem esse ipsa honesta, apud vulgum simulacra rerum honestarum et effigies. 19
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Friendship includes two components, a sharing and a community of things and equally of persons. Long ago Pythagoras equally joined each of these: "In friendship all is shared." In fact, Seneca had made the same point in letter 48, the first part of which Lipsius also quotes: Consortium rerum omnium inter nos facit amicitia . . . in commune vivitur. nec potest quisquam beate degere qui se tantum intuetur, qui omnia ad utilitates suas convertit: alteri vivas oportet, si vis tibi vivere. haec societas diligenter et sancte observata, quae nos homines hominibus miscet et iudicat aliquod esse commune ius generis humani, plurimum ad illam quoque . . . interiorem societatem amicitiae colendam proficit; omnia enim cum amico communia habebit qui multa cum homine." Friendship makes us share everything . . . friends live in common. No one can live virtuously who looks out only for himself, who turns everything to his own advantage. You must live for another, if you wish to live for yourself. This sharing, diligently and virtuously ob served—which joins us as human beings to humanity and judges that there is a shared law of the human race—is of the greatest help also towards achieving that inner sharing of friends, for he who has much in common with mankind will have everything in common with a friend. Lipsius also quotes Aristotle on the mutual sharing of friends—"one soul dwelling in two bodies" 34 —but for him (as for Seneca) the more im portant element in Stoic friendship was that it extended beyond the inner circle of two or a few friends to widening circles of humanity, affirming the principle of the commune ius generis bumani. Thus Stoic friendship was literally appropriate to the humanist, for it reminded its practitioners of their involvement with all humanity. Lipsius and his circle felt that they had a duty to use the wisdom and virtue that they had achieved through friendship for the greater good of society. It is therefore not surprising that so many of Lipsius' friends and students entered upon careers in pub lic service. Lipsius continues the discussion of the intimate relationship of two •" Ep. 48.2-3. Seneca seems to have been following Cicero, Amic, 22. Pythagoras' maxim was proverbial: see T. Gaisford, Paroemiograpbi Graeci. B573, C293, Z4.79, D5.76, Ph. 174. It is quoted by Aristotle in Eth. Nic. 1159b and 1168b; cf. H. Bonitz, Index Aristotelius, 570. 3« Μώ ψυχή Svo σώμασιν ίναικονσα. The saying is proverbial: see Aristotle, Eth. Nic. ii68b~7; Eth. Eud. i24ob3, 9.
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friends by quoting Seneca's sixth and eleventh letters. Here he distin guishes between love (amor) and friendship (amicitia). He sees the latter as superior, not least because it calls into action the virtues of the Stoic sapiens—trust, generosity, unselfishness, reason, and the readiness to die for one's friend. Thus friendship is a sharing of Stoic virtues, free from the passions (pathe) that accompany love. Lipsius quotes Cicero's defini tion, which is succinct and noble: est autem amicitia nihil aliud nisi omnium divinarum humanarumque rerum cum benevolentia & caritate consensio. 35 Friendship, however, is nothing other than a sharing of feeling in all things human and divine, accompanied by good will and affection. Lipsius quotes Seneca's thirty-fifth letter to show that such friendship is superior to love: "A friend loves: a lover is not necessarily a friend." This leads him to consider a passage in Apuleius, saying that "Wisdom makes a young person a lover of what is good." Lipsius objects to this because it implies that the young student is already wise (sapiens), and he therefore emends the passage as follows: sapientia Bonum amatorem adolescentum facit, sed eorum qui probitate ingenii sint ad artes bonas proniores. 36 Wisdom makes the Good Man a lover of the young, of those, how ever, who, because of good character, are more inclined towards vir tuous living. Thus Lipsius introduces an important element in his theory of contubernium: the teacher, who has advanced towards sapientia, loves his stu dents because they are his friends and therefore leads them towards wis dom and virtue. The demands of Lipsius' theory of friendship were tempered by the common sense that he had learned from Cicero and Seneca. The atmo sphere of his contubernium at Leuven and the tone of the correspondence with his students were by no means austere and inflexible. The mutual respect and affection among Lipsius and Woverius and Philip Rubens are evident, despite the severe criticisms that have been made of their contu bernium. 57 Lipsius' concern with the moral transformation of the young " Amic. zo. Apuleius, De Platone et eius Dogmate, 12..Z51. The original text reads, Sapientia Boni amatorem adolescentem facit, sed eum qui probitate ingenii sit ad artes bonas pronior. " The most critical view is that of Burman, Sylloge, Praefatio, iz: videbis Principem ilium modo florentissimae Academiae Batavae & insigne lumen . . . (Lovanii) . . . ad Ludimagistri humilitatem se demittere; & in contubernium receptis discipulis, omnem se perdidisse vitae
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF L1PS1US
was sincere, and it is perhaps one of the areas in which he was most suc cessful in adapting Senecan Stoicism to the sixteenth century.» 8 Yet we still cannot deny that the ethical standard required in Stoic amicitia was very demanding. Writing to his great-nephew, Willem Grevius, in i6oz, Lipsius expresses forcefully the Stoic goal of service to mankind that we have analyzed above: Nam in exemplum nati sumus, atque etiam auxilium: iuvare nos, turn alios, &c aestimare unius corporis membra esse, magnus hie orbis est, sed una civitas. conspiremus in mutuos usus, & ad hanc rem a pueritia aptemur.» 9 For we are born to be an example [to others] and even a help: to help ourselves, then others, and to reckon that we are the limbs of one body. Great is the world, but it is one state. Let us join together to our mutual advantage, and let us train ourselves for this goal from our childhood. Grevius was only nine years old when this was written, but his educa tion was already being directed toward the Stoic ideal of service to all of humanity, the una civitas of mankind. In a time of constant war and dis sension there was a poignant nobility in this ideal, even if Lipsius' own practice fell so sadly short of achieving it. The active challenge posed by the Stoic ideal of friendship is finally analyzed by Lipsius in the concluding chapter (3.24) of the Manuductio. This work was published in 1604 and therefore closely reflects Lipsius' reading of Seneca, whose works he published in 1605. These volumes, moreover, were the fruit of Lipsius' lifework (for he died in 1606) and are therefore the expression of his mature views. In concluding the Manuduc tio he stressed the need for the constant practice (exercitatio) of philoso phy. He divided the training for this practice into three parts: exempla, conversatio, and examen. For exempla he quoted the final sentence of Seneca's eleventh letter (given above). Thus he set up the Stoic exempla as the regula (rule or canon) by which the student might measure himself. tranquillitatem miseris modis querentem, "you will see the man who had been the Principal and leading light of the splendid Dutch University [Leiden] abasing himself (at Leuven) to the lowly status of schoolmaster, and, having taken students mto his contubernium, com plaining miserably that he had lost all the tranquility of his life." , 8 As late as 1 6 0 0 Lipsius was planning a book De lnstitutione luventutis·, see Ep. Misc. 1 . 6 4 , January z, 1 5 8 5 (to Laevinus Torrentius); and 4 . 6 4 March 1 7 , 1 6 0 3 (to Gomez). Cf. NBW 1 0 : 4 1 2 and Bouchery, "Waarom . . . Gevierd?" 5 6 , n. 1 0 2 . '» Ep. Misc. 4 . 4 0 , November 4 , i6oz. For Grevius see Galesloot, "Particularites," 1 7 5 7 6 , 307 —11; and GV, no. 1 3 3 , p. 1 6 1 , with further references. Bergmans, "L'Autobiographie," 3 4 0 , n. 2 3 , confuses Willem with his father, Jan, who was the son of Lipsius' sister, Maria; she died in 1 5 8 6 ( NBW 1 0 : 4 0 4 ) . Lipsius left his books to Willem.
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This principle was important for Peter Paul Rubens in his political and philosophical allegories, as we shall see. In discussing conversatio Lipsius quotes Seneca's ninety-fourth and eleventh letters, the latter no less than four times. For example, he quotes from letter 94: Nulla res magis animis honesta induit dubiosque et in pravum inclinabiles revocat ad rectum quam bonorum virorum conversatio. 40 Nothing better clothes the mind with virtue, and recalls to what is good those who are insecure and likely to slip into vice, than inter course with good men. He emphasizes the excellence of the Epicurean maxim (quoted by Sen eca in letter 11.8, given above) that the Stoic student must have a friend and teacher who will guide and train him like a paedagogus. The element of conversatio, which clearly is the most relevant to the theory of contubernium, involved learning from the example, precepts, and criticism of a good man, that is, the wise man whose friendship with the young had been described in Manuductio 3.16. Finally, the exercitium of philosophy involved self-criticism as well as submission to the criticism of the sapiens. Lipsius finds the practice of examen especially effective, quoting Cicero and Seneca as examples. 4 * So Lipsius ends his Manuductio by focusing upon the relationship of the sapiens to his students: et in bis monitis te dimitto: Sapientiam & doctores eius ama, & me, qui conatus esse, "with these precepts I let you go: love Wisdom and its teachers, and love me, who have tried [to be a teacher]." Let us now see how Lipsius' ideas of Stoic contubernium worked in practice. It seems that at Leiden he had a small number of students living with him between 1580 and 1584. 41 Two students—Everard Van den Poll and Hendrik van Wilt—lived with him from early in 1580 until the end of 1582., when Van den Poll returned home. 4 ' Lipsius was as much con cerned with his students' moral development as with their studies; even during their vacation he writes to urge them to "remember every kind of Virtue" and to study hard. 44 His final report (testimonium) on Van den 4 0 S e n e c a , Ep. 9 4 . 4 0 . •" Cicero, Sen. 3 8 ; Seneca, De Ira 3 . 3 7 . Lipsius' doctrine on friendship is summarized in Sweerts, Flores, 23—25 (s.v. "amicitia"), 43 (s.v. "consortium"). 41 See Bouchery, "Waarom . . . Gevierd?" 22—24, 57> n · no; cf. BN 1 2 : 2 5 0 . 45 ILE 1. 2 4 7 , January 1, 1 5 8 3 . 44 ILE 1. 1 6 5 , 1 6 6 , both dated August 8 , 1 5 8 1 . The quotation is from Homer, II. 2 2 . 2 6 8 .
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPSIUS
Poll, sent to his father on New Year's Day 1583, focuses upon the son's moral character, as does the testimonium sent to the French scholar, Jacques Cujas, in April 1585 .45 A year later he wrote to Van Wilt in France, urging him still to be diligent with his studies, "for a mind with out the guidance of wisdom is like a ship without a rudder among the waves," and he was much concerned that Van Wilt should not be affected by the "levity and vanity" of French life and morals. 46 The contubernium, then, extended to every aspect of the students' lives, and it formed a bond of friendship that was expected to endure throughout their lives. Pollio and Wiltius (to give them their Latin names) were typical of Lipsius' contubernales: they came from well-to-do homes, and their fathers were men of high public standing. They themselves graduated with degrees in law, and they made their careers in law and public service. 47 The relationship is succinctly described by Lipsius in the letter to Wiltius of April 16, 1586, quoted above: Vos quaeso inter vos concorditer et amice vivite, quia Belgae, quia ex mea domo, quia sacrorum eorundem et studiorum. senectus mea, si ad earn pertingo, solatium sibi spondet in vobis. I ask you both [Wiltius and Pollio] to live in concord and friend ship, because you are both Belgians, because you come from my home, because you have shared the same studies and sacred rites. If I live to be old, I look to you to be a comfort in my old age. More than a decade later he wrote to Pollio that "you were close to me not only physically and intellectually, but living in my house and sharing our contubernium." 48 It is clear that Lipsius planned the contubernium as part of his system of practical Stoicism, and it should be seen as at least as important a part of his theories of education as his lectures and textbooks. As Dean at Jena 4 5 ILE 1.247, 1.419. Cujas was the great French jurist and classical scholar, with whom J. J. Scaliger lived in 1570—157 2 -? see Graiton 1 Scaliger , 121—26, and BU 9*555~59 i esp. 558, which emphasizes the number of political and commercial leaders who were students under Cujas. That he would take in Pollio is a tribute to the quality of Lipsius' students and
teaching. * 6 ILE 2..470, April 16, 1586. , 4 7 Pollio was the son of the Town Secretary of Utrecht, a position to which he hoped to succeed upon his father's death in 1597 (he was not appointed). Lipsius reports his death in Ep. Misc. 5.8, October 2.7, 1602; cf. Ep. Misc. 4.39· Wiltius, like Pollio, was Advocate or Utrecht and in 1596 was appointed to the Council of State at Utrecht. See ILE 1.299—300, NNBW. 2:1114; and Album Studiosorum, 7. 48 Ep Misc 3 3 2 , D e c e m b e r 5 , 1 5 9 7 : non sensibus solum & animis, sea domo & contubernio haerebatis. Cf. Ep. Misc. 2.54, April 29, amo vos qu, apud meolim, ut si ex me essetis, "I love you, who used to live in my house, as if you were my sons.
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he had shown his concern for the moral (as well as academic) develop ment of his students. 49 Ten years later he wrote to Paulus Busius (Paul Buys), who had been nominated as Curator of Leiden University, outlin ing his ideals for student life in a college. 50 His plan included common meals, without the evils of learning vice from each other through a com mon life without discipline: Nescio enim quomodo, assidua convictio ilia et contubernium, non ex usu iuventutis: qui, utcumque arceas aut separes, sermones com municant, consilia, vitia, sordes. et hinc lasciviunt, degenerant. non id peccati in mea domo, in qua praeter mensam nil commune. In some way that constant living together and contubernium [i.e., in "ordinary colleges"] do not benefit the young. However much you keep them apart from each other they share conversation, schemes, vices, and low life. As a result they act immorally and become degen erate. That sort of error is not to be found in my home, in which there is no common life except for meals. Contubernium in Lipsius' home had a moral purpose, and it achieved the ideals of collegiate life while avoiding the vices that were usually to be found among students living together. After 1584 Lipsius does not seem to have had contubernales at Leiden, perhaps because of poor health. He did, however, continue to take a spe cial interest in the sons of friends, and he implies that he was always avail able to them for special counseling and teaching." We are excellently informed about Lipsius' practice of contubernium during his final period at Leuven, and it is this that Rubens commemo rates in The Four Philosophers. Lipsius returned to Leuven in 159Z and was appointed Professor of History in September that year and of Latin in November. He was not well paid, and the financial and other troubles of the university meant that he needed to supplement his income by tak ing in students. 51 By 1594, however, he was able to build himself a larger « See ILE 1 . 3 4 , June 1, 1 5 7 3 , 3 8 , July 1 5 , 1573, both addressed by Lipsius as Dean to students. Those who had earned degrees were doctrina et moribus . . . parati. so ILE 1 . 2 7 1 , July 1 2 , 1 5 8 3 . " E.g., Ep. Misc. 2 . 7 7 , October 1 0 , 1 5 8 8 , to T. Canter, for whose two sons Lipsius took responsibility: de filiis tuts, ii mibi curae erunt. See ILE 2.656 for different versions of this letter. Although there is no need to accept the contemptuous description of Lipsius' penury in Burman, Sylloge (see above, n. 37), Lipsius was neither well nor regularly paid by the uni versity o r b y t h e K i n g of Spain, t o w h o m h e w a s a p p o i n t e d official h i s t o r i o g r a p h e r i n 1 5 9 4 . See Saunders, Lipsius, 47-48. The ruined state of Leuven and its university is documented in van der Essen, Tribulations. The destruction wrought by the vrijbeuters from 1585 began to abate in 1592, and the university's finances were restored by the Archdukes Albert and
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPSIUS
house, 53 so that he could have a group of contubernales living with him. In the early period we know of Balthasar Moretus, who lived with Lipsius from October 1592 until the beginning of 1593, when a serious illness forced him to return home.54 Moretus was eighteen years old when he journeyed from Antwerp to Leuven, and he has left a touching and lively description of his journey and arrival at Leuven." More important, he kept a copy, written by Lipsius himself, of the daily timetable of the contubernium (Fig. 10): Mane circa VI. surgito. orato, lavato, ad studia se conferto. Ciceroni horam unam dato, Orationibus aut Phi[losophi]cis eius legendis, et ex iis seligito. Tum stilum exerceto epistulam aut Carmen interdum pangito. Haec singula, singulis septimanis praestato. Interdum Oratiunculam interposito. Sub tempus prandii, Suetonium aut alium historicum legito itemq[ue] seligito. in margine: Hic nihil de Ambulatione: quia ibat ad sacrum, et ad lectione[m] et item ientabatur. Ita satis saepe se co[m]movebat. Post prandium paulisper inambulato: turn ad studia redito. Graecae lectioni hora una datur, et maxime soluta ora[tion]e qui scripsere. Phrases etiam rariores excerpito. Turn surgito et breviter iterum ambulato et Homerum aut poetam alium legito. Ante caenam Epistolas ad Atticum capito, ex iis seligito et tempus aliquod stilo iterum dato. Post caenam Ciceronis orationem ad Brutum legito, postea alium quem praescripsero. Deum veneratus ad lectum te sub Nonam conferto. [In Moretus' hand] Ratio studiorufm] sub Cl[arissimo] Lipsio p[iae] mjemoriae]. 56 Get up at about 6 o'clock. Say your prayers, wash, and go to your studies. Give one hour to Cicero, reading his speeches or philosoph ical works, and make excerpts from them. Isabella in 1600. See also Camerlynckx, "L'Universite," esp. 31-35· Lipsius received gifts from prominent patrons from time to time: see, for example, his letter of thanks to Nicolas Rockox, Ep. ad Belg. 3.66, November 14, 1600. " E p . ad Belg. 2.17, November 6, 1594. Cf. BN 12.:170. 54 G V 286-94 (GVd 35-40). Moretus (whose Flemish name was Moerentorf) was the son of Jan Moretus, Plantin's son-in-law, and his successor (1610-1641) as head of the Plantin Press. See BHAPB, 4845; BN 15.256-58; and Voet, Museum, 13-15. » GVd 36. , , > 6 GVd 21; Bouchery, "Waarom . . . Gevierd?' 23-24, 56, n. 107.
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Then practice composition, composing a letter or sometimes a poem. Do one of each, each week. Occasionally compose a short oration in between these exercises. About the time of the midday meal, read Suetonius or another his torian, and again make excerpts. (In the margin:) Nothing is said here about a walk: because [the stu dent] would go to a service, and to a lecture, and again would go to breakfast. Thus he would exercise himself often enough. After the meal walk for a short time: then return to your studies. One hour is given to reading Greek, especially prose authors. Excerpt dif ferent Greek sentences. Then get up and again take a short walk and read Homer or some other poet. Before the evening meal take the letters to Atticus, make selections from them, and again give some time to composition. After the meal read Cicero's Orator ad Brutum, and after that some other author whom I shall assign. After worshipping God go to bed at about 9 o'clock. [In Moretus' hand] Study schedule under the most honorable Lipsius, of blessed memory. This demanding program is borne out in detail in Moretus' letters to his father." Noteworthy are the emphasis upon reading of texts and prac tice in composition; the importance of Cicero as a model (even though Lipsius had abandoned the Ciceronian style more than twenty years ear lier in his own writing); and finally, the importance of exercise, taken usually in Lipsius' garden. 58 When we consider that this program was in addition to the public lectures in the university, and that the contubernales stayed for as long as four years, 59 we can understand how they ac quired such a thorough mastery of Latin texts and were able to write Latin letters and speeches so fluently. Lipsius himself admitted that his interest in Greek was less well developed than in Latin, a weakness re flected in the relative time assigned to each language in the schedule. 60 The physical arrangements for the reading of classical texts are recorded (and admittedly idealized), in The Four Philosophers, where the professor " GVd 3 6 , 11. 7 0 - 7 4 ; 3 7 , 11. 2 9 - 3 6 ; 3 9 , 11. 1 6 -zz. ' 8 The garden was important in Stoic life in general and particularly to Lipsius (see Morford, "Stoic Garden"). " E.g., Ep. ad Belg. 3 . 6 3 (to J-B. Perez); z . 9 7 (to Philip Rubens). 60 Ep. Misc. 2..$6, undated (probably 1 5 8 9 ) , to Maria de Gournay: videmus aliquid in Graecis, sed baud multum supra vulgum, & satis mihi si haurio ex ea lingua quae ad animi aut scriptionis usum. Burman, Sylloge, Praefatio, 8, accuses Lipsius of avoiding Greek stud ies. Muret, Scaliger, and Casaubon were unimpressed by Lipsius' Greek—see, for example, Scaligeriana (1666), 207 ( Lipse n'est Grec que pour sa provision)·, and Muret, letter to C. Dupuy, April 7, 157Z (hie cum esset, Graecas litteras gustaverat modo).
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPSIUS
discourses upon the text and Philip Rubens holds his pen ready to write a composition or select excerpts for imitation. 61 The choice of authors reflects Lipsius' interest in the historians and his preference for prose au thors over poets. Of the latter he quotes Persius, Lucan, Juvenal, and (of course) Seneca most often; his Antiquae Lectiones of 1575 have many notes on Plautus and Propertius. In 1570 he was intending to publish an edition of Propertius, but the work was never completed. 62 All in all it can be said that the reading and compositions of Lipsius' contubernales were planned to train scholars who would become leaders in the fields of law and public administration, a Roman ideal, consistent with the Stoic ideal of service to the state and to humanity. Who were these contubernales at Leuven ? Lipsius wrote three essays in the form of letters for their benefit, and the same ten students are ad dressed. 63 They are Franciscus Oranus (Ρ^ηςοίβ d'Heure), Iohannes Baptista Perezius Baronius (Juan Bautista Perez de Baron), Gulielmus and Antonius Richardot, Gulielmus Scarberg, Cornelius Anchemannus, Johannes Woverius, Balduinus Iunius (Baudouin de Jonghe), Philippus Rubenius, and Hubertus Audeiantius (Hubert Oudejans). All came from prosperous families with a tradition of public service; "il appartenait au monde des echevins" 64 succinctly expresses the social and professional circumstances of Lipsius' contubernales. It is also important to observe that all were loyal to the Catholic church (which would be a sine qua non for students at Leuven) and were supporters of the Spanish interests in the southern Netherlands. In the most practical way Lipsius was compen sating for his years at the Calvinist University of Leiden. Let us now briefly look at some of these men, before considering the two closest to Lipsius (Rubens and Woverius) in more detail. 65 Selectio means excerpting quotations for future insertion or paraphrase in one's own works (a form of the ancient Roman practice of aemulatto), or noting sententiae for succinct and memorable expressions—a prominent feature in the style of Seneca and Tacitus, and consequently of Lipsius himself. Cf. Simar, "Notice," esp. 263: "Nous apprenons aussi comment l'humaniste formait son style. Il Usait la plume a la main, notait Ies expressions, s'essayait a imiter Ies tours et Ies phrases de son ecrivain favori. 62 ILE j £ September 19, 1570 (to Manutius). Lipsius says there that he is thinking of dedicating his edition of Propertius to Cardinal Sirleto, the Vatican librarian. He had seen three manuscripts of Propertius during his stay in Rome, one in the Vatican and two in the Farnese library. See Ruysschaert, "Le Sejour, 145—47. 61 Ep. ad Belg. 1.44, undated (on dogs), 3.51, July 30, 1599 (on eating and drinking), and 3 56 March 30 ιήοο (on horses). The latter two are inscribed Louanii, in nostra domo and Lovanii in communi domo nostra. Lipsius also wrote a letter on elephants to Jan van Hout (Ep. Misc. 1.50, undated), and one on historiography to Nicolas Hacqueville (bp. Misc. 3.61, December 3, 1600) for whom he also wrote a testimonium (Ep. Misc. 5.11, September 9, 1602). BN Z9'67s of Pierre d'Heure, the father of Oranus. «5 Ep ad ltal. 100, September 7, 1600, is addressed to Scarberger in Rome and expresses Lipsius' deep affection for his absent contubernales. Little appears to be known of the fam-
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Frangois d'Heure came from one of the most prominent families in Li ege, where his father was Town Secretary and prominent as an adviser to and diplomat in the service of the Prince Bishops of Liege.Frangois graduated with a degree in law on October 11, 1600, and went to Rome with a letter of recommendation from Lipsius to Cardinal Cesare Baronio. i7 J.-B. Perez de Baron, the only Spaniard in the group, was the son of Martin Perez, a wealthy trader resident in Antwerp. Martin's daughter, Adrienne, married Nicolas Rockox in 1589; since Rockox was one of the most prominent citizens of Antwerp, a humanist and the patron of Ru bens, the presence of Adrienne's brother in Lipsius' contubernium again indicates the social and economic class from which the contubernales came. 68 J.-B. Perez, to whom Lipsius sent a letter of consolation on the death of his father in i6oz, traveled in Italy with Willem Richardot and Philip Rubens that year, and he may possibly be portrayed in Peter Paul Rubens' painting, Self-Portrait with Friends (Fig. 9). 69 Philip Rubens wrote a poem to celebrate his graduation as a Doctor of Law. He was present at Lipsius' death. 70 The two Richardot brothers were the younger sons of Jean Richardot, the President of the Privy Council of the Netherlands, a distinguished dip lomat and one of the most prominent political leaders in the Spanish Netherlands. 71 They joined Lipsius' contubernium in 1595 and stayed for ilies and careers of Scarberger and Anchemant. Anchemant graduated with the degree in Law, (Ep. ad Belg. 2 . 3 9 , February 1, 1 6 0 1 ) . Lipsius there says that he was the fourth contubernalis "to enter upon the sacred mysteries of law and justice," and he foresees that Anchemant will achieve the Stoic ideal of freedom from the pathe. He quotes Lucan, 2 . 2 7 3 , pacem summa tenent, words used by Brutus to describe Cato's Stoic peace of mind. Philip Rubens* poem celebrating Anchemant's graduation is printed in 5. Asterii Homiliae ( 1 6 1 5 ) , 96-97. 66
BN 2 9 : 6 7 5 — 7 9 ; see 6 7 6 for Francois. Ep. ad Belg. 1 . 5 2 , 5 4 . i S For Rockox see NBW 5 : 7 2 4 — 3 0 ; BN 1 9 : 5 6 6 - 6 9 ; CDR 2 : 2 8 - 3 1 . He became an alder man of Antwerp in 1 5 8 8 and was nine times Burgomaster in the next fifty years. He died in 67
1640.
This is tentatively mentioned by Evers, Rubens und sein Werk, 326, but not by Huemer, Portraits , 1 6 4 . The letter of consolation is Ep. Misc. 4 . 4 9 , September 12, 1 6 0 2 , when Perez was in Bologna. 70 GVd 2 3 . Rubens' poem is printed in S. Asterii Homtliae, 95 - 9 6 ; in it the praise of Lipsius' contubernium is prominent. J-B. Perez' career, in fact, does not seem to have been distinguished enough to be recorded. Cf. Ep. Misc. 4 . 3 7 (the testimonium), 4 . 7 4 , and 5 . 1 8 . Ep. ad Belg. 3 . 6 3 , October 1 6 , 1 6 0 0 , refers to Perez' four-year contubernium. See also Ra mirez, Epistolario, 2 6 0 ; GV 1 1 8 , 1 7 4 , 1 7 7 , 1 9 5 . " BN 1 9 : 2 7 4 - 7 9 : he became President of the Council in 1 5 9 7 and died in 1 6 0 9 . Van Loon, Histoire, 2 : 3 5 , reproduces the medal struck in 1 6 0 8 to commemorate his negotiations on behalf of the Archdukes with Maurice of Nassau. As ambassador he practiced the an tique Roman virtue of fides, to which the reverse of the coin refers, showing a man following a stag (representing Flattery) and about to stone a pig (see Livy 1 . 2 4 for the Roman ritual),
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPSIUS
three years. Philip Rubens was private secretary to J. Richardot and, as we have seen, accompanied WiUem Richardot as his tutor on his Italian tour in 1602. Undoubtedly the friendship of Lipsius with the family of Richardot was important for him and for the brothers Rubens, and it must have been a significant element in the early careers of both Philip and Peter Paul. Philip dedicated his collection of Ad Iustum Lipsium Poemata to Willem Richardot, who by then (1608) had become Chancellor of the University of Douai. 7 - Willem's eldest brother, Peter (who later became Abbot of Echternach), received his degree of Bachelor of Theol ogy on the occasion of the visit of the Archdukes to Leuven in 1599, when Lipsius addressed them. /1 This cannot have been a coincidence and is an other example of the ties that bound Lipsius' students and their families to the government of the Spanish Netherlands. BalduinusJunius (Baudouin de Jonghe) came from Dordrecht. He was well connected, being the nephew and intended heir of Jan Drenckwaert, the Treasurer of the Spanish Netherlands. He was expected to graduate with a degree in Law and follow his uncle into a career in public service. Early in 1602., however, he entered the Franciscan order, to Lipsius' sur prise and disappointment. De Jonghe became a prolific author of Catholic theological works. He, too, was present at Lipsius' death, having been at Lipsius' bedside for several nights during his final illness. 7 -» Audeiantus (Oudejans) was secretary to Lipsius himself from 1598. Like Oranus, he came from a family of prominent municipal leaders, in his case at Bruges. He became a Canon at Bruges and was a Latin poet of some distinction. Other than Philip Rubens he seems to have been the most scholarly member of the contubernium, and he had a deep affection for Lipsius. 75 Unlike most of the contubernales he graduated with a de gree in Theology rather than Law, and his early death (in September with the inscription above SI SCIENS EALLO. Ep. ad Belg. 2.62., June 1, 1600, is Lipsius' testimonium for A. Richardot. 71 BB 4:915; 93—95 in Philip's Electorum Libri II (Antwerp, 1608). 7 ' BN 19:282. 74 GVd 23. For de Jonghe see Sweerts, Athenae Belgicae, 151—52, listing his publications. To Sweerts the most significant fact about him was his having been Iusti Lipst discipuius ac contubernalis. Lipsius' letter to Philip Rubens about de Jonghe's "withdrawal from the world and all the pleasures or cares of life" is Ep. Misc. 4.6, February 24, 1602. Further details are given by Galesloot, "Particularites," 286-87, 306-7, who also gives part of Lipsius' letter to Otto Hart (September 25, 1601), app. 2, 340—42 (Burman, Sylloge, 1.175). This letter gives an insight into the ambitions and daily life of Lipsius and his contubernales and describes his disappointment at de Jonghe's decision. 75 BN 1-53 5- His poem on the death of Lipsius is given in the Eama Postuma in Op. Omn. ι (unpaginated). In it Oudejans says that Lipsius was like a father to him: prae omnibus unum / qui mibi eras gnato quod solet esse parens. Lipsius' letter to him giving instructions on punctuation is Ep. Misc. 3.48, written in 1598 but not dated.
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1615, at the age of forty-one) deprived the Catholic church of an able theologian, according to the testimony of his contemporaries. 76 Before we turn to Philip Rubens and Woverius, it is worth noting that the graduation of one of Lipsius' contubernales was a cause for celebra tion by the whole group. The five celebratory poems by Philip Rubens are valuable evidence for the sense of shared labor and shared glory in the group, the latter deriving as much from the contubernium with Lipsius as from the academic achievement of the individuals. 77 Philip Rubens and Woverius were the contubernales to whom Lipsius was most closely bound. Woverius was his executor and Lipsius intended him to be his biographer. Rubens he looked upon almost as a son, "whom I love above all my friends, as much as I love my own head," 78 and he clearly thought he was the best scholar among his pupils. He hoped that Rubens would succeed to his chair at Leuven, and it is indicative of his admiration for Rubens that he entrusted him with the task of delivering a copy of his Seneca to the Pope himself. Rubens' father, Jan, like the fathers of so many of the contubernales, was a member of a prosperous family. 79 He studied in Italy and graduated as a Doctor of Civil and Canon Law at the University of Pavia. He prac ticed as a lawyer and was prominent in municipal administration, being an Alderman of the city of Antwerp from 156Z until 1568 (he used the title Scbeper). He was a Calvinist and therefore went into voluntary exile at Cologne in 1568, during the rule of Alva in the Netherlands. There he worked on behalf of Anna, the wife of William the Silent, and with the widow of Count Hoorn (who had been executed by Alva in 1568) to 76 Cf. Sweerts, Athenae Belgicae, 347—48, who calls him poeta insigni ingenio & eruditione. Philip Rubens' poem celebrating his graduation extols his scholarship in theology and philosophy; in the latter his Stoicism is praised Bella Cleantheo bellare imbellia ritui . . . potens. Oudejans' epitaph (like Philip's) recorded his contubernium: litteris humanioribus sub Lipsio / egregie excultus (Sweerts, 348). 77 These poems are included in the Carmina Selecta in S. Asterii Homiliae, 90—98. The addressees are Oudejans, Oranus, W. Richardot, Perez, and Anchemant. The scholarship of Oudejans seems to be recognized by Philip's use of an unusual meter (pythiambic, used by Horace, Epod. 16) and recherche vocabulary, e.g., the rare word edecumatae ("select") as an epithet for virtutis. 78 Ep. ad Belg. 2.97, September 17, 1601; cf. CDR 1.13, (Burman, Sylloge, 799), where Li p s i u s , w r i t i n g t o P h i l i p i n I t a l y , s a y s m e u t a m i c o u t e r e , i m o ( s c r i p t u m a n t e r e p e t o j U t parente. The best discussion of Rubens is still that of Ruelens in CDR 1.9-17. The basic sources for his life are his letters and poems, and the Vita by Jan Brant, who was the brother of Isabella, Peter Paul Rubens' first wife. Brant's Vita was published in Philip Rubens' S. Asterii Homiliae, along with thirty-five of his letters, including four to Lipsius, three to Peter Paul Rubens, and five to Woverius. Cf. Sweerts, Athenae Belgicae, 646—48; Sweerts was a close friend and was present at Philip's death. See also BN 20:313-17; BB 4:924—26; and BHAPB 5185. 79 See NBW 9:663—69 (Van Roosbroeck), with bibliography.
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPSIUS
recover their property. This led to an adulterous relationship with Anna, which was discovered by her family. Jan Rubens was imprisoned in 1571 by Jan Van Nassau (William of Orange's brother) and was only saved from execution by the efforts of his wife, Maria Pypelinckx. Thanks to her he was released in 1573 a n d allowed to live under certain restrictions in Siegen, a small town in the duchy of Nassau. Eventually he returned to Cologne, where he died in 1587. It was at Siegen that his sons were born, the oldest, Philip, in 1574, and the second, Peter Paul, in 1577. 80 He educated his sons in their early years, and after his death his widow returned to Antwerp with the boys; there Peter Paul's education was continued at the so-called "Papenschool" run by the Latinist Rumold Verdonck, where Balthasar Moretus was a fellow student. 81 Philip became secretary to Jan Richardot and tu tor to his two younger sons and with them joined Lipsius' contubernium in 1595. In 1601 he traveled to Italy with Willem Richardot and J.-B. Perez, 8z and it was this visit that was commemorated by Peter Paul Ru bens in the painting of Self-Portrait with Friends. 8 ' He stayed in Italy, and in 1603 he graduated at Rome as Doctor utriusque iuris, that is, as Doc tor of Civil and Canon Law. He returned to Belgium in 1604, and Lipsius hoped to persuade him to stay and eventually succeed him at Leuven. But Philip returned to Italy in 1605, as librarian and secretary to Cardinal Ascanio CoIonna. 84 With him he brought a copy of Lipsius' Seneca to deliver to the Pope, Paul V Borghese. 85 His mission brought him to the attention of influential churchmen and scholars, and he was offered a chair at the University of Bologna, which he declined. Instead, he contin ued to live at Rome, sharing a house with Peter Paul for nearly a year (1605—1606), a happy and productive time, to which he referred with 80 According to Brant's Vita, in Philip Rubens' S. Asterii Homilae, 133; Sweerts, Athenae Belgicae, 646; and Hoc, BB. 4:926, Philip was born at Cologne. The chronology of his father's adventures, however, makes it more likely that Siegen was his birthplace, as stated by Rooses in BN 20:313. 81 BN 26:601; NNBW 7:x24ο. 81 Ep. Misc. 4.37, October 5, 1602. 85 Cf. Huemer, Portraits, 163-66. 84 Lipsius wrote effusive letters of recommendation to Colonna (Ep. Misc. 5.64) and to Cardinal Seraphin Olivier (Ep. Misc. 5.65) on April 1, 1605. See CDR 1:269-75; Ruelens' suggestion (275) that nescio quis Genius, responsible for Philip's decision to return to Rome, was Peter Paul, is without foundation. Genius is more likely a vague term for an inexplicable force or inspiration, as in Pliny, Pan. 32.3, and Lipsius' letter, Ep. ad Ital. 1.97. Lipsius had already recommended Philip to Olivier on his first visit to Rome; see Ep. Misc. 5.33, August 19, 1603 (CDR 1:202—5). 8 5 COR 1:295-302 (no. 72). The Pope said of Philip, benevole excepimus, et qutbuscumque offtciis pro dignitate poterimus, tua libenter causa prosequemur.
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affection and warmth in the introduction to his poem Aii Petrum Paulum Rubenium Navigantem: Corolarii tamen vice attexam Elegeidion ad suavissimum & optatissimum fratrem meum. . . . discupio enim aliquod hie exstare amoris & grati in ipsum animi monimentum, qui turn artifici manu, turn acri certoque iudicio non parum in Electis me iuvit. 86 In place of a garland I shall weave an Elegiac poem addressed to my sweetest and most longed-for brother. . . . For I long to have some memorial here of my love and gratitude towards him, for both with his artist's hand and with his keen and unerring judgement he helped me greatly in my Electa. Philip Rubens returned to Antwerp in 1607, partly because of his mother's poor health (she died in October χ 608), and partly because his friends (including Woverius) hoped to see him appointed as one of the four secretaries of the town of Antwerp; he was appointed to this office in January 1609. Later that year he married Maria de Moy, the daughter of another of the secretaries. She was the maternal aunt of Isabella Brant, the first wife of Peter Paul Rubens, whom he married later that same year. 87 These details show how close-knit were the circles of the admin istrative and professional classes in the Netherlands. Still more do they bring home the social and professional relationships that were the foun dation of Lipsius' contubernium, for the friendships and intellectual ac tivities of Lipsius' students must be seen also in the context of the family background and professional expectations of the contubernales. We can now understand more readily why Peter Paul Rubens did not share in his brother's contubernium, for on leaving Verdonck's school (in 1592) he briefly entered the service of Marguerite de Ligne, widow of the Baron de Wavrin, as a page. Soon, however, he began his training as an artist (still in 159Z) and for eight years studied under the Antwerp paint ers Verhaecht, Van Noort, and Van Veen (Vaenius). Meanwhile Philip was preparing with the sons of prominent families for a career in public or ecclesiastical service, although there was also the possibility that he would become, like his teacher, a prominent scholar. Philip Rubens' gifts as a classical scholar attracted the attention of the powerful, and he was helped by the recommendations of Lipsius him86
Printed in Electorum Libri II, m-u: cf. CDR, 1.136—41. See CDR 2..10, which gives the date as October 3, 1609. Nos. 120 and 122 (pp. 12, 20-22) are the poems celebrating the marriage, respectively by Daniel Heinsius and Philip Rubens. 87
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self. 88 Like Lipsius, he took the first steps in a professional scholar's career by going to Rome, first with the patronage of Jan Richardot, and then by serving a prominent cardinal, just as Lipsius had served Granvelle thirty years earlier. Rubens published one scholarly work before his death: Electorum Libri II (Antwerp: Moretus, 1608). In the manner of Lipsius' early work, these books consist of observations on problems of interpretation and textual readings in many Latin authors. The book is made more in teresting, however, by the inclusion of five engravings by Cornells Galle after drawings by Peter Paul Rubens. 89 Rubens' second scholarly work was an edition of five homilies of Asterius, a fourth-century bishop of Amasea, published in 1615 by Moretus, under the supervision of Jan Brant, who added his Vita of Philip Ru bens. 90 It contains the Greek text of the homilies with Rubens' Latin translation and is drawn from a manuscript in Colonna's library, which he transcribed. Besides these, the volume contains miscellaneous poems, speeches, and letters by Rubens, and a collection of elogia in prose and verse in his memory. None of these, however, is as eloquent as the portrait (Fig. xi) by Peter Paul Rubens (engraved by Cornells Galle), whose im agery expresses the virtues of his dead brother. 91 Philip Rubens was an excellent scholar in Latin (as one would expect of Lipsius' pupil) and Greek. When we actually read his works, however, we can understand the wisdom of his decision not to follow Lipsius at Leuven and his refusal of the chair at Bologna. His Latin is often con torted and his use of laconismus—extreme compression of thought into elliptical phrases—results more often in obscurity than the clarity that Lipsius generally managed to achieve. 9 * His letters are affected in style 88 Besides the recommendations mentioned in note 84 above, Lipsius wrote a general tes timonium for Philip, Ep. ad Belg. 2.97. September 17, 1600. This describes the contubernium succinctly: annos Philippum Rubenium quattuor in familia & contubernio meo egisse, mensae participem, sermonis & disciplinae. 8 « The volume includes two books of observations (pp. 1-90), then various poems and letters by Philip Rubens (pp. 91-12.8). Peter Paul's five designs are on pp. 21 (Statua Togata), 33 (Mappae Missio), 67 (Duplex Statua Tunicata), 73 (Apices), and 74 (Apex m Lapide Clivi Capitolini). See BB 4:925—26; CDR 1.12—13. *> S Asterii Episcopi Amaseae Homiliae Graece et Latine nunc Primum Editae Pbilippo Rubenio lnterprete. The MS is Cod. Vat. Graec. 388· The book is described by Ruelens, CDR 1.13-16, and Hoc, BB 4:926. The most complete edition of Astenus Homiliae is C. Datema, Asterius of Amasea, Homilies i~xiv: see xxxin for Rubens' edition. I doubt if the subjects of the Homilies (Dives and Lazarus, the Unjust Steward, Avarice, the Feast of the Kalends, and Divorce) interested Rubens for their own sake; rather, here was an unpub lished Greek manuscript for him to publish and so increase his reputation as a scholar »• See JV 1:151-54 (no. 29), and vol. 2, figs. 99-101. The engraving was the only illus tration in the book and appears immediately before Brant's Vita. ·"• See CDR 1.62-63 for trenchant comments on laconismus.
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and expression; an extreme example is his first letter to Peter Paul Ru bens, which Ruelens has justly censured as "cette composition ampoulee, ecrite en Latin pedantesque. . . . Cette lettre, comme Ies deux autres, nous apparaissent comme des missives d'apparat." 93 Lipsius genuinely ad mired Philip's intellect and character, and his letters during Philip's ab sences are quite pathetic in their longing for his return. 94 Yet it is strange that Lipsius never once mentioned Peter Paul Rubens, whom he very probably had met in person, and one may reasonably wonder if there was not an element of jealousy involved. 95 As for Philip's own affection for Lipsius, it was expressed in a more restrained manner. 96 That his admi ration and gratitude were deep and sincere cannot be doubted, yet if we compare his Latin letters and poems to Lipsius with his more freely ex pressed love for Peter Paul, the restraint is undeniable. Nor can he have been unaffected by the damage to Lipsius' reputation caused by the recep tion of his works of Catholic propaganda, notably the Diva Virgo Hallensis of 1604. 97 Philip Rubens, in fact, pursued the career for which the contubernium with Lipsius had prepared him. He was exceptional among Lipsius' stu dents in the admiration that Lipsius showed for his ability, which led Lip sius to put more pressure on him after their contubernium than on any other of his friends. Philip followed his teacher's plan to begin with—the journey to Rome, even the second journey and the librarianship under a prince of the Church, the publication of Electa in the style of Lipsius' own Variarum Lectionum Libri y the Latin letters and poems—all presaged a career similar to Lipsius' own. But Philip seems to have had a somewhat gregarious nature, and all his friends spoke of his modesty and gentle character. Eloquent testimony to the strength of the bonds between him and Peter Paul is to be seen in the paintings of The Four Philosophers and Self-Portrait with Friends and in the portrait in the 1615 S. Asterii Homiliae. Moreover, the friendship with Woverius, who already by the time No. ζ in CDR i; p. 16 is quoted. E.g., Ep. Misc. 5.44, January 31, 1604 (CDR 1.57); 5.8, October 27, 1602; and 5.30, June 28, 1603. " See Ruelens in CDR 1.69. Admittedly it is hard to show affection within the conventions of neo-Latin poetry, and Ruelens rightly censures the collection of Elogia of Lipsius (to which Philip Rubens contrib uted an Epicedion in the style of Statius) as "un ramassis de compositions d'une etonnante mediocrite (CDR 1.353). This collection is assembled in Op. Otnn. 1, without pagination, with the title Fama Postuma. » 7 See CDR 1.62., quoting the scathing epigram of Scaliger. As might be expected, Burman's strictures are incisive: ut. . . os & mentem omnem, dominis impotentibus in perpetuam servitutem addiceret (Sylloge, Praefatio, 11-12; (the domini are the Jesuits). ,4
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of Philip's final return to Antwerp 98 had considerable influence in his friend's interest, inclined Philip to a career of public service rather than scholarship. His early death, at the age of thirty-seven, on August z8, 16ii, was a blow to his brother and his many friends and patrons, and it was a loss to his city and country." Yet he had transcended in his own way the limits marked out for him by Lipsius, no less than had Peter Paul when he separated himself from the group round the table in The Four Philosophers. Jan Van de Wouwer (Woverius) is the final member of the group in The Four Philosophers and, with Philip Rubens, the closest of Lipsius' contubemales to his teacher. 100 His career exemplified the milieu for which Lipsius trained his students—distinguished public service in administra tion and diplomacy, combined with scholarship and humanism. Woverius in some ways was similar to Peter Paul Rubens in his diplomatic mis sions. 101 In his service to the city of Antwerp and the Spanish Netherlands he fulfilled the sort of career that Philip Rubens would have enjoyed, had he not died young. He was an especially close friend of Philip Rubens and a lifelong friend of Peter Paul. Woverius was born in Antwerp in May 1576 and died there in Septem ber 1635. 101 His father was an alderman of the city, so that he came from a background of municipal leadership similar to that of so many of Lip sius' contubernales. Unlike Jan Rubens, Jan Van de Wouwer (the father) seems to have had no doubts about his loyalty to the Catholic church, and his son, educated by the Jesuits at Antwerp and later a student at the University of Leuven, throughout his career served the Catholic cause and the interests of Spain in the Netherlands. At Leuven Woverius joined the contubernium in Lipsius' house, along with Philip Rubens, and studied there until 1599. Lipsius' testimonium both expresses his high opinion of Woverius and epitomizes the ideals of his teaching: ' 8 He arrived during May, 1 6 0 7 ; see CDR 1 . 3 7 2 — 7 3 and 3 8 5 — 8 6 . »» Besides the Elogia in S. Asterii Homiliae see CDR 2 . : 4 3 - 4 8 , no. 1 3 0 , letter of consola tion to Peter Paul Rubens from Dominic Baudier. '=° See BB 5 - 8 7 2 - 7 4 ( CDR. 1 . 5 3 - 5 8 ) ; BN 2 7 : 4 0 8 - 1 0 (dealing only with Woverius' pub lic career)· Bergmans, "L'Autobiographie," 1 3 4 - 3 7 ; Sweerts, Athenae Belgicae, 4 8 7 - 8 8 (printed as 4 8 7 - 8 4 ) . Woverius is often confused with his German namesake (whose dates were 1 5 7 4 - 1 6 1 2 ) , e.g., in National Union Catalogue, 674:646-47. Our Woverius met the German Woverius in Paris in 1599, and Lipsius met him in Hamburg in 1590 (Ep. ad Belg. Cf. CDR 1 . 5 8 : "II fut done, en quelque sort, Ie predecesseur de Pierre-Paul dans la voie d ' P «Vanousdates are given for Wovenus' death: September 2 3 , 1 6 3 s , is the most Iikely as given by Hoc, BB 5:874· Ruelens, CDR 1 .58, gives September 23, 1639; Lefevre, BN 27:408, gives "avant Ie 30 mai, 1636."
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Ego, si quidquam bona fide, iamnunc testificor, hunc Io. Woverium e contubernio et domo mea adulescentem, mihi carum, Modestiae, & Musis fuisse: quas semper coluit, Sc vitam ad optima praecepta, ingenium ad artes conformavit.. . . fuco verborum nemini imponam, nec ipse morum: candidus est, bonis bene natus est, et siquid ad rem, in re bona. 103 If ever I have testified in good faith I testify now that this Johannes Woverius, a young man from my home and contubernium, has been dear to me, to Modesty, and to the Muses. These he has always cul tivated, and he has fashioned his life according to the best principles and his intellect according to the highest standards. . . . I shall de ceive no one with specious words, nor will he deceive with specious morality. He is a man of integrity; he has been well born to do good, and (if this is at all relevant) he is from a prosperous family. This is a succinct statement of the principles and common features of Lipsius' contubernium, whose combination of moral and intellectual ed ucation produced a public servant of impeccable integrity and candor. In the final words Lipsius perhaps revealed more than he intended in adopt ing the Ciceronian ideal of the vir optimus as a person of respectable eco nomic standing and therefore the more likely to be a solid citizen and servant of the state. 104 After leaving Lipsius' contubernium Woverius traveled for three years in France, Spain, and Italy (where, as we have seen, he met with the broth ers Rubens at Verona in July 1602). After his return to Antwerp at the end of 1602, he married (in 1603) Marie Clarisse, the daughter of a rich Antwerp merchant (originally from Lille) and began his career in public administration at Antwerp. 105 In 1614 he held the first of his four terms of office as alderman, and in 1620 the Archdukes appointed him to the Council of the Netherlands and its Council of Finances, responsibilities which he filled for the rest of his life.' 06 Thus at a crucial period in the "" Ep. Misc. 3.47, August 8, 1599. Ci. Cicero, Rep. 3.23; Sest. 96-105; Stockton, Cicero, 33-35; and Brunt, Social Con flicts, 93, who aptly paraphrases Cicero's definition of the optimi as "those whose morals are as sound as their bank balances." •°s Sweerts, Athenae Belgicae, 488 (printed as 484): pluria meditantem Reip. munia avocavere, primum Patriae urbis in Senatum adlectus; ab Archiducibus Alberto & Isabella in aulam post evocatus, a Consiliis ut esset, & Belgici aerarii assessor. Lipsius' letter congrat ulating Woverius on his marriage is Ep. Misc. 4.82, September 27, 1603. See Sweerts, Athenae Belgicae, 488 (printed as 484), quoted in n. 105. For the Councils of the Spanish Netherlands see Parker, Dutch Revolt, 3Z: "a representative of the sovereign
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPSIUS
turbulent history of the Netherlands, Woverius was a leader in the gov ernment of the Archdukes that achieved the comparative stability of the Spanish Netherlands for half a century and led to the founding of Bel gium. 107 It was in 1598 that Philip II appointed his daughter, Isabella, and her cousin and husband, Albert, as rulers of the Spanish Netherlands. The revival of the University of Leuven dates from this time, and Lipsius was, and was intended to be, an important part of this revival. It follows that he was influential in the stabilization of the Spanish Netherlands through his students, of whom Philip Rubens would have been a brilliant example (had he lived), while Woverius did in fact become an important political and financial figure. Like Peter Paul Rubens, Woverius was employed in diplomatic missions, and in 16x3—162.4 he negotiated in Spain with Philip IVs ministers and was knighted by the King. Woverius was typical of the circle to which Peter Paul Rubens belonged. He was a man of the utmost integrity, of considerable intellectual stature and a scholar, en dowed with gifts that he used in the service of the state. From the contubernium with Lipsius and Philip Rubens he learned the Stoic lesson of service to one's fellow man. This ideal is summed up in the lapidary quo tation in Jan Brant's Vita of Philip Rubens: Ut vetus hoc iam & quasi domesticum elogium possideat, VIGILANTISSIMI CONSVLIS, PRVDENTISSIMI SENATORIS, ET BONI PVBLICI AMANTISSIMI CIVIS. 108 Brant's praise of Philip Rubens applies equally to Woverius, and the ideal there expressed motivated Peter Paul Rubens in his career of public service. Let us return now to the time of Rubens' The Four Philosophers. In 1611 Woverius had been in public administration for eight years and Lipsius had been dead for five. Woverius was on the verge of reaching the advised by a council of state for high policy, a council of finance for fiscal affairs and a privy council for justice." Although this refers to the government in the middle of the sixteenth century, its structure seems to have been the same during the government of the Archdukes (1598—162.1) and the regency of Isabella (I 6 ZI— 1633). Woverius' exact title is uncertain. He was aerarii assessor according to Sweerts, i.e., the chief fiscal officer; in Van Dyck's portrait, no. 39 in lcones, Woverius is Regi Catholico Belli et Supremi Aerarii in Belgio a Consiliis, i.e., a Councillor of State and Fiscal Councillor (the portrait is reproduced in CDR 3.304); in CDR 3.110, iiz he is aerarii Belgici praefecto. 107 This is the judgment of Parker,Europein Crisis, 131-32, 138. "°8 In S. Asterii Homiliae, 140: "So that he is the possessor of this ancient and, as it were, family honor, [to be praised as] A MOST WATCHFUL MAGISTRATE, A MOST WISE SENATOR, AND A CITIZEN WHO MOST LOVED THE PUBLIC GOOD."
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highest public offices (he became an alderman for the first time two years later), yet here Rubens is focusing upon his education in the contubernium of Lipsius under the influence (symbolized by the bust) of Seneca. Woverius was indeed a good scholar, and he wrote fluent Latin. His De Consolatione ad Petrum Paullum Rubenium Liber is a good example of the genre, while it conveys a sincerity of feeling and genuine affection. Most of his scholarly work, however, was devoted to Lipsius and to his memory. His earliest work was Eucharisticum Clarissimo et Ineomparabili Viro Iusto Lipsio Seriptum, 109 and in the remaining three years of Lipsius' life he attended to Lipsius, according to Sweerts, like a son. 110 Lipsius appointed him one of his three executors, and to him alone en trusted his unpublished works, including the final two centuries of his letters. 111 In his Assertio he defended Lipsius' memory against the harsh criticisms of the Protestants,111 and this tract was included in the Fama Postuma, in which poems and other works praising Lipsius were gath ered. 11 ' He prepared the new editions of Lipsius' Tacitus (1607) and Sen eca (1615), the latter with his own Preface. Lipsius sent his epitaph to him, as his designated biographer, as well as the autobiographical letter which was to be the raw material of the biography." 4 As late as Novem""> Antwerp: J. Trognesius, 1603; see BB 5:872. The work was dedicated to Woverius' father and his wife's father. Lipsius' letter thanking Woverius is Ep. Misc. 4.84, November 3, 1603. 1 1 0 Sweerts, Athenae Belgicae, 487: in patriam . . . redux, senescentem iam Lipsium sic prorsum coluit, ut parentem filius observare solet. Lipsius' instructions for publishing the fourth century of letters are contained in Ep. Misc. 5.86 and quoted by Woverius in the dedicatory letter of Ep. Misc. Cent. IV: iatnnum parata est Centuria Epistolarum selecta, quam . . . in area mea reperies, a te edendam & Ill.mo Prochnicio inscribendam. All three executors signed the dedication to the fifth and final century of the miscellaneous letters. Besides Woverius, the executors were Nicolas Oudaert (BN 16:381—83), a Latin poet, (see BB 2:97) and Canon of St. Rombaut at Mechelin, and Willem Wargnier, Canon of St.Peter at Leuven, formerly Lipsius' secretary. See Sweerts' introduction to Musae Errantes, and GV 68 (p. 89), and 151 (p. 181). Both were present at Lipsius' death; see GVd. 23, pp. ζ56—61. '"-Assertio Lipsiani Donari adversus Gelastorum Suggillationes (Antwerp: Plantin, 1607}, and reprinted with the Fama Postuma. Cf. BB 5:874-75 and CDR 1.57, justly de scribing the work as "un plaidoyer tres travaille." Although Woverius could not conceal the feebleness of Lipsius' Diva Virgo Hallensis, his defense did include a detailed and apparently sincere account of Lipsius' final illness and death (Op.Omn. 1:184-8 5). •" The Fama Postuma takes up the first part of vol. 1 of Op. Omn. It was planned and published in 1607 by B. Moretus, who wrote to Philip Rubens about it on April 7, 1 6 0 6 , only a few days after Lipsius' death (CDR 1.80, pp. 330-31; cf. BB 3.1113). It includes poems and memorial verses eulogizing Lipsius, Miraeus' Vita, and Woverius' Assertio. At the beginning is Lipsius' letter to Woverius of January 30, 1604, enclosing his epitaph. The iconography of the title page is explained by Miraeus, Vita, 7. For a complete description see Van der Haeghen in BB 3:1111-13: Miraeus' Vita, which was published in 1609, was first included in the second edition of the Fama Postuma (Antwerp: Plantin, 1613); cf, BB 3:1113-14. "< Ep. Misc. 3.87.
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPSIUS
ber 1606 he was planning to write the biography, but the work was never finished. 11 ' Woverius' most lasting contributions to Lipsius' enduring fame are the posthumous editions of Tacitus and Seneca. We have seen in the first chapter how the 1615 edition of Seneca was significantly improved by the addition of Rubens designs and by a new title page. In his introduction (breve ulloc\uiurn) to the reader, VCo venus explained that he was comply ing with the express instructions of Lipsius to complete the revision of the Seneca, should he die leaving it unfinished. Woverius ended the introduc tion with Lipsius' exhortation, dated September 2.6, 1605, accompanying a presentation copy of the 1605 edition: Ioanni Woverio, quem amo, hunc Senecam quem amo dono dedi hortorq. ad seriam et frequentem eius lectionem, qui animo sapientiam inserit et virtutem. fac et salve. 116 To Jan Van de Wouwer, whom I love, I have presented this [edition of] Seneca, whom I love, and I urge him to read Seneca seriously and often, for in the mind he sows the seed of wisdom and virtue. Do this and fare well. The revised edition of the Seneca was in a sense a memorial to Lipsius from his contubernales, principally Woverius, but also the publisher, Moretus, while Peter Paul Rubens, as it were, took Philip's place as a contributor. Like The Four Philosophers, the 1615 edition in a way did homage to Lipsius' revival of Senecan Stoicism. Woverius had less to add or revise in the 1607 Tacitus. To the dedica tion to the Archduke Albert he added an inscription in memory of Lipsius, while the 1627 edition was virtually unchanged from the 1607 one. Shortly afterwards, however, a significant change was made in the Plantin Press device, designed by Rubens, that appeared on a number of title CDR 1.351 (no. 87), letter of B. Moretus to Philip Rubens, November 17, 1606; cf. CDR 1.343 (no. 84), July 28, 1606. " 6 Quoted in BB 5:873; for another exhortation to read Seneca see Lipsius' letter to Woverius of March 6, 1597 (Ep. ad Belg. 3.27): unum Senecam tamen, ad firmandum aniWiutH , vel maxime tibi ingero: ceteros, ad docendutn aut delectandutn. For the posthumous editions of Lipsius' Seneca see BB 5:132.—33 (1615); 135—36 (1632); and 138—40 (1652).
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pages, including the 1648 edition of Lipsius' Tacitus (Fig. iz). The Plantin motto was Lahore et Constantia, and in the new design the figure symbolizing Labor was changed from a farmer with a spade to Hercules with club and lion skin, in the pose of the Farnese Hercules." 7 Thus the Tacitus after 1627 became more closely identified with one of the mythi cal heroes of Stoicism. The friendship of Woverius and Peter Paul Rubens was ended only by Woverius' death. It is clear that Woverius had a great capacity for friend ship; Lipsius speaks of him with affection, while the love of Philip Rubens and Woverius was deep and mutual. Woverius referred to their friendship in his consolatio on the death of Philip in the following terms: Me eiusdem contubernii tunc quoque felicitas habebat; ortumque in ter nos ex similitudine votorum studiorumque hoc sanctissimae amicitiae foedus, quod nec mortis triste divortium separare potuit. 118 It was my good fortune at that time to be part of the same contubernium; and there arose between us, from our common prayers and studies, this bond of most sacred friendship, which not even the grievous parting of death has been able to break. Woverius was to Philip "my closest friend, indeed, my friend beyond all value."" 9 It was fitting, finally, that Woverius should be involved in the epitaph for Philip, which Peter Paul had invited Moretus to com pose." 0 Moretus submitted his draft to Woverius, who made several changes, notably in the concluding lines. The final version is given in Jan Brant's Vita of Philip Rubens, and the inscription brings together Lipsius and his contubernales in a way that again expresses the ideals of The Four Philosophers. Noteworthy is the prominent place given to Philip's contubernium with Lipsius, the prelude and the justification, as it were, for the distinguished posts that are then listed. Here is the inscription, as much a memorial for the contubernium as an epitaph for the individual, Philip Rubens: 1,7 For the posthumous editions of Lipsius'Tacitus see BB 5:297-98 (1607); 302(1627); and 304—6 (1648). For Rubens' design of the Plantin device see JV 1:304—9, nos. 74 and 74a, with vol. 2, figs. 254-55, where it is suggested that Rubens made the original drawing "shortly before March, 1630." It was used on the title pages of vols. 2—4 of the 1637 Plantin edition of Lipsius' Opera Omnia (Fig. 12), eleven years before the 1648 Tacitus, which was the first of the editions of Lipsius' Tacitus to use it. " s 5. Asterii Homiliae, 150. ' Electorum Libri //, 20: meus summus et prorsus άτίμ-ητος φίλος (inaestimabilis ami cus). 110 See CDR 6.332—34.
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPSIUS
PHILIPPO RVBENIO I .C.
Ioannis civis et senatoris Antverp. F. MAGNl LIPSI DISCIPVLO ET ALVMNO cvivs doctrinam paene assecvtvs, modestiam feliciter adaeqvavit: Brvxellae Praesidi Richardoto, Romae Ascanio Cardinali Colvmnae, ab epistolis, et stvdiis; S.P.Q. Antverpiensi a secretis. abiit, non obiit, virtvte et scriptis sibi superstes, V. Kal. Septemb. Anno Christi M D XI aetat. XXXIIX. MARITO BENE MERENTI MARIA DE MOY,
dwm ex illo liberorvm Clarae et Philippi mater, propter illivs eivsq. matris Mariae Piipelinckx Sepulchrvm hoc moeroris et amoris svi monvmentum P.C. bonis viator bene precare Manibvs: et cogita; praeivit ille, mox seqvar. 12 · 1 To Philip Rubens, Doctor of Laws / Son of Jan, Citizen and Senator of Antwerp / Disciple and Alumnus of the great Lipsius, / Whose learning he almost matched, whose modesty he happily equaled: / at Brussels to President Richardot, / at Rome to Ascanio Cardinal Colonna, / [Secretary] for letters, and for research; / to the Senate and People of Antwerp Confidential Secretary. He went away, he did not die, still living because of his virtue & his writings, / on August 2.8, A.D. 1611, aged thirty-eight. TO HER HUSBAND, WHO WELL DESERVES IT, MARIA DE MOY,
mother by him of two children, Clara and Philip, / beside his tomb and that of his mother, Maria Pypelinckx, / ordered this memorial of her grief and love to be placed. You who pass by, pray for the souls of the virtuous: And consider; he has gone ahead, soon I shall follow. All the essential features of Lipsius' contubernium are here: the student born to a family of high municipal standing; the teaching and daily ex ample of Lipsius as the guarantee of a distinguished career; the Lipsian virtues of learning and modesty; a career begun in the service of leaders In S. Asterii Homiliae, 141. Both versions are given in CDR 6.333—34. Among the abbreviations note I.C. (Iuris Consulto) and P.C. (ponendum curavit). Philip's age is given as thirty-eight because he was in the thirty-eighth year of his life.
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in church and state, and leading to high office in the administration of the city; and finally, a virtuous life centered upon the love of wife and chil dren. The epitaph is a recreation of the Roman virtue of pietas—duty towards god, state, and family—as defined by Cicero and practiced by the Stoics." 2 The epitaph expresses the ideals of the circle of Lipsius, which were held by Woverius as strongly as by Philip Rubens. If we turn once again to The Four Philosophers and consider the painting with Woverius as our focus, we can see that it commemorates Woverius' devotion to Lipsius, his friendship with Philip Rubens, and his continuing friendship with Pe ter Paul Rubens. We have seen that his devotion to Lipsius' memory led him to defend Lipsius against the insults of his enemies and critics, to participate in the publication of Lipsius' Fama Postuma, and to prepare the posthumous editions of two centuriae of letters and of the Tacitus and Seneca. Lipsius, indeed, laid a heavy burden on Woverius, who amply repaid his teacher's affection and support, which was frequently shown in his letters. For example, here is part of Lipsius' letter enclosing his epitaph: adesses, plura dicerem. amavi enim te, amo: idque in vita ostendam &C post earn, quam carus, quam alte insitus huic adfectui sis. imo si gratia mihi & vita apud posteros sit (nec plane diffido;) & tuum nomen, atque amor in me, iure vivent, sicut Pomponii illius cum Tullio, Lucilii cum Seneca. . . . vale, mi optime, Sc semper meus, quia non desinam esse tuus, nec cum desmani.' 1 ' If you were here, I would say more. For I have loved you, [and] I love you [still]: and this will I show in my life and after—how dear you are, how deeply rooted in my affections. Indeed, if I have any influ ence and any continuing life among future generations (and of this I am confident), both your name and your love for me will rightly live, just as the name and love of Pomponius [Atticus] live with Cicero, and those of Lucilius with Seneca. . . . Farewell, my best [sc. of friends], and forever mine, because I shall never cease to be yours, not even when I shall cease to be. There is much artistry in this expression of love, however sincerely it articulates Lipsius' emotions. In the first place, the parallel with the two The most eloquent statement of the Stoic's public duty is in Cicero's Somnium Seipionis in Rep., 6.9—29. Panaetius was almost certainly Cicero's principal Stoic source: see Phillipson, R-E. 7.1116-17. For pietas cf. Cicero, De Inv., 2..66. Printed at the beginning of the Fama Postuma in Op. Omn. vol. 1.
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPSIUS
great pairs of correspondents in ancient Rome gives the relationship be tween Lipsius and Woverius a public context; it removes his letters to Woverius from the realm of private emotions and sets them with the most famous collections of published letters from antiquity. Thus Lipsius as sumes the roles also of Cicero and Seneca, Woverius those of Atticus and Lucilius, audience and adviser to the great public figure. Secondly, Lipsius does not conceal his concern for his posthumous glory, which Woverius is to help achieve and to share. Nevertheless, Lipsius shared Woverius' joys and sorrows; he wrote to congratulate him on his marriage, and to console him on the death of his brother. 114 The consolation, indeed, is among the best of Lipsius' letters of condolence. It was written only a few months before Lipsius' own death, and it shows how closely connected affection for his friend and student was with concern for his posthumous reputation. 11 ' Lipsius re vealed himself to Woverius with more candor and, paradoxically, with more contrivance than to any other friend. When he sent his autobio graphical letter and his epitaph he was writing as much to posterity as to Woverius. But when he thanked Woverius for the Eucbaristicum he boasted of his own achievements in a way that would have been unthink able except to a trusted friend. In the hendecasyllables which he inscribed in Woverius' Album on the occasion of his departure from Leuven, he wrote: En scripto tibi pectoris recessus nostri pandimus intimosque amores: hos habe, sine fraude, &c hos habebis dum me terra, vel aether ipse habebit. 116 See, in my writing I reveal to you the recesses and the secret loves of my heart; take them, without deceit, and you will have them so long as earth, or heaven itself, has me. There are many other examples of Lipsius' special affection for Wo verius. Yet the quality of friendship between them seems to have been somewhat different from that between Lipsius and Philip Rubens. Lipsius looked upon Philip as a son, and on occasion he used the vocabulary of "·» Respectively Ep. Misc. 4.82 and 5.86. I1! E.g., sincere dicam, patientius ego diem meum exspecto, quia te superstitem destino, & eorum etiam quae post mortem volo curatorem, "I will say sincerely that I wait for the day of my death more patiently because 1 plan for you to be my survivor and the adminis trator also of my will." liS Quoted in full by Sweerts, Atbenae Belgicae, 487.
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love to express his emotions. 117 For Woverius his affection was tempered by the knowledge that he had embarked upon an administrative career in the service of the state; as he said in the verses inscribed in the Album, Woverius cultivated severa Pallas along with the Musas amoeniores. By this Lipsius meant that Woverius would use his intelligence (Minerva be ing the goddess of wisdom) in the service of the state, enduring the sacri fices required of public servants (this is the implication of severa), after enjoying the contemplative and private pleasures of scholarship in the contubernium of Lipsius. 118 Thus it was to Woverius that Lipsius com mitted his autobiography and epitaph, and it was he, rather than Philip, whom he appointed to be one of his executors and the sole executor re sponsible for his literary remains. Woverius richly repaid Lipsius' trust, both in his loyalty to the memory of his teacher and friend, and in his public career. For we must remember, once more, that service to the state was one of the goals of education in Lipsius' contubernium, in keeping with the ideals of Neostoic virtus. Woverius' career in the service of the Archdukes was distinguished, as was his service to the citizens of Antwerp. He published a Panegyricum to the Archdukes in 1609, and he dedicated his Vita Beati Simonis Valentini to them.' 19 His family, also, shared his loyalty to the Spanish gov ernment, and among the more extraordinary productions of panegyric literature of the time is the eulogy by his son, Frangois, delivered in 1623 on the first anniversary of the death of the Archduke Albert, when Franςοίβ was twelve. 110 Let us leave Woverius, however, in a more congenial context than that of panegyric and return once more to The Four Philosophers, for now we have laboriously discovered how accurate a representation Peter Paul Ru bens created of the intellectual and emotional relationships among the three seated scholars. Over them in the painting presides the genius of 117 For example, Ep. ad Belg. 2.97: O dti borti bonum. palpo non te percutio, sed cum Syracusio: πλήρες τοι μέλιτος τό καΚόν στόμα: os plenum tu mellis habes, "Ο good gods, [grant what is] good. 1 do not strike you with my hand; rather, like the Syracusan [poet, Theocritus, I say], 'Your mouth is full of sweetness.' " (Palpo . . . percutio is quoted from Plautus, Ampb. 526, and Merc. 153; the Greek quotation is from Theocritus, Id. 1.146.) Brant's Vita, in Rubens' S. Asterii Homiliae, 134-35, makes very clear the unusual warmth of the relationship, such that Philip became non ut discipulus, sed ut filius Lipsio . . . coniunctissimus. ' l H The lines are qui Musas colis has amoeniores, / nec solas tamen has, sed & severa I gaudes Pallade, Pallademque nectis / cum Virtute simul Modestiaque, "[You] who cultivate the more pleasure-giving Muses here [in my contubernium], yet not only these, but you delight also in the more austere Minerva, and you bind Minerva together with Virtue and Moderation." 119 See BB 5:875-76. See BB 5:871-72; the panegyric was published by Moretus in 1623.
THE FRIENDS AND PUPILS OF LIPS1US
Seneca, and it is fitting to take our leave of Woverius and his friends with the Senecan sententia inscribed on the portrait medallion by Adrien Waterloos (Fig. 13): HONESTI COMES RATIO—"Reason, the companion of Virtue."131 The phrase accurately expresses the ideals and integrity of Philip Rubens and Woverius, the most distinguished of Lipsius' contubernales. 'J' See BB 5:873 and 874. The phrase is taken from Seneca, Ben. 4.10.2.. Cf. Quintilian, Inst. 12.1.28: honesti praesens imago. See Van Loon, Histoire, 2:109—10 (fig. 13) for the medallions showing the chain of Woverius' rank as Eques and his titles as Councillor to the King and "Seigneur de Quenaste." Cf. McGrath, " Musathena " 233—45, with fig. 7od.
3 SELF-PORTRAIT WITH FRIENDS
C O N T U B E R N I U M was the most intense form of Stoic friendship. As re newed by Lipsius, and celebrated by Peter Paul Rubens, it was a means of creating a close-knit circle of friends who, as Lipsius wrote, "shared their feelings in all things human and divine." 1 Thus it was the context for moral and intellectual training, leading its members to serve humanity in church, state, and university. As scholars, administrators, or teachers, they shared high moral ideals and a practical concern with effective leadership. The basis for their ambitious goals was mastery of classical studies, in particular the history and literature of ancient Rome. Lipsius evidently had unique ability to interpret Roman literature for sixteenthcentury students, most particularly in political theory and personal mo rality. In this chapter we shall examine his re-creation of Stoic friendship, by focusing first upon friends whom he had known personally and com memorated in an idealized and literary context, and then upon friend ships that were maintained principally through correspondence. In each of these categories there is an element of theatricality: we observe these friendships as if we are spectators in a drama directed by Lipsius himself, in which he is the author and principal actor. Thus we are now more concerned with the self-presentation of the scholar. We will no longer be looking into the room painted by Rubens, where the three scholars sit round the table; rather, we shall ourselves be in the room, without the painter as our interpreter. We become spectators of, indeed participants in, the tbeatrum Lipsianum. Though we recognize an element of self-consciousness in Lipsius' production, we can also grant to Lipsius some measure of sincerity, in that he made genuine and longlasting friendships, and that he throve on the approval of his friends. Lipsius' biographer, Miraeus, describes the large number of visitors who would visit him in his house or garden: ' Manud.
3.16.
SELF-PORTRAIT WITH FRIENDS
Qua erat morum facilitate ac comitate, binas fere horas a meridie, sumpto prandio, studiosis adolescentibus ad se venientibus dabat; exteris vero undique confluentibus patebat semper: ut eius domiciIium . . . non dico Belgicae, sed universae oraculum Europae videretur. 1 He was so friendly and easy to approach that he would give up about two hours in the early afternoon each day, after his meal, for young students who came to him. He was always available for foreigners who came from all parts, so that his house seemed to be . . . the or acle, not merely of Belgium, but of the whole of Europe. Miraeus is emphasizing the comitas of Lipsius, an attribute especially valued in the Roman Republic and frequently praised by Cicero.' It is often linked with facilitas, and it was a virtue appropriate to the noble man whose duties included the daily reception of his clientes. In other words, it was a feature of the person who, by reason of his political or social position (and in Cicero's world these were often synonymous), could respond to the requests of clientes who were his inferiors. 4 Lipsius seems to have been re-creating the Roman institution of clientship in an academic context: that is, he, as professor, was, through his superior knowledge, in the position of intellectual patronus to those who con sulted with him, and therefore his house was open at stated hours to those who wanted his help. This is somewhat different from the modern custom of a professor holding "office hours" or tutorials. Lipsius' custom derives rather from Greek methods of teaching philosophy, in which the philosopher met with his disciples informally in a garden or portico. 5 Such instruction would be conducted more through conversation, or question and answer, than by means of lecturing, and in such a context the virtue of comitas was extremely important. Lipsius describes himself as bentgnus, comis, & quem vereri posses, non timere, "kindly, approachable, and a person whom you could respect, not fear." This modest and unthreatening per1
Op. Omn. 1 . J 3 .
* F(fr'th/patron-client relationship see OCD 1 , s.vv. "cliens," "patronus"; Kl Pauly, s.v. Cl ,'lTg^Plato in the Academy, Aristotle in the Lyceum, Epicurus in the Garden, and Zeno in the Stoa Poikile. See Morford, "Stoic Garden," 154-55· Miraeus deliberately called Lip sius' garden a Lyceum and Academy; cf. Cicero's descriptions of the gymnasia at his Tusculan villa, Att. 1-4-3, 1-9-*; Tusc. 2..9-, and Div. 1 .8, z.8.
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sona is adopted also when he describes the reaction of visitors: in cultu, gestu, sermone modici: & exterorum qui Lipsium videbant, saepe requirebant.6 In Rome the idea of a circle of friends united by a shared interest in intellectual, political, and moral matters seems to have taken hold under the influence of Panaetius, and it is exemplified in the circle of friends (including Panaetius) that centered upon Scipio Aemilianus, who died in 129 B.C. Thus this type of friendship was especially associated with the Stoics, who grafted the Greek idea of a group of philosophical students around a teacher onto the Roman institution of clientship. In literary con texts it provides the setting for several of Cicero's philosophical dia logues, and in the early Empire it became a means for independentminded aristocrats to pursue political and philosophical discussion with friends, when freedom of speech in public was severely restricted. Tacitus describes such conversations at the final crises in the lives of two Stoic leaders, Rubellius Plautus and Thrasea Paetus. 7 The former was warned of his impending death sentence by a secret message, yet his friends, doctores sapientiae, advised him to show constancy in awaiting his execution rather than try to escape. Thrasea, the most prominent of Stoic critics of Nero, was found by the messenger bearing his death sentence in his gar dens, "surrounded by a crowd of distinguished men and women" and attending most particularly to the words of the Greek Cynic philosopher, Demetrius, with whom he was discussing "the nature of the soul and the separation of body and spirit." Lipsius had the greatest admiration for Thrasea 8 and may have had him in mind as he created his ideal of the philosopher surrounded by friends. Lipsius, however, chose the persona of Horace as his model for the portrait of the busy literary man constantly interrupted by those who want his help. 9 Thus, with a lightly satirical touch he draws the self-dep* "I am restrained in my dress, my movements, and my conversation: and visitors who saw Lipsius often had to ask which was he." This and the previous quotation come at the end of the autobiographical letter, Ep. Misc. 3.87. 7 Tacictus, Ann. 14.59.2, 16.34.1. 8 Expressed most eloquently in his commentary on Tacitus, Ann. 16.2.1 (pp. 297-98 in the 1607 edition). He wrote, but did not publish, Thrasea, sive De Mortis Contemtu (sic), according to Miraeus, Vita Iusti Lipsi, in Op. Omn. 1:35. Cf. ILE 1.291, December 19, 1583, and 176, October 29, 1581. Daniel Heinsius complained about Lipsius' failure to publish his Thrasea in an epigram in the Leiden collection of memorial poems for Lipsius, Epicedia in Obitum . . . Iusti Lipsi, 34. In a letter to G. Falkenburg (Ep. Misc. 1.4, August i, 1575) Lipsius named Thrasea (along with Socrates, Seneca, and Helvidius Priscus) as examples of constancy in the face of tyranny. ' See Phys. Stoic. 3.1, where an eager student calls upon Lipsius early in the morning. Lipsius also quotes Seneca, Brev. Vit. 19, for the bother of attending to the concerns of others, and Seneca, Ep. 62.2, for the Stoic being essentially undisturbed by his visitors: cum
SELF-PORTRAIT WITH FRIENDS
recatmg picture of the approachable professor, whose virtues of comitas and facilitas lead him to put the needs of his friends and students before his own. Despite the self-irony, however, Lipsius does admit that seeing students is the one officium that he does not regret. Elsewhere, in his in troductory Indicium super Seneca, he quotes a passage from Seneca that describes his own persona in conversation and correspondence: Qualis sermo meus esset, si una sederemus aut ambularemus, ILLABORATUS &c FACILIS, tales esse Epistolas meas volo. 10 I want my letters to be like my conversation, if we were sitting or walking together, spontaneous and easy. These, then, are the elements in Lipsius' persona: the Roman Republi can gentleman who welcomes his friends and visitors in his house; the Roman philosopher who, like Cicero and many of the Greek philoso phers, discusses philosophy informally with his friends; and the Roman Stoic, whose inner liberty is not impaired by external threats. This com plex persona is presented with the Roman virtues of comitas and facilitas, lightened by the self-deprecatory (but by no means humble) irony of the Roman satirist and scholar Horace. It is clear that the persona adopted by Lipsius in this aspect of his friendships was essentially derived from literary models and was there fore presented to the public in literary contexts. This method has a long history in classical literature, most especially in the philosophical dia logues of Plato and Cicero. It is different from the practice of Seneca, whose Dialogues are conversations only in name, or from the Sermones of Horace." It is different also from the method of Seneca's letters. Al though it is true that Lipsius often does refer to informal visits in his let ters, the most extended presentations of the type of relationship that we have been analyzing occur in his literary dialogues. Three examples will be sufficient, of which the first is Lipsius' friendship with the French clas sical scholar, Marcus Antonius Muretus (Marc Antoine Muret, 152.61585), who was in the service of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este from 1559 until me amicis dedi, non tamen mihi abduco. For the Horatian persona cf. Sat. 2.6.3z—39 ar *d 59—6z. *° P. vii of the 1615 edition of Seneca: the capitals are Lipsius'. The quotation is from the beginning of Letter 75, in which Seneca is justifying the informality of his epistolary style: quis ettim accurate loquitur nisi qui vult putide loqui? "For who speaks with precision unless he wants to be affected?" 11 The word means "conversations" and was Horace's own title for his satires.
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d'Este's death in 1572. 12 From 1563 he held a chair at the University of Rome, lecturing on Philosophy and Law; after 1572 he was Professor of Rhetoric. Muret was a slow publisher, and his scholarship was transmit ted chiefly through his lectures; thus his notes on Tacitus, compiled in 1564, were not published before Lipsius' editions, and it was only in 1604 that his commentary on part of the Annates was published.* 3 Lipsius' first published work, which established his reputation as a scholar, was Variarum Lectionum Libri IV, written before he went to Rome in 1568 and published in 1569. 14 At the time when it was written, Lipsius was barely twenty years old and unknown to the leading scholars of Europe. He wrote the work to gain access to scholars and church lead ers in Rome, and he was quite candid in admitting that gloria was one of his further goals. 15 He was successful, and the dedication to Cardinal Granvelle (Antoine Perrenot) gained him appointment as Granvelle's Sec retary for Latin Letters, and thus the entree to the most influential eccle siastical and scholarly circles in Rome. In his autobiographical letter, written in 1600, he lists the names of the scholars whom he met in Rome/ 6 among whom was Muret, who was twenty-one years older than Lipsius. In 1586 Lipsius' dialogue De Recta Pronunciatione Linguae Latinae was published by Raphelengius at Leiden, and the history of this work proves to be informative about Lipsius' manipulation of his selfportrait in his friendships. 17 Lipsius reached Rome in the autumn of 1568 and stayed there until April 1570; in May 1569 he began to live in the entourage of Granvelle. He was well armed with letters of recommendation, among which was one from Cornelius Wouters to Muret. 18 On August 31, 1569, Lipsius 11 For Muret see Dejob, Muret; NBG 36:997—99; BU 2.9:606—8; Croll, "Muret"; and Etter, Tacitus, 45-58 (115-21 for the quarrel with Lipsius). The fullest discussion of his relations with Lipsius is Ruysschaert, "Le Sejour," 156-62 for the quarrel, 162.-92. for their correspondence. Cf. Ruysschaert, Juste Lipse et Ies Annates, 42-47 and 154-63; Ruys schaert "Juste Lipse. Editeur"; Brink, "Justus Lipsius"; Ulery, "Cornelius Tacitus," 12122, 125—29. 1 ' Commentarii in Quinque Libros Annalium Cornelii Taciti. See Etter, Tacitus, 57, n. 82. •i BB 3 : 9 9 3 - 9 5 . For the problems over the original date of publication see below, Ch. 4, n. 150. In the revised introduction to the 1599 edition (published in 1600; see BB 3:1017) he says, Vtx novem decennes eramus cum Varias istas dedimus, & viam stilo ac famae stravimus, "1 was hardly nineteen (sic) years old when 1 published those Variae and made the road for my pen and fame." 16 Ep. Misc. 3.87; cf. Bergmans, "L'Autobiographie," nn. 26—31. 17 BB 3:1062. The work was dedicated to Philip Sidney, who died at Arnhem on October 17, 1586 (DNB 18:228, ILE 2.506); the dedication is reprinted in ILE 2.461. The dialogue is printed at the end of Op. Omn. vol. 1, with separate pagination. 18 For Wouters (1512—1578—his Latin name was Cornelius Valerius), see BN 27:399402, BB 5:420. ILE 1.62 (Ep. Misc. 1.1), the first letter in Lipsius' published collection, is
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wrote to Muret (who was then at d'Este's villa in Tivoli) sending him a copy of his Variarum Lectionum Libri IV, which he had recently received from Plantin. 19 Lipsius and Muret had already met in Rome, at least some weeks earlier, and their friendship was already well established by August 1569." In April 1570 Lipsius left Rome to return to Leuven, and he took with him Muret s reply to Wouters' letter of recommendation, praising Lipsius in the highest terms: Redit ad te Lipsius tuus, redit magno meo dolore. ita enim me devinxit sibi, praestantia ingenii et doctrinae, integritate morum, suavitate sermonis ac consuetudinis suae, ut eo discedente, a memetipso mihi avelli viderer. felicem te, Cornell, cuius ex disciplina adolescens tam rari exempli prodiit." Your Lipsius is returning to you, to my great sorrow. For he has bound himself to me by the excellence of his intellect and scholar ship, by his integrity of character, by the pleasure of his conversation and company, in such a way that when he left I felt that part of my self was being torn from me. You are fortunate, Cornelius, in having a young man of such extraordinary qualities as your graduate. Even allowing for the hyperbole inevitable in a letter of this sort, it is clear that Lipsius made a deep impression immediately upon Muret, and their correspondence during Lipsius' time in Rome and after his return to Leuven shows beyond all doubt that their friendship was genuine." In 1574, however, Lipsius published his text of Tacitus, incorporating as his own a number of emendations that had first been made by others, includ ing Muret. Muret was furious, and in 1576, in the introduction to book 11 of his Variae Lectiones, he accused Lipsius of plagiarizing the readings that Muret had shown him during their time together in Rome: Multa iam notaveram in C. Cornelium Taciturn, eaque, ut soleo, cum amicis compluribus communicaveram: cogitabamque eum, si daretur occasio, edere a multis, studio atque opera mea, errorum maaddressed to Wouters. It is very labored, and the editor of ILE is probably right in suggesting that it is a literary fiction. Wouters became Professor of Latin at Leuven in 1557 and was the teacher of Lipsius, who in the autobiographical letter (Ep. Misc. 3.87) refers to him as ductore omnium nostrum . . . & quasi chorago. Cf. Bergmans "L'Autobiographie," 328, n. 16. ILE 1.7. 10 Vervliet, Lipsius' Jeugd, 28, suggests July 1569 as the date of their first meeting, which was in d'Este's gardens on the Quirinal in Rome and not (as stated by Croll and others) at Tivoli. Lipsius' first letter to Muret, ILE 1.5, was dated August 15, by which time Muret was at Tivoli. " Ruysschaert, "Le Sejour," 167, no. 5; Bergmans, "L'Autobiographie," 434, n. 30. l i ILE 1.8, September 17, 1570; 1.11, September 20, 1570; 1.13, July 6, 1571.
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culis vindicatum. sed dum diem ex die duco expectans eius quod animo conceperam efficiendi atque exequendi maturitatem, ecce tibi Iustus Lipsius adolescens eleganti ingenio praeditus, mihique dura Romae fuit, perfamiliaris, tamdiu sibi cunctandum esse non putavit. sed cum ipse quoque ex veteribus libris, quos hie nactus erat, multa correxisset, Taciti libros a se emendatos et illustratos publicavit. qui cum ad me perlati essent, eosque una ego et Gisbertus Oddus Perusinus, quicum ego ante hos duodecim annos Taciturn totum diligenter evolveram, curiose cum eo, qui turn a me emendatus erat, conferre ac contendere coepissemus, deprehendimus ita saepe incurrisse utrumque nostrum in eadem vestigia, ut, qui rem non nosset, pleraque sumpsisse alterum ab altero furto suspicaretur. quam talem suspicionem et a me, si nihil aliud, temporum ratio facile amolitur: neque cadere in Lipsium sinit fides ipsius ac probitas; qua ille non minus quam ingenio excellit. 13 I had already made many notes on Tacitus and, as was my custom, I had shared these with many friends; it was my intention to publish Tacitus, when I had the opportunity, freed, thanks to my research and work, from many errors. But while I waited day after day to finish and bring to fruition what I intended, behold, Justus Lipsius, a young man endowed with an elegant intellect and my close associate while he was in Rome, did not think that he should wait so long. Instead, since he himself had made many corrections from old books that he had seen in Rome, he published Tacitus' works with his own emendations and notes. When these reached me, and I, with Gisbert de Oddis of Perugia (with whom twelve years ago I had carefully read the whole of Tacitus) began to compare and contrast them with my earlier emendations, we realized that Lipsius and I had trodden in the same steps so often that anyone who did not know the facts would have suspected that one had stolen a good deal from the other. I am easily cleared from this suspicion, if for no other reason, by the chronology; and Lipsius' own honesty and integrity do not allow suspicion to fall on him, for he excels in these virtues no less than in his intellect. [Muret goes on to liken himself to a father whose daugh ters, impatient with his failure to find them husbands, find them for themselves.] II Variarum Lectionum Libri XV, 155 - 5 7 , preface toBookn ( = ScriptaSelecta, 2 . 1 7 5 ) . Much of the preface is taken up with discussion of specific emendations made by Muret and Lipsius, which tempers the charge of plagiarism.
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Centuries later it has become all too clear that Muret's charges were well founded, although Lipsius was acting no differently from his con temporaries (including Muret himself) in not giving credit for emenda tions appropriated from others. ^ At the time, however, Lipsius attempted to justify himself and made some effort to preserve the weakened links of the friendship, to no avail. Muret replied on May 19, 1576, unappeased, and the correspondence ceased until July 1579, when Plantin brought the two former friends into contact once again. 1 ' The reconciliation was sealed by Lipsius' letter of October 30, 1579, and Muret's reply of Feb ruary 8, 1580, the last letter in their correspondence. 16 Meanwhile Mu ret's Variae Lectiones had remained incomplete and unpublished, despite repeated appeals from Plantin, and it was only in May of 1580 that the work was printed, complete with the charges in book 11 that Lipsius may have seen in manuscript in 1576. 17 The reconciliation between Lipsius and Muret was not complete, and Muret cannot have been appeased by the appearance in 1581 of the second edition of Lipsius' Tacitus, still without acknowledgments. On July 7, 1582, Muret wrote to Jean Chif flet, the brother of Claude Chifflet, who had died in 1580 leaving in man uscript a commentary on Tacitus. 18 This had been shown to Lipsius in 1571, when he visited Dole, where Claude Chifflet was Professor of Law. In the letter Muret advised Jean Chifflet to publish the commentary, so as to vindicate his brother's memory and make clear to the world the extent of Lipsius' plagiarism. 19 Muret used strong language to characterize Lipsius as ventosum ilium laudum suarum praeconem, "that windy puffer of his own praises," and illo vaniloquidoro, "that Mr. Windbagliar."' 0 Word of these renewed charges reached Lipsius, and on April 5, 1584, he This is the view of Brink, "Justus Lipsius," 35-36. For Muret's unacknowledged bor rowings from Lambinus' Horace, see Etter, Tacitus, 118, n. 123. The collapse of Muret's friendship with Lambinus is documented in their correspondence; see M. Antonii Mureti Epistolae^ 361—92.. Cf. Dejob, Muret^ 160—66, " SeeILE 1.65 and 66 (Ruysschaert, "Le Sejour," I947> n o s · 1 4 a n c l 15) f° r the exchange of letters in 1576 and Ruysschaert, no. 2.0, for Plantin s letter to M-uret of July 9* *579> offering Lipsius' olive branch. Plantin was in Leiden at the time. 16 ILE ι.ioz and 107, nos. 22 and 25 in Ruysschaert, "Le Sejour." " ILE 1.66, for the availability of the manuscript in 1576: Peto a te . . . , te oro, ut undecimum librum variarum lectionum tnearum a Plantino inspiciendum roges. See Ruys schaert, "Le Sejour," 156, for the date of publication. ^ 18 Ruysschaert, "Le Sejour," 160 and 190-91, no. 27. See Ulery, "Cornelius Tacitus, 121-23, for Chifflet, the problems of whose unpublished work are examined by Ruys schaert, "Juste Lipse," 144—54. . . « The details are given by Brink, "Justus Lipsius," 50-51; cf. 31 and n. 26, for Lipsius erasing the name of Chifflet in the marginal notes of the copy in which he had recorded Chifflet's emendations. 3° This splendid Latin term was coined by Plautus, Persae, 702.
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wrote to Francisco Benci (who had been his closest friend during his time in Rome) to ask him to greet Muret and assure him of his continuing friendship and regard. 31 Lipsius did not, and could not, refute the charge of plagiarism; in the letter to Benci he merely said: Taciturn edidi. quid ergo? an illius? quae haec iniuria est si campum eundem Famae decurri sine fraude? I published [the works of] Tacitus. Well? Was it Muret's edition that I published? What harm was it if I openly entered the same race for Fame [as Muret]? At about the same time Lipsius wrote a more elaborate defence in a chapter of his Electorum Libri 11 headed Cum viro magna arnica velitatio, the unnamed vir magnus being Muret. 31 His arguments are not convinc ing, for all their vigor and wit. It is clear, nevertheless, that Lipsius contin ued to want Muret's friendship: haec ad te, non in te, mihi dicta, Vir magne: quern amo, quern aestimo, "I have said these things to you, not against you, great man, for I love you, I value you." The evidence con firms the accuracy of Scaliger's judgment: furatus est emendationes.33 This complicated story is the background to the dialogue De Recta Pronunciatione Linguae Latinae, published a year after the death of Muret, in which Lipsius sought to re-create the friendship that he and Muret had enjoyed in Rome. Therefore the occasion is made to be their first meeting; Lipsius, in the heat of summer, determines to visit Muret and finds him in D'Este's gardens on the Quirinal. Lipsius was young and unknown, and Muret was a great classical scholar, whose character was further distinguished by comitas and lepos (wit), the former attribute, as we have seen, essential to the Lipsian persona of the scholar-gentleman. Muret, moreover, was endowed with the antique virtue of humanitas, so that "his house and his mouth were rarely closed to anyone." 34 Thus the " ILE 2..32.9; Ruysschaert, "Le Sejour," no. 28. " Electorum Libri II, 2.23. " Scaligeriana (1666), 237. Scaliger is speaking of Muret's excellent Latin style and says, Lipsius nihil prae illo, & invidebat illi, furatus est emendationes. He makes the same charge on p. 204: insignia plagia commisit in Taeito a Mureto edoctus, sed iuvenis multa sibi tribuit tamquam propria. Ruysschaert, "Juste Lipse," 162-63, partially (but unconvincingly) ex onerates Lipsius with regard to Muret. No defence can be made in the case of Chifflet (cf. Ruysschaert, 144—54). ' 4 Muret gives a more realistic picture in Epistolae, 3.29 (pp. 241—42 in the 1874 edition): iam quantum mihi temporis auferri putas ab istis, qui, quoties ipsi nihil quod agant habent, alios quoque omnes diffluere otio existimant? veniunt, admitti volunt; nisi admittuntur, fremunt; inhumanum esse me et difficilem conqueruntur. admissi. . . in alienissimos et mihi molestissimos sermones ingrediuntur; "now how much of my time do you think is wasted by those who, whenever they have nothing to do, think that everybody else is luxuriating in
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ancient Roman character of Muret is established. Lipsius comes upon him in the gardens reading a book, which is none other than his own Variarum Lectionum Libri IVl So the introduction is made by this happy coincidence, and their friendship is established. In the context of the De Recta Pronunciatione, Muret is actually reading the passage in book ζ (which was Lipsius' original Convivium, to be discussed below) in which Lipsius and his friends discuss the pronunciation of early Latin, and he takes the opportunity to improve on Lipsius' work in the ensuing dia logue. Thus Lipsius revised an early work that in 1586 he found unsatis factory, he created an idealized picture of his friendship with Muret, and he paid tribute to the memory of a scholar whose affection and respect he regretted losing. The artificiality of the portrait can be shown from vari ous details—for example, the fact that he did not send the Variarum Lectionum Libri IV to Muret until some time after their friendship had been established. This, however, is trivial, compared with the fact that Lipsius was creating two portraits: of the older scholar befriending the younger with comitas and humanitas, and of himself as the modest but eager young man, willing to learn from Muret and able to converse with him on scholarly matters of mutual interest. The dialogue overlooks the quar rel over Tacitus and paints the friendship in a golden color. At the same time it draws the portrait of the scholar and teacher that Lipsius himself had become by 1586, when he was at the height of his powers at Leiden. Our second example of a literary portrait of friendship also is closely connected with the Variarum Leetionum Libri IV. In the original version of 1569 the first part of book ζ consisted of a Convivium, in which Lip sius and his friends Carrio and Deinius talked over dinner in Lipsius' gar den, being joined towards the end by a fourth friend, Martinius. Lipsius was evidently dissatisfied with this version, and he removed book ζ from the 1585 edition of the Variarum Leetionum Libri III, in which the orig inal books i, 3, and 4 appeared largely unchanged.' 5 The part of book ζ that dealt with the pronunciation of Latin he revised and recast in the dialogue De Recta Pronunciatione Linguae Latinae, whose purpose was, as we have already seen, to honor the memory of Muret and idealize his leisure? They come, they want to be let in; if they are refused admission, they complain loudly that 1 am being uncivilized and difficult. When they do come in they launch into talk that I find most irrelevant and boring." Muret, like Lipsius in Phys. Stoic. 3.1 (see above, n. 9), adopts the persona of the busy professor. » In the Ad Lectorem of the 1585 edition Lipsius says, librum secundum totum recidi. quia in Antiquis rectractaveram: & quae hie praetera de Pronuntiatione linguae Latinae erant, plenius & uberius alibi exsequimur. See BB 3:994: in 1599 Lipsius changed the Ad Lectorem again {see n. 15 above) to fit in with his dating of the original edition to 1566.
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friendship with Lipsius. The Convivium itself had been completely re written and was published in 1575 as book 3 of the Antiquae LectionesJ 6 The new Convivium again presents an idealized picture of Lipsius' friendships. In this case Lipsius is the host, but one who is a contemporary of his friends and not, as in the case of Muret and de Langhe (in the De Constantia), one who belongs to an older generation. The picture, there fore, shows friendship among equals. Like Muret, Lipsius welcomes his visitors in the garden, a peaceful and relaxed setting. Like the portrait of Muret, the Convivium commemorates friends who have recently died, for two of the participants were dead by 1575—Deinius died in Mechelen a few days after the dramatic date of the 1569 Convivium, and Martinius in mysterious circumstances in Naples in 1572. Lipsius mourns their deaths in the dedicatory introduction to book 3, and the book ends with two epitaphs in honor of Deinius. Thus the book served to re-create a golden past, idealizing friendships that had been ended by early death. 37 The new Convivium was dedicated to Ludovicus Carrio (Louis Car rion, 1546—1595), still in 1575 a close friend of Lipsius, with whom his relations were extremely strained for a decade, from 158Z until 1593. 58 The three friends are named in the autobiographical letter as students together at Leuven: sed compares mihi comitesque in iisdem studiis Ludovicus Carrio, Franciscus Martinius, Arnoldus Deinius. Lipsius groups them separately from Delrio, Ghiselin, Lernout, and Schott, who were Lipsius' closest lifelong friends, while Delrio was primarily responsible for Lipsius' return to the Catholic church in 1591—159Z. The Convivium recalls the friendship of Lipsius' fellow students at Leuven, it commemo rates the two who died young, and it honors Carrio, in whom Lipsius > 6 Antiquarum Lectionum Commentarius, Tributus in Libros Quinque; in quibus varia scriptorum loca, Plauti praecipue, illustrantur aut emendantur. See BB 3 : 9 9 1 — 9 3 , which includes a summary of book 3 . " See Bergmans, "L'Autobiographie," 3 2 6 - 1 7 , nn. 1 4 , 1 5 ; Vervliet, Lipsius' Jeugd, 1 8 , nn. i, 2, reports the few details that are known about Deinius and Martinius. Lipsius'verse epitaph for Martinius was printed by Sweerts, Musae Errantes, 3 9 ; see also p. 5 3 for the verse epitaph for Deinius. Deinius' second epitaph, an inscription, emphasizes Lipsius' friendship: lustus Lipsius / Amoris et Amicit(iae) C(ausa) / Hunc Titulum et Tumulum P(osuit). A laudatory poem by Martinius prefaces Carrio's edition of Valerius Flaccus (An twerp.· Plantin, 1 5 6 5 ) . ' 8 See Bergmans, "L'Autobiographie," 3 2 4 - 2 6 , n. 1 3 ; BN 3 : 3 5 2 - 5 7 ; ILE 1 . 8 , note to I. 50. The quarrel probably originated in Carrio's disapproval of Lipsius' lack of orthodoxy in religion. Carrio's homosexuality and alleged dishonesty may also have contributed: see Scaligeriana ( 1 6 6 6 ) , 6 2 — 6 3 , f° r details, which are disputed in BU 7 : 6 6 . Scaliger gives a detailed and circumstantial account of Carrio's dishonesty in a letter to Lipsius (ILE 2.386, November 4 , 1 5 8 4 ) . The reconciliation between Lipsius and Carrio is recorded in an ex change of letters between Lipsius and Del Rio in 1 5 9 3 (Burman, Sylloge, 1. 5 1 4 - 1 5 ) . Carrio became Professor of Law at Leuven in 1 5 8 6 and died three years after Lipsius' return there.
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rec~gnized a fine scholar. During the period of their friendship their affection was expressed in the warmest terms, while in the decade of their estrangement Lipsius was capable of equally strong abuse.~9 In 1575, however, both had recently published editions of Roman historians: Lipsius' Tacitus had first appeared in 1574, and Carrio's Sallust in 1573.40 It was appropriate, therefore, for Lipsius to recognize Carrio by the dedication of the new Convivium. Carrio was delighted; in a letter dated December 29, 1574, he thanks Lipsius for the dedication: De Convivio tuo immutato, seu potius renovato, vehementer tibi gratulor. de libro mihi dedicato valde gaudeo, et supra quam dici potest, amo te.4 I
About your revised, or rather rewritten, Convivium, I congratulate you warmly. I am delighted at the dedication of the book to me and I love you more than I can say. In this letter Carrio also praises Lipsius' Tacitus, of which Plantin had sent him a copy, while he delicately links it to his own SallustY All of this makes quite dear that Lipsius was creating a portrait in the 1575 Convivium of a group of young friends, of whom the two survivors shared the glory of publishing the works of the great Roman historians. The convivium was a well-recognized literary convention for scholarly discussion,43 and its informal structure allowed Lipsius to range over .19 For Lipsius' affection, see ILE 1.8, September 17,1570 (Lipsius to Muret): Carrion is mei suavissimos oculos statim adveniens sum dissuaviatus; and ILE. 1.55, December 2.9, 1574 (Carrio to Lipsius): ita, quae opto contingant, ut ante omnia Lips; mei vultum et mellitissimos oculos videre mihi visus sim, et praesens dissuaviari ... vale, ocelle Belgarum, mea iucunditas. For his abuse, see ILE 2.32.1, March 7,1584 (Lipsius to Lernutius): epigrammata tua purissima in ilium impurum remitta ... quis enim die culex ... ? ille non homo, sed hominis vere nugamentum ... apud pueros suos fortasse aliquid valeat ... et omitto flagitia, incestus, popinat/ones. This letter, while revealing Lipsius' most unattractive side, confirms Bergmans' conjecture that Lipsius feared Carrio's charges of heresy, since he asks Lernutius not to publish the epigrams: vide . .. ne periculosum carmen in temporibus tam infestis ... si edatur. Lipsius and Scaliger had many colorful terms of abuse for Carrio; a selection may be seen in ILE 2.386 and 431. All in all it may be said that Carrio's detractors were successful in obscuring his scholarly achievements, which were many. 4 0 Sal/ustii Historiarum Libri VI. See BB 5.10 and BT 1.4226. See BT 1.42.2.0 for Carrio's new edition of Sallust's Opera, published by Plantin in 1579. Stoer's edition of Sallust ([Geneva) 1596) includes Carrio's text of the Historiae and Fragmenta, 189-269, with his notes, 414-87. The dedication to Marcus Laurinus, 410-14, dated July 29, 1574, is remarkable for its Sallustian style and persona. 4' ILE 1.55, December 29,1574· 4' Amabam ilium [sc. Taciturn) Sal/ustii me; caussa. 43 See R.-E. 4:1201-8 (1208 for literary convivia; Kl. Pauly 1:1301; OCD" s.v. "Symposium Literature"; and Trimpi, Ben Jonson's Poems, 186-87 and 277~78, n. 29, forleges convivales. Among classical models, Macrobius (l/Je longaevus) IS mentIOned by LlPSlUS at the end of the dedication to Carrio, and again on p. 69 of the 1585 edItIon (Op. Omn.,
63
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many subjects. In the 1575 version the subject matter is focused exclu sively upon Roman banquets and related subjects, while it introduces a number of literary pieces that reflect developments in Lipsius' own schol arly interests in the six years since the appearance of the Variarum Lectionum Libri IV. Thus there is a Lex Horti at the entrance to his garden, seventy-six lines of Plautine iambics spoken by the Etruscan fertility god, Vertumnus, and there is a set of Leges Convivii that reflect Lipsius' con cern with ancient Roman laws. 44 The 1575 Convivium is a valid record of Lipsius' view of friendship among scholars, even if the mise en scene is imaginary. The third literary portrait of Lipsius with a friend is that of Langius in the De Constantias i Here there is no complicated relationship; Lipsius admired and loved Langius, and his portrait, published eleven years after the death of Langius, records a friendship unclouded by jealousy, ambi tion, or slander. Charles de Langhe was a Canon of the cathedral at Liege; he was about twenty-five years older than Lipsius, being born probably in 15zi. He studied at the University of Leuven, and became a friend of Laevinus Torrentius (Lieven Van der Beke, 1525—1595), who was one of his executors. Torrentius, who was also a friend of Lipsius, was Bishop of Antwerp from 1587 until 1595; he exerted great pressure on Lipsius to return to the Catholic church. 46 Langius, therefore, was part of Lipsius' orthodox, Catholic world, and this fact makes his portrait in the De Constantia all the more poignant. For it was written while Lipsius was at Leiden, outwardly at least conforming to Calvinism, and the dramatic date of the portrait—June 1572—was during Lipsius' journey to Vienna and, eventually, Jena, where he conformed to the Lutheran faith. 47 The 1:202); he mentions Achenaeus on p. 71. Both Lipsius and Carno were interested in Aulus Gellius, whose Noctes Atticae, although not a convivium, was a collection of scholarly in formation like a convivium. Lipsius did not complete his planned edition (see ILE 1.205, May 13, 1582), while Carrio failed to deliver more than seven sheets of notes (covering book 1.1-25) to the publisher, Stephanus, for his 1585 Paris edition. Carrio's name is given on the title page (eum notis Lud. Carrionis . . . prelo iam traditis), although the notes were not included. Stephanus describes his frustration at Carrio's behavior on pp. 18-21, in a masterpiece of scholarly understatement. Carrio's edition is frequently mentioned in Lip sius' correspondence in 1584-1585 (see the index in ILE 2, s.v. "Carrio"), not without malice. ·" Respectively pp. 62—64 a n d 77 in the 1575 edition. The speech of Vertumnus is re printed in Sweerts, Musae Errantes, 41—43. Plantin published Lipsius' Leges Regiae et Leges DecemviraIes in 1576: see BB 3:995. *>' For de Langhe see BN 5:310—15; BB 5:377. 46 See BN 25:462—75; BB 5:372-81. For his relations with Lipsius see Roersch, "La Cor respondence." 47 The actual date was at least six months earlier (December 1571): see Vervliet, Lipsius' Jeugd, 30—31; ILE 1.14.
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setting of book 2 of the dialogue in Langius' garden removes Lipsius and his friend from the pressures of the world outside, and, as with Muret and the Convivium, idealizes the portrait. There is no information about the origin of their friendship, nor is there any surviving correspondence between Lipsius and Langius, other than the chapter (1.13) of the Epistolicae Quaestiones addressed to Langius. This chapter focuses upon their common interests in gardens and Seneca, anticipating the part that Langius was to take in the De Constantia. 48 Lipsius' obituary for Langius perhaps best sums up his feelings for him: Fuit enim hoc ingenio Langius, ut ea scire vellet, quae scire eum nemo sciret. atque ut Stoici virtutem, sic ille doctrinam pretium sibi ipsam putabat. sed magnum virum, amisimus, O Musae!, & maiorem opinione vulgi . . . cum . . . unicus amator esset florum & hortorum. 49 Langius' character was such that he wished to know things that no one knew he knew. And just as the Stoics with virtue, so he thought that knowledge was its own reward. But we have lost a great man, O Muses!, one greater than ordinary people knew . . . since . . . he was unequaled as a lover of flowers and gardens. Langius represented for Lipsius the Stoic sapiens who had achieved mastery over the emotions through Reason (ratio). In the second chapter of the dialogue, when Lipsius has given way to the emotions of depression and fear, Langius observes: Mallem tu Sapientiae vocem & Rationis. . . . λόγφ tibi hie opus non βρόχνΙ would prefer you [to listen] to Wisdom and Reason. Here you need Reason, not the noose. Langius therefore was the appropriate teacher of Stoicism to the young scholar, and the setting emphasized the freedom from the emotions (ataraxia) that was the goal of the Stoic disciple. The reason why the De Constantia is so persuasive lies partly in the characterization of Langius, who, of all Lipsius' friends, came closest to the ideal of the Stoic sapiens. In fact, Langius' life was calm, devoted to religion, scholarship, and 4* De bortis tuis cur am non deposui . . • quod Senecam adornas, gaudeo. Cf. Ant. Led. Ep Quaest. 4 . 1 7 , to Ghiselin. The work was first published in 1577, but the chapters to an d c o n c e r n i n g d e L a n g h e w e r e w r i t t e n s o m e y e a r s e a r l i e r , 4 ·1 7 m 1 5 7 3· S e e B B 3 . 1 0 6 4 65.
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horticulture. He published an edition of Cicero's De Officiis, De Senectute, De Amieitia, Paradoxa, and Somnium Scipionis in 1563, works that contain Cicero's Stoic doctrine. 50 In particular, the De Amieitia was, as we have already seen, a source for Lipsius' doctrine of Stoic friendship, while the Somnium Seipionis is an eloquent statement of the Roman Stoic's public duty. Lipsius paid tribute to Langius' skill in horticulture in the first three chapters of book ζ of the De ConstantiaJ 1 But it was the moral meaning of the garden that Lipsius wished to emphasize through Langius; for the Stoic the garden was a symbol of peace and relaxation from the disquieting emotions of the world, but it was also a place for the negotium animi, from which the philosopher would return to the vita aetiva refreshed and inspired by the Stoic attributes of wisdom and rea son. Lipsius introduces Langius as follows in the first chapter of the De Constantia: Vir . . . optimus doctissimusque Belgarum. qui cum me hospitio excepisset, non omni solum comitate & benivolentia id temperavit, sed eo genere sermonum qui utiles imo salutares mihi in omne aevum. The most virtuous and learned of the Belgians. When he had received me in his house, he mixed with his hospitality not only kindness [eomitas) and generosity, but also conversation that [will be] use ful—indeed, profitable—for me for ever. Langius is the most convincing of Lipsius' literary portraits, in no small measure because he was the farthest removed from the realities (good and bad) of Lipsius' day-to-day life. Lipsius, in the persona of the young scholar, revealed more of his Stoic ideals in this portrait than in any other. Lipsius himself was aware, of course, of the artificiality of these ideal ized portraits of real people. In a letter to his Roman friend, Nicolas Florentius, written on New Year's Day in 1584, he informs Florentius that he is to be Lipsius' interlocutor in his dialogue De Ampbitbeatro: Iam nunc etiam de Amphitheatro librum, in quo facio te loqui mecum. tam vane? inquies. vane, sed ex more scilicet dialogorum, in quis a vero abire nobis fas, etsi non a decoro! 51 I am now also publishing a book on the Amphitheater, in which I make you talk with me. "So falsely?", you will say. Yes, but within Antwerp: G. Sylvius, 1563; included also in A. Schott, Observationum Humanarum Libri V. " See Morford, "Stoic Garden," 160—63. ILE 2.294, January 1, 1584.
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the conventions of dialogue, in which the rules allow us to depart from the facts, so long as we stay within the bounds of probability. THE enormous range of Lipsius' friendships is best appreciated through his correspondence. Indeed, the letters are essential for the study of Lipsius and his circle, for they are the most important source for his friend ships, his professional relationships, his thoughts and feelings, his teach ing, and his self-presentation. Before we focus upon particulars, it is necessary to have some general idea of the correspondence as a whole." There are about forty-three hundred letters surviving to and from Lipsius, of which about two-thirds were written by him. The earliest of his surviving letters comes from 1569, and the last is dated March 14, 1606, ten days before his death. Thus, for over thirty-six years Lipsius' corre spondence averaged between two and three letters a week. Lipsius himself saw to the publication of six hundred letters, the first centuria being pub lished at Leiden in 1586. 54 He had prepared one further century for post humous publication by Woverius; this is the fourth century of the Mis cellaneous Letters, and to it Woverius and his fellow-executors added a fifth." Various collections were published in the seventeenth and eigh teenth centuries, with varying standards of editorial reliability: of these, by far the most valuable are the approximately 850 letters to and from Lipsius published by Pieter Burman at Leiden in 1727.' 6 Altogether about twenty-eight hundred letters have been printed, leaving about fifteen hun dred still in manuscript in at least one hundred libraries or archives. Even the leading scholars on the correspondence admit that no one has studied all the published letters, let alone the fifteen hundred unpublished ones. 57 Until this task (perhaps an impossible one) has been achieved, our knowl" There is no complete collection of the published letters. The six centuries published in Lipsius' lifetime and the two posthumous centuries are included in the second volume of the 1637 and 1675 Opera Omnia. Eight hundred and twenty-seven letters (down to the end of 1590) have been published in the three volumes of ILE that have so far appeared.The text of each letter is accompanied by a summary, introductory notes, and brief commentary. This edition is essential for study of the correspondence, as is the Inventaire of Gerlo and Vervliet. This contains a brief introduction and bibliography; a chronological list of letters with date, names of writer and recipient, incipit, and details of publication for each letter; an index of incipits; and an index of names of correspondents. >•> See BB 3:929—53 for bibliographical details of the eight published centuries, with lists of correspondents and commentary on selected letters. Col. 934 lists the changes made by Lipsius in the first century (1586) for the second edition (1591), affecting nearly one quarter of the century. Cols. 953-69 list other publications of Lipsius' letters. 55 See Ch. 2, n. rri. ' 6 Sylloges Epistolarum a Viris IIIustribus Scriptarum Tomi V. Vol. 1 and most of vol. 2 are devoted to Lipsius. 57 Inventaire, 6: "II n'est done pas exagere de pretendre que pour Ie moment personne ne peut avoir une vue d'ensemble sur toutes Ies lettres publiees."
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edge of the correspondence can only be incomplete, and with it the por trait of Lipsius that we draw from it. Lipsius' correspondence is defined here as letters to and from corre spondents that are recognizably letters. Not included are epistles of ded ication (valuable as these are in many ways) and scholarly miscellanea that are presented as letters (as in the Epistolicae Quaestiones of 1577), although some of these (for example, those to and about Langius quoted above, 1.13 and 4.17) do contain valuable personal material that one would expect to find in a genuine letter. Some letters also are really schol arly or pedagogical essays, which have little personal content; even in this group, however, the essays on dogs and on travel in Italy illuminate the personality of the writer. s8 The two greatest sixteenth-century humanists of the Netherlands, Eras mus and Lipsius, were prolific correspondents, who both studied the art of writing letters and published (or allowed to be published) treatises on the subject. All public figures, including scholars, kept themselves in formed by letters, which to some extent took the place of a modern news paper; 59 scholars exchanged learned comments on classical texts and an cient history, and they used letters to exhort, advise, and encourage their students, to justify or defend themselves, to attack their enemies, and to conduct controversy. The letter was, as Lipsius defined it, a way of keep ing absent persons in touch with the writer's thoughts: definio autem Epistolam: SCRIPTUM ANIMI NUNTIUM AD ABSENTES AUT QUASI ABSENTES. 6 ° Among Renaissance humanists the letter fulfilled its clas sical functions of exhortation, advice, praise, blame, information, re quest, giving thanks, and so on. Above all, it was the most important way of maintaining friendships between absent friends. For example, Lipsius corresponded with Muret after leaving Rome, with Busbecq after leaving Vienna, and with his contubernales during summer vacations and after they had graduated from Leuven. Sometimes a friendship was entirely epistolary; this is true especially of Lipsius' friendships with other schol ars, for example, J. J. Scaliger and Isaac Casaubon, neither of whom he ever met. It is hard to exaggerate the importance of letters in a violent and unstable world, such as that of the Netherlands in Lipsius' lifetime: they ' 8 Ep. ad Belg. 1.44 (on dogs); Ep. Misc. 1.22 (on Italy): the last sentence indicates that this letter was either fictitious or edited for publication (see IEE 1.90). " See Vervliet, Lipsius' Jeugd, 8, and GV 180, n. 18. Gazettes are first mentioned by Lipsius in 1602, three years before the granting of a privilege to Abraham Verhoeven to publish a gazette, usually taken as the beginning of the modern newspaper. 60 Ep. Inst. 2 (the capitals are Lipsius'). Cf. Cicero, Fam. 2.4.1: ut certiores faceremus absentis si quid esset quod eos scire aut nostra aut ipsorum interesset.
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maintained an element of rationality and humanity amid the unpredict able vagaries of contemporary life. The timeless quality of the humanists' letters was furthered by the use of Latin as the standard language of epistolography. It guaranteed a me dium of communication intelligible to members of educated circles in all European countries, while the associations with antiquity gave a measure of dignity even to quite trivial letters. The association with the great Ro man letter-writers, above all, Cicero, furthered the sense of belonging to an elite of educated humanists, and it allowed the writer to claim that he was part of a tradition going back to Roman antiquity. Some scholars in the Netherlands objected to this kind of snobbery and stubbornly corre sponded in the vernacular Dutch; the most prominent of Lipsius' corre spondents to do this was Coornhert, to whom Lipsius replied in Latin (with the exception of one letter in Dutch). 61 Lipsius himself used Dutch in about 12.5 of his letters, chiefly to Jan Graevius, his agent, and very occasionally he used French or Italian/ 1 Latin, therefore, was the ex pected language of correspondence in Lipsius' circle, and the practice of Coornhert would have been considered inappropriate among scholars and ecclesiastical or political leaders/' Latin letter-writing, then, was the chief medium of communication among humanists in the Renaissance. Of Lipsius' predecessors by far the most important was Erasmus, himself a prolific letter-writer, and the au thor of the treatise De Conscribendis Epistolis. 64 This work is far longer than Lipsius' Epistolica Institutio and more systematic. Erasmus includes examples illustrating his precepts and adds Sylvae, that is, lists of exam ples from ancient writers worthy of imitation. Erasmus recognized the preeminence of Cicero as a model, but he argued against pedantic imita41
Inventaire, March 23, 1590: published in Coornhert's Proces vant Ketterdoden, 32-
3361 This number is arrived at by counting Dutch incipits in Inventaire. For the correspon dence with J. Graevius see Galesloot 1 "Particularites." 6 > Things were different by the early seventeenth century, as the correspondence of Peter Paul Rubens shows. Peter Paul himself preferred to write in Italian, and even when writing in Dutch signed himself "Pietro Paolo Rubens." 64 J. Le Clerc, Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera Omnia, vol. 1, cols. 341—484; Erasmi . . . Opera Omnia, ed. J.-C. Margolin (Amsterdam, 1971), 1.2, 153-579· References are given here to page numbers in this edition (hereafter DCE). The treatise was published in an unauthorized edition at Cambridge in 15 21, and the first authorized edition appeared at Strasburg in 1522. For the Antwerp editions of 1544, 1556, and 1565 see BT 1.1055-57. In 1545 the treatise was published at Basel by Brylinger along with works on the same subject by Vives, Celtis, and Hegendorf (Margolin, DCE, 181-84). Thus Erasmus' treatise was part of a lively tradition which Lipsius cannot have avoided drawing upon. Margolin's introduction to the 1971 edition (157—203) is valuable. See also Binns, "Letters," 55—79.
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tion. 6s He accepted the traditional classification of letters, in accordance with the rules of rhetoric, into deliberative, epideictic, and judicial types. 66 To these he added a fourth type, the epistola familiaris, which included a wide range of subjects and styles. 67 This category gave Eras mus the flexibility necessary for writing in the manner appropriate to each particular correspondent. Thus the formality of the rhetorical categories was softened by the genus familiare so as to make the letter a responsive means towards maintaining a friendship. 68 Lipsius differed from Erasmus most significantly in rejecting the rhe torical categories. His Epistolica Institutio, to which we now turn, will help us better to understand his self-portrait, while it also throws much light on his methods of teaching. 69 The treatise, according to its title page, is the written version of a lecture given in June 1587. In a letter to the publisher, Raphelengius, dated November 27, 1590, Lipsius gave permis sion for publication, but he stressed the extempore nature of the work. Moreover, he said that it was intended for learners, not scholars, for the young, not for the mature: discentibus, non doctis; iuvenibus, non adultis, haec a nobis scripta. He added that he intended to use the Epistolica Institutio as part of a series of dialogues on the education of the young: nam haec talia servabamus Dialogis De Instituenda luventute. As so of ten proves to be the case, Lipsius cannot be taken at face value. The work, certainly, is shorter and less elaborate than the treatise by Erasmus, and it maintains the informal style appropriate to a spoken lecture. But it is a serious work of literary theory, and it is addressed as much to established scholars as to its apparent audience, the young. 70 The purpose of the work is threefold: to establish letter-writing as a literary genre worthy of study, to create a new classification of letters, and to define the appropri ate style for each class, with recommendations for classical and Renais sance models to imitate. The title, Institutio, emphasizes the pedagogical 65
DCE 2 1 4 -15. Cf. Ciceronianus (in the same volume of the 1 9 7 1 edition as the DGE), M. Tullium in parte studiorum, praecipuum ac primum esse volo, non solum, nec sequendum tantum puto, sed imitandum potius, atque aemulandum etiam. 66 DCE, 310-11. * 7 DCE, 3 1 1 , 5 4 1 . 68 Cf. Margolin, on DCE, 311 , 1 . 8 : "C'est moins au type (!'argumentation qu'on a affaire, mais aux relations subjectives entre Ies correspondents." 6 i lusti Lipsi Epistolica Institutio . . . dictantis {Leiden: Raphelengius, 1 5 9 1 ) (BB 3 : 9 8 5 86), reprinted in Op. Omn., 2:1066—86. I have used the so-called Editio ultima (Antwerp: Moretus, 1 6 0 5 ) (BB 3:989). See BB 3 : 9 8 5 - 9 1 . Trimpi1 Ben Jonson's Poems, ch. 3 (pp. 6 0 75) gives a fine account of the Renaissance epistolary tradition, which relates the style and principles of Lipsius to his contemporaries in England and France. For a useful discussion of the purpose of the treatise see Dunn, "Lipsius," 1 4 5 - 5 6 . 70 E.g., ch. 7 : habes de Brevitate; quae viris mihi dicta, non iuventuti, sunto. 708:
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purpose of the work, recalling classical and Renaissance educational trea tises. 71 Lipsius added to the treatise Demetrius' digression on letters as an ap pendix, which focuses upon the plain style that Lipsius recommends. 7i Demetrius also introduces a principle essential for Lipsius' theory: Let the letter reveal a great deal about character, like the dialogue. For the letter-writer is drawing almost a portrait of his own soul. It is possible also to see the character of the writer from every other sort of composition, but from none so well as from letters. 73 It is the quality of self-revelation that distinguishes Lipsius' letters, and the fact that the self-portrait is controlled by the artist does not detract from its validity. Lipsius begins by describing and defining the letter as "a written report of one's mind to those who are absent or quasi-absent." 74 In supporting the definition Lipsius quotes a significant range of Classical sources: Cic ero, the comedian Turpilius, Augustus, Plutarch, and Seneca—an indica tion of the variety of his classical authorities. After two chapters dealing with the formal part of letters (that is, the address, ending, and seal) he begins, in chapter 5, to deal with what he calls materia varia, that is, the individual content that varies with each letter. This he divides into Seria, Docta, Familiaris·, the first two classes, dealing with public and scholarly letters (for example, reports, dedications, consolations, and scholarly es says), do not concern him for long, nor need we spend time on them. The third class, however, epistulae familiares, includes all personal letters, which make up the bulk of Lipsius' letters. Lipsius soon disposes of the rules for inventio and ordo (that is, the gathering and arrangement of material), which are prominent in rhetorical handbooks. His view is briefly stated: nec in Ordine quidem admodum laboro: qui optimus in Epistola, neglectus aut nullus, "nor shall I spend much time on arrange ment, which in a letter is best neglected or ignored." Instead, he devotes the central part of the treatise (chapters 7—11) to sermo, that is, style, 71 lnstitutio means "education," and the word would most especially be associated with the most important of Latin educational works, Quintilian's lnstitutio Oratoria. Erasmus especially used the term, and he wrote a group of works quae ad institutionem spectant: cf. Margolin, DCE, 158. 72 Demetrius, On Style (Peri Hermeneias), 2Z3-235. The technical Greek term for the plain style was ischnotes (Demetrius, 223, 235). This is broader than the term Attic, which Lipsius avoids: cf. Dunn, "Lipsius," 145-46. For Demetrius see B. Weinberg in CTC 2:3840 (inaccurate on details of Lipsius' publications). 75 Demetrius, On Style, 227. 74 Ch. 2: the Latin is quoted above.
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which, he says, was the reason for his writing the treatise. 75 As Demetrius had pointed out, a letter reveals the character of its writer, not least through its style. Therefore it is not surprising that Lipsius should devote most attention to style in discussing this most self-revelatory genre of lit erary activity. He distinguishes five features of style: brevitas, perspicuitas, simplicitas, venustas, and decentia, and of these the first, brevity, is the most im portant: prima ilia, prima mihi sermonis virtus est. But he adds first that style must be flexible, adapted to the recipient. Secondly, brevity is an attribute of a mature writer: beginners should learn to write more spa ciously. In other words, the path to the velocitas of Sallust, Seneca, or Tacitus, lies through imitation of Cicero. 76 It is worth noting that Lipsius was not inflexibly wedded to the concise style, since he has frequently been criticized for his brevity and lack of periodic writing. 77 In the next three chapters (8-10) Lipsius recommends the other four virtues of style. His principles are clarity (perspicuitas), informality (an attribute of simplicitas, the virtue of writing without affectation), grace fulness and vigor (both attributes of venustas, and good taste (decentia). Lipsius' goal is easy communication between humane persons; the letter is a civilized means of intercourse, by which friends are united through the sincere expression of the writer's thoughts, clothed in decent (but not meretricious) style, simple yet elegant. Thus Lipsius expresses in Latin the Greek principle of to prepon (decentia), whose source he expresses in the epigram a Deo & a natura pete, non ab Arte. 79 Throughout, Lipsius imagines the writer conversing informally with his correspondent in an easy way, as Seneca had prescribed; yet it is Cicero, and Cicero uniquely, whom he recommends as a model. 79 This easy conversation is the written counterpart of comitas. The relationship between style and character is perhaps best expressed in Lipsius' definition of venustas: venio ad Sermonem: cuius caussa, fateor, Institutio haec suscepta. Lipsius adds, nec facile ad laudatam illam temperiem [i.e., brevitas] venitur, nisi initio ubertas quaedam & luxuries sit, "and one does not easily achieve that esteemed economy, unless at the beginning there is a measure of richness and excess." 77 For example, Scaliger, (Scaligeriana [ 1 6 6 6 ] , 2 0 7 ) : Virgilium Lipsius non magnifacit & Terentium, quia Latine scribunt & eorum periodi cobaerent, non vero Lipsianae. 78 Ch. 1 0 : "Find this in God and nature, not in Art." The emphasis on nature is appro priate to a Stoic. J Ch. 9 : quo in genere Cicero unicus, & unice imitandus. Earlier in 9 he quotes Seneca, Ep. 75.1: qualis sermo meus esset, si una sederemus aut ambularemus, illaboratus & facilis: tales volo esse epistolas meas. Cf. Seneca, Ep. 55.11, quoted by Lipsius in ch. 2. (wrongly assigned to Ep. 56). " Ch. 7:
76
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Venustatem appello; cum sermo totus alacer, vivus, erectus est, & allicientem quamdam gratiam Veneremque praefert. quod natura fere dat. I call it elegance when the style is altogether lively, vigorous, upright, and when it carries before it a certain attractive gracefulness and el egance. This is generally the gift of nature. Lipsius adds allusions, sententiae ("pithy sayings"), quotations in Latin and Greek, jokes, and wit as further elements of venustas. Wit, he says, is the life and soul of the letter—animam & vitam epistolae.s° All that Lipsius says here about style is expressed in terms applicable also to human character; we may justifiably see in his words an ideal selfportrait, which is by no means unsuccessfully sustained in many of his letters. When we see the professor expounding the text in The Four Philosophers we must also remember the attributes of easy friendship ex pressed in his letters, for they account in no small measure for the extraor dinary warmth of Lipsius' friendships with his peers and students. After the virtues of style it remains for Lipsius (in Chapter n) to dis cuss Imitatio, that is, the use of classical models for style (punctuation and capitals are Lipsius' own): Imitationem dico, SERMONIS NOSTRl AD SERMONEM VETEREM, APTAM CONFORMATIONEM, ET STILO EXPRESSAM. I define "imitation" as the fitting adaptation of our style to the style of the ancients and expressed in our way of writing. In this chapter Lipsius most clearly reveals his own preferences among Latin models. It is frequently said that he was anti-Ciceronian, or (with rather more accuracy) that he turned away from imitation of Cicero to the compressed style of Seneca and Tacitus, to whom he devoted the greatest part of his mature scholarship. 81 The truth is more complex. He admits in this chapter that he imitated Cicero exclusively as a young man but in his maturity broadened the range of his models. Si Like Erasmus, 80 Demetrius, On Style, 171, remarks that a man reveals his character in his jokes. Cicero, Fam. 2.4.1, defines one class of letter as familiare et iocosum. s * E.g., Croll, Style, 7-44, 167—102. Sz Adbaesisse olim me scio paullo iuvenilius, donee repressit & revocavit maturioris indicii fraenum. The two Jena speeches on Cicero (delivered in 157Z and 1573) are Ciceronian in style and were composed three years after Lipsius' meeting with Muret, which is usually taken to be the event that changed his Latin style. They are no. 3 (De ratione interpretandi
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he attacked those (especially Italian scholars) who wished to make Cicero the only model; his principle was more generous and eclectic—tu mecum omnes legendos imitandosque tibi statue, "determine with me that all [classical authors] should be read and imitated." All the same, he divided the writer's education into three stages, respectively puerilis, crescens, and adulta. In the first stage boys were to imitate Cicero only: Cicero non praecipuus solum legatur, sed solus. Youths in the second stage (one or two years later) could also imitate the historians (other than Sallust and Tacitus), 8 ' and, above all, the writers of comedy, Plautus and Terence; Plautus, especially, would be a rich source of colorful expression with which to enliven the cottidiana dissertatio of letters. Lipsius also recom mends Pliny, but without great enthusiasm (he found him too often rather "soft," parum virum), and, among Renaissance writers, Poliziano. Fi nally, after two years, the mature student reached the third and final stage, and here he was free to choose from the whole range of classical writers, above all, Sallust, Seneca, and Tacitus. Their style was compact and subtle (id genus brevium subtiliumque scriptorum) and imitation of them led to a style disciplined, strong, and truly virile (oratio stricta, fortis, & vere virilis). Yet, having said this, Lipsius returns to the source of all good Latin letter-writing, and he ends the chapter by recommending the constant reading of Cicero: addo perutile futurum eumdem ilium Ciceronem Iegi cottidie et relegi. Just as Horace had recommended the read ing of Greek models day and night (yet forged his own Latin style), 84 so Lipsius built his own Latin style on the foundation of Cicero. This chapter is both a lesson for students and a literary autobiography. Once again Lipsius describes style in terms applicable to his own ideals of character. The qualities that he finds in his classical models are those that he wishes to display to his correspondents; his progression from the Ciceronian style of the Variae Lectiones of 1569 to the compact Senecan and Tacitean style of his maturity reflects the development of his own personality. There are several remarkable features of Lipsius' program. In the first place is its division into graded stages, each of one or two years or more, with the patient ripening of the student into stylistic maturity. Second is the choice of models; the constant reading of Cicero contradicts facile Ciceronis), when Lipsius was beginning to lecture on Cicero's letters to Atticus ( 3 7 — 4 5 in Iusti Lipsi Orationes Octo), and no, 5 ( Pro Oefendendo Cicerone), pp. 70—104. For the 1 6 0 8 e d i t i o n s e e B B 3 : 1 0 3 6 — 3 7 ; s e e B B 3 : 1 0 3 5 - 3 6 f o r t h e first e d i t i o n ( D a r m s t a d t , 1 6 0 7 ) ; cf. ILE 1 .2.0 October 19, 1572, 11. zi-zz. Lipsius names Fabius (i.e., Quintilian), Curtius, Velleius, Livy, and Caesar. '•> Horace, Ars, 2 6 8 — 6 9 .
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judgments that have generally been made about Lipsius' style, and the recommendation of Plautus as a model reflects Lipsius' concern with vig orous and lively expression, an indicator of a gifted communicator and teacher. Like Erasmus, Lipsius also recommends Renaissance writers of Latin as models: those whom he names were Ciceronian, and it is inter esting that he does not name Erasmus himself.85 Elsewhere he praises Erasmus as a champion of religious freedom,86 and one may suspect that here, as with Muret, Lipsius was building on the work of Erasmus with out acknowledging his debt. The final two chapters of the lnstitutio (12—13) §i ye practical instruc tions for the use of classical models, particularly by means of excerption (.selectio) and adaptation to one's own writing (expressio). We have seen earlier how these precepts were put into practice in Lipsius' contubernium at Leuven, another indication of the practicality of the Institution7 At the end of the work Lipsius adds the Greek text, with a Latin transla tion, of Demetrius' chapters on letter-writing, leaving us in no doubt as to the sources of his criteria, which are, above all, honesty, self-expres sion, friendliness, clarity, and gracefulness in style.88 The lnstitutio is the most important expression of Lipsius' principles as a teacher, and, like all good teachers, he reveals his own character in his doctrine. In it he claims a special place for letter-writing as a literary genre; he relates it to classical models, with remarkably liberal recom mendations for authors to be imitated; he renews and revises the classical theories about letter-writing, in particular recommending its separation from rhetorical classifications; and, finally, he shows his awareness of the tradition of letter-writing, from Aristotle and Demetrius, through the Ro mans and the Christian Fathers, to the Renaissance letter-writers.89 8 ' He names the following writers: i) Manutius (Paolo Manuzio, 1511-1574, Enc. It. 21:185). z ) Iacopo Sadoleto (1477—1547, Enc. It. 30:425-26), secretary ab epistulis to Pope Leo X, Bishop of Carpentras and Cardinal. He wrote de liberis recte instituendis (Ven ice, 1533). Erasmus admired him, especially for using Ciceronian style to convey Christian doctrine; see Ciceronianus, in DCE 697-98. 3) Pietro Bembo (1470-1547, Enc. It. 6:59091), also secretary to Leo X, Bishop of Gubbio and Bergamo, and Cardinal. See Erasmus, Ciceronianus, 697; Lipsius, Ep. Misc. 2.57 (to Dousa, undated), criticizing Bembo. 4) Bunellus (Pedro Bunel, 1499-1546: BU 7:785), whose Epistolae Ciceromano Stylo Scriptae were published at Paris in 1551. 5) LongoIius (Christophe de Longeuil, 1488-1522: BU 31:576-77; BN 12:349-59). He was a staunch anti-Lutheran and a close friend of Regin ald, Cardinal Pole, at whose house in Padua he died; cf. Ciceronianus, 692-98. 86 InJena oration no. 3 (see n. 82 above), 44. s ? See Ch. 2, note 61. 88 Besides Demetrius, On Style, 127, quoted earlier, note 231: "A letter is intended to be a comprehensive expression of good will [philophronesis], setting out a simple subject in simple terms." The principles of Lipsius could hardly be expressed more appropriately. «•> For classical epistolography by far the best survey is by Sykutris in R.-E. suppl. 5,185-
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Ten years before the lecture on letter-writing, Lipsius had defended his principles in the final chapter of his Epistolicae Quaestiones {5-2.6), pub lished in 1577. He had been criticized for excessive brevity of expression, for lack of periodic structure, for using Plautus as a model, and for not being sufficiently Ciceronian. His defence is revealing, and it gives a selfportrait consistent with the more detailed one in the Institutio: Et Plautum, inquiunt, potius sapit quam Ciceronem. utinam verum dicerent! nam hoc volui. Epistolas scio me scribere, non Orationes. at Epistolae familiares, sive verba, sive iocos spectes, quid aliud sunt quam exemplar Comici sermonis? inter Comicos autem quis melior Plauto? . . . an vocant me ad illorum exemplum, qui omnes Epistolas suas uno modo scribunt? rideant, doceant; ioca, seria tractent; doctos, indoctos compellent. . . meae vero Epistolae & facetum aliquid habeant, & eruditum, & remotum a captu vulgi, & quod saepius repetitum placeat. They say that [my style] has more of Plautus in it than Cicero. Would that this were true! For this was my wish. I know that 1 am writing letters, not speeches. And what else are letters to friends—whether you consider their words or their wit—other than examples of the language of comedy? And among writers of comedy who is better than Plautus? . . . Or are they telling me to follow the example of those who write all of their letters in one way? Let [my letters] laugh and teach; let them be amusing and serious; let them speak to the learned and the unlearned . . . Let my letters, indeed, have wit and learning, let them have that which is far from the understanding of the common crowd and gives pleasure after frequent rereading. Although Lipsius is especially concerned here with his unconventional use of Plautus as a model and source, his defense speaks for the character of all his epistolae familiares. Lipsius and his friends were an elite group (as he here admits), but within the conventions of educated people he succeeded in giving fresh life to the classical tradition of letter-writing, in maintaining an extraordinary range of friendships and scholarly relation ships, and, finally, in painting his own portrait for posterity. Nevertheless, his letters have attracted damaging criticism, and we must at least consider the attacks of two formidable scholars, Scaliger and z z o (published in 1931), s.v. "Epistolographie." There are some useful details in the 1897 article by Dziatzko, R.-E. 3:836—43, s.v. "Brief." For Roman letter-writing Peter, Der Brief, is still valuable. For Christian letter-writing (to which Lipsius does refer) see Stowers, LetterWriting.
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Burman. Scaliger was especially distressed by Lipsius' style, and after the publication of the third century of Miscellaneous Letters in 1602. he re marked: Sa troisieme Centurie d'Epistres ne vaut rien. il a desappris a parler, je ne sgay quel Latin c'est . . . Lipsius fait autant d'estat du Latin de Ciceron que je fais du Latin de Lipse O Ie meschant Latin que la centurie de ses epistres. 90 These criticisms reflect developments in Lipsius' Latin from Ciceronian style (which, as we have seen, he continued to use after he had left Rome) to the "mature" style that he recommended in chapter 11 of the Institutio. It seems that this movement towards the brevity of Tacitus and Seneca became pronounced during Lipsius' time at Leiden (1578-1591), and it is certainly apparent by the time of the publication of the De Constantia, in 1584. During the last fifteen years of his life he was immersed in Sen eca, and this is reflected in the brevity of his Latin style, most notably in the excessive use of ellipsis and asyndeton. To this extent Scaliger's criti cisms were justified, and a Ciceronian might reasonably describe Lipsius' style as meschant Latin. Scaliger was too harsh, however, in accusing Lipsius of undervaluing Cicero, for, as we have seen, he made Cicero the foundation of the study of Latin style, and Moretus' timetable for the contubernales, written in 1592, shows that Cicero was still the funda mental Latin model for Lipsius' students. 91 Scaliger makes the same criticism in his remarks about Muret: Mureto nullus fuit post Ciceronem qui expeditius loqueretur & scriberet Romane. Lipsius nihil prae illo, & invidebat illi, furatus est emendationes. En ce mestier ego optime possum distinguere, quid hie vel ille possit. 9 * After Cicero there was no one who could speak and write Latin with greater ease than Muret. Lipsius is nothing compared to Muret, and he envied him; he stole his emendations. In this field I can accurately distinguish between the abilities of Muret and Lipsius. The real target of Scaliger's criticisms was the effect of the style of Lip sius upon the young. According to Daniel Heinsius, the pupils of Lipsius tried to imitate the Senecan brevity of their teacher, with the result that '° ScaIigeriana (1666), 204—6.
»* See Ch. 2, pp. 3 1 - 3 2 . 91
Scaligeriana (1666),
2.35-37.
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their style was abrupt and rough, an amalgam of harsh mannerism and misplaced imitation of archaic Latin vocabulary. 93 These were the stu dents whom Scaliger inherited from Lipsius when he went to Leiden in 1593, and the sharpness of his criticism was the result in part of his dis may at the effect of Lipsius' Latin style upon them. Bacon's criticism of the Ciceronians applied equally well to the imitators of Lipsius: "Here therefore is the first distemper of learning, when men study words and not matter." 94 Like Lipsius, Scaliger believed that style was an expression of character; therefore Lipsius had done harm to his students in leading them to imitate the idiosyncrasies of his Senecan style. This was not al together fair to Lipsius, who had specifically warned against such imita tion. 9 '" There were other grounds for Scaliger's hostility—his contempt for the inconstancy of Lipsius in religion, and his doubts that a pedant like Lipsius could have anything useful to contribute towards the making of political and military policy. The controversy between Scaliger and Lipsius was about the education of the young, and style was one manifes tation of its importance to both scholars. 96 Equally damaging was the hostility of Pieter Burman, particularly in the preface to his Sylloge. 97 Burman (1668—1748) was a lively controver sialist, and his combative character is reflected in the vigorous Latin with which he attacked the objects of his criticism, including Lipsius. From 1715 he was Professor of Greek Language and Roman Eloquence at Lei den, and in 1724 he was also appointed University Librarian. Two years earlier he had persuaded the University authorities to buy the Musaeum Lipsianum at the public sale of the estate of Constantin Huyghens. The Musaeum consisted of three sections: the first being manuscripts of clas sical authors once possessed by Lipsius; the second containing various manuscripts in Lipsius' hand, together with four volumes of letters to and from him; the third containing various printed works by Lipsius and oth»' D. Heinsius, Orationes. The funeral laudation for Scaliger (January 25, 1609), is no. 1, pp. 1-24, and the comments on Lipsius' style and its imitators are on pp. 15-17. The vo cabulary used by the students of Lipsius was taken from Ennius and Pacuvius, according to Heinsius, and their style was macra et ieiuna oratio, omnia succo destituta. Heinsius said that this "plague" (contagionem ac pestem) was stopped by the arrival of Scaliger, magnus ilte Apollo. »« The Advancement of Learning, 1.4.3, quoted by Trimpi, Ben Jonson's Poems, 53. For discussion of Bacon's criticism of the Ciceronians (most especially Roger Ascham), see The Advancement of Learning, 29—30 and 123—24. " For example, in chs. 7 and 9 of the lnstitutio. In the funeral oration for Scaliger Hein sius (Orationes, 15) describes Lipsius' style as suavissimae quidem sed inimitabilis, & Ut ipse [Lipsius] iudicabat, ne tentandae quidem aliis eloquentiae. " There is an excellent discussion of contemporary criticism of the style of Lipsius by Trimpi, Ben Jonson's Poems, 49—53. I am grateful to Anthony Grafton for this reference. ' 7 The Praefatio is unpaginated and the references given here are to my numbering. For Burman see NNBW 4:354-58.
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ers, with marginal notes in Lipsius' hand. 98 It was the collection of letters, which Burman had worked so hard to persuade the University to pur chase, that was the source for his edition of the 858 letters to and from Lipsius, occupying the first and much of the second of the five volumes of his Sylloge." Burman's hostility towards Lipsius appears to originate largely in his contempt for Lipsius' religious inconstancy. He admits that his purpose in publishing the letters was to deter those who were being tempted by the "Jesuits or monks . . . , with whom they can only expect the harshest slavery, disgrace to their former fame, and the constant torture of a guilty conscience." 100 More than a century after his death Lipsius' desertion (as it was seen) of Leiden was not forgiven, and his return to the Catholic church was seen as an act of cowardice and inconstancy, a servile sub mission to the dictates of the Jesuits. 101 This charge, which did have some basis in fact, IOi was extended by Burman to other aspects of Lipsius' life and character: thus he was accused of vanity and ambition; his Stoicism was specious and his model, Seneca, was no more than a charlatan (turpissimi sub Philosophi nomine nebulonis); he was a hypocrite in religion and a flatterer of the Habsburgs; his contubernium was a burden which he resented, forced upon him by economic necessity; the Stoic constancy expressed in his published letters was belied by the complaints and selfdoubts of the unpublished ones—in sum, he had justly earned the soubri quet of Lipsius Proteus. 1 ° 3 BB 3:1111 for the description of the Musaeum Lipsianum, from pp. 431-54 of the catalogue of the sale, entitled Bibhotbecae Petaviana et Mansartiana . . . Auxquelles on a ajoute Ie cabinet considerable des manuscrits du fameux Justus Lipsius . . . (The Hague: de Hondt, 1722). How Huyghens acquired these works is unknown, as Burman admits (SylIoge. Praefatio, 13). Cf. Saunders, Lipsius, 24—27. »» Burman describes his initiative for the purchase on p. 13 of the Praefatio, where he says that there were three volumes of letters. His principles of selection from Lipsius letters are given on p. 16. (Saunders, Lipsius, 26, n. 22, wrongly says that Burman included all the letters in the Leiden collection.) ' 00 Sylloge, Praefatio, 13. ">· Sylloge, Praefatio, 11 (one among many such passages): libertate, qua per Batavos fortiter & feliciter asserta, summa cum tranquillitate frui potuisset, ita excidisse miraberis, ut calamum suum. . . . & os & tnentem omnem, dominis impotentibus in perpetuam servitutem addiceret, "when he could have enjoyed liberty (which the Dutch had championed with bravery and success) in complete peace, you will be astonished that he had so far deserted it as to dedicate his pen, his tongue, and his whole mind to perpetual slavery under inexorable masters [the Jesuits]." ' o l A s is made clear by the correspondence with Torrentius (see Roersch, La Correspondance " The Jesuit Martin Del Rio (one of Lipsius' fellow students at Leuven and a lifelong friend) was perhaps most closely concerned with Lipsius' return to the Cathohc church; see Bergmans, "L'Autobiographie," 328-31- n. 18, and Saunders, Lipsius, 36 37. Lipsius' relations with Torrentius and Del Rio are discussed below in Ch. 4. - Burman is referring (p. 13) to the polemical work by Tho mas Sagittarius, Upstus Pro teus, issued with the purpose of proving the authenticity of Lipsius Jena speeches and the Lutheran views expressed in them. See BB 5:5-6· P">«us was the mythological sea god
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All this is expressed in forceful Latin with devastating clarity. Those who enjoy the bludgeoning of an opponent in debate (even one long dead) will enjoy Burman. Nevertheless, the complexities of the character of Lipsius deserve a more subtle commentary, and we should look beyond the pleasures of Burman's vigorous rhetoric to the letters themselves in our attempt to assess the fairness of Lipsius' critics and the accuracy of his own self-portrait. Burman rightly reveals the self-serving procedures of Lipsius, which are common to all who publish their own correspon dence. 104 Thus he catches Lipsius in the act of editing, suppressing, and revising. He maintains that Lipsius' aim was to publish others' flattery of himself and his scholarship, to construct a self-portrait of a scholar, teacher, and philosopher whose leading characteristic was constancy. This portrait is contradicted by the letters published by Burman; in par ticular, Lipsius' defence of his departure from Leiden in 1591 and his return to the Catholic church is proved to be at best self-serving. 105 Bur man rightly says that only an incautious and ingenuous reader would take the letters published by Lipsius at face value, with the praises of his virtues and scholarship heaped upon him by the flattery of friends and students. Burman then attacks Lipsius' style and scholarship; he finds him un worthy of the unique reputation that he enjoyed during his lifetime and a far less gifted scholar than Scaliger, Casaubon, Salmasius, and Heinsius (a judgment, as far as the first two of these are concerned, that Scaliger shared). 106 He finds that Lipsius avoided many areas of study of ancient history and languages, particularly Greek, rhetoric, and poetry; 107 even in Roman history his Fax Historica (Lipsius' incomplete survey of every aswho could turn himself into any shape (Homer, Od. 4 . 3 8 4 - 5 7 0 ) . The authenticity of the Jena speeches is well discussed by Momigliano, review of Juste Lipse ( 1 9 4 9 ) , 191—92. •°i Burman's attack covers pp. 7 -Γ3 of the Praefatio. He accuses Lipsius of destroying the letters to him of Leeuw at Sylloge, 1.48. 1 0 5 Saunders not unjustly calls some of Lipsius' efforts "monstrous accounts" (Lipsius, 35—36, quoting Ep. ad Ital. 1 2 ) . ' o6 Scaligeriana, 6 3 — 6 5 (Scaliger is talking about Casaubon): Luy et Lipsius sunt tout courbez de I'estude. Causabonus (sic) doctissimus. Ego eius discipulus . . . c'est Ie plus grand homme que nous ayons en Grec . . . est doctissimus omnium qui hodie vivunt; "he and Lipsius are all bent from study. Casaubon is the most learned man. I am his follower . . . he is the greatest man that we have in Greek . . . he is the most learned of all who are alive to day." See also Saunders, Lipsius, 3 7 , n. 1 2 , and 63—64. 1 0 7 Cf. Scaligeriana, 2 0 7 : Lipsius n'est Grec que pour sa provision, as Lipsius himself admitted in Ep. Misc. 2 . 5 6 (quoted above, Ch. 2 , n. 6 0 ) . Evidently Lipsius did not study Hebrew, and in this, as in other respects, the range of his scholarship was narrower than that of Scaliger. His serious study of Roman poetry seems to have been limited to Propertius and the plays of Plautus and Seneca, and Scaliger's charge (n. 7 7 above) that he undervalued Vergil is well founded.
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pect of Roman history and customs) was the work of a compiler, nothing in comparison to the scholarship of Scaliger and Casaubon. 108 The Latin style of his letters was idiosyncratic, so much so that they were little read and never used as models of style. Lipsius published them out of vanity, selecting those which would increase his fame and glory. In sum, the facts of Lipsius' life (in particular, his departure from Leiden) and a reading of his complete correspondence, proved that Lipsius was a hypocrite, whose life was that of an actor—histrionicam semper vitam egisse. From Burman's charges one passage will be sufficient to see both the style and substance of his attacks: Legat potius has a nobis nunc publicatas Epistolas, & quas ipse auctor consulto suppressit, in quibus nudum saepe Sc omnibus simula tions integumentis evolutum animum perspiciet, & magnum ilium Lipsium, tot encomiis & laudibus, quae in unum ilium prae ceteris ambitiose satis ab eius admiratoribus fuere congestae, celebratum, per omnem vitam Histrioniam egisse deprehendet. 109 Let [the reader] rather read these letters that I am now publishing and Lipsius himself deliberately suppressed. He will clearly see his mind unclothed and stripped of all its coverings of pretence. He will understand that the great Lipsius, celebrated in so many encomia and laudations (which were sufficiently heaped upon him by his ad mirers in unique measure to satisfy his ambition), played the part of an actor throughout his life. In the absence of a complete modern edition of Lipsius letters, Burman remains the most important collection available, other than the Centuriue published by Lipsius and his executors, and even this work is to be found in only a handful of libraries. Despite Burman's prejudice, it is the prin cipal source of evidence to compare with and complement Lipsius Centuriae. Some of Burman's charges are trivial, and many flow from his contempt for Lipsius' desertion of Leiden and Protestantism. These we may discount. The weighty charges are summed up in the phrase histrion icam vitam, and these any student of the letters must take seriously. At the beginning of this chapter we have used the metaphor of the theater, and Burman is quite right to show how Lipsius stage-managed his corre spondence. His charges, however, are too broad. Lipsius, we can be sure, had the vanity of all but the most saintly scholars; to survive and succeed The Fax Hisiorica is well discussed by Saunders, Ltpstus, 45-47, - Sylloges, Praefatio y 10. The Latin word histrio is the equivalent of the Greek word
hypokrites, as Burman well knew.
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as he did in the political and academic cross-currents of sixteenth-century Europe he needed a measure of ambition and egoism. He suffered from the brilliance of his exposition of Stoicism in the De Constantia, for his detractors could hardly avoid contrasting his own vacillations with the doctrines of Langius. He avoided courageous stands in religion if they seemed likely to lead to failure or even death: martyrdom was not Lipsius' way. He was an egocentric teacher, and in his contubernium (which Burman seems particularly to have disliked) he was the central figure, the Master surrounded by a group of admiring disciples, who (one may be sure) massaged his vanity. In publishing his letters he edited and changed them with greater regard for his public image than for the truth, and in his defence of his religious and political views he used arguments and methods that were patently dishonest. To this extent we must agree with Burman, whose attack, nevertheless, leaves the substance of Lipsius' achievement and character untouched. His reputation was not built on vanity and ambition: his Latin scholarship was universally respected and continued to be respected long after his death, and his editions of Tacitus and Seneca are among the enduring monuments of scholarship. He was a gifted teacher, and his capacity for friendship was undoubted. We must indeed approach the letters circumspectly, and we must share Burman's distress at Lipsius' frequent self-interest, vanity, and hypocrisy. Yet much survives that is good, and there is much that is valuable in the self-portrait of the humane scholar and philosopher. Finally, we must remember the depth of religious prejudices involved: Burman's Protestantism is as one sided as the Catholic orthodoxy of Peter Paul Rubens and its celebration in the portrait of his brother's teacher. It is necessary to read widely in Lipsius' letters to judge the fairness of Burman's criticisms. Here we must be limited to a few selections, which will, however, allow us to to make a reasonably accurate evaluation of Lipsius' self-portrait. He corresponded with scholars, leaders in church and state, students, and many other friends all over Europe. Correspon dence of such variety is bound to display a wide range of artifice and sincerity, of informality and conventionality. Even when we can be sure that Lipsius is expressing his feelings with sincerity (as is frequently the case in the letters to and from Muret, Busbecq, and Clusius), we have also to remember that Latin correspondence between humanists was a formal genre of literary activity, based on the example of Cicero, with certain conventions of style and expression. Further, it was probably written with an eye to eventual publication and certainly was edited before publica-
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tion. The writer is therefore, as Burman charged, an actor, bistrio, in the drama of his own life, and to that extent we are dealing with a persona that reveals only a part of the writer's character. The writer controls the extent of his self-revelation, and unauthorized, posthumous publications do not round out the picture, especially if they, too, are presented by a tendentious editor such as Burman. The correspondence with Scaliger, whom Lipsius respected and prob ably feared, gives an insight into Lipsius' relations with other scholars rather different from that of correspondence with biuret. There are some fifty letters; Lipsius also addressed four of the Epistolicae Quaestiones to Scaliger, and he dedicated his Satyra Menippea to him. 110 Scaliger (15401609) was seven years older than Lipsius and became his successor at Leiden in 1593. The two never met, but Scaliger maintained that he was Lipsius' friend, despite many harsh criticisms of his character and schol arship. His scholarship, particularly in Hebrew and Greek, was broader than that of Lipsius, 111 and he had some reason to be critical of Lipsius' limited scholarship in Greek. He was unjust in his low opinion of Lipsius' later work, other than the Catholic tracts. He admired Lipsius' Tacitus, 111 and his disappointment with Lipsius seems largely to have derived from the same religious prejudices as those of Burman, for Scaliger, who con verted to Calvinism in 1562, never wavered in his Protestantism. 11 ' The earliest letter to Scaliger is especially informative, since it exists in two versions. 114 Lipsius published a revised version in the first century of Epistolae Miscellaneae, while he suppressed the text of the actual letter, which was published in the Decades XIIX in 1621. The version published by Lipsius formally announces his friendship; it is spiced with mytholog ical allusion and punning reference to Scaliger's emblem, the eagle, and it ends with a quotation from lines 45-47 of Pindar's first Isthmian Ode. Here are some extracts: 1 . 0 It was published by Plantin in 1581 (BB 3:1073-74) and gave great offense in Ger many; see Ep. Misc. 1.13, June 29, 1581 (to Dousa) (ILE 1.154). The dedication is given at ILE 1.131. The four letters of the Ep. Quaest. addressed to Scaliger are 1.1, 1.2.1, 3.6, and 4.10. Writing to Giselinus, Ep. Quaest. 3.2.0, Lipsius expressed admiration for Scaliger 's edition of Festus. See Grafton, Scaliger, 157 and 306, n. 134. 1 . 1 Lipsius recognised this: Scaligeri ingenium grande & capax, diffusum per omrtes artes. This is quoted in the introduction to losephi Scaligeri Epistolae (Leiden: Elzevir, 1627). For Scaliger's early studies see Grafton, Scaliger, ch. 4 (esp. pp. 102-4 f° r Greek and Hebrew). Scaligeriatta (τ666), ζογ. I , J Grafton, Scaliger, 104. "* ILE 1.77, November 26, 1576, published by Lipsius as Ep. Misc. 1.6; ILE. 1.78, De cember ix, 1576, published in Decades XIIX, 59-60, no. 1. See the introductions to these letters in ILE for discussion of their authenticity. For Decades XIIX see BB 3:964-66; eigh teen letters to Scaliger were included in part z.
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losepho Scaligero I[uli] F[ilio] S[alutem] et amorem nuntio. qui vere magnus. nam iam antea, mi Scaliger, cum veneratione quadam amabam te, paternae tuae virtutis caussa . . . De Plauto . . . egone ante te? iamdiu libravi hoc onus, cui impar ista cervix, tu hie unus Her cules sive Atlas nobis, et fulcire debes comicum istud caelum . . . Aquila in nubibus, quod Graeci dicunt, vere tu es: vides, immo pervides omnia; et quicquid venaris, capis. To Joseph Scaliger, son of Julius, greetings and love. Which towards you is great. For before this time, my Scaliger, I loved you with a certain awe, because of your father's virtue . . . About [publishing] Plautus—should I publish before you? I have for long been balancing this burden, to which my neck is unequal. You alone are our Hercu les or Atlas, and you should hold up those heavens of Comedy. "An eagle in the clouds," as the Greek proverb goes, are you indeed; you see—nay, you see through—everything; and whatever you hunt you catch. The original version is more straightforward, although its content is much the same. Lipsius courts Scaliger's approval more frankly, while the references to the myth of Atlas and Hercules are missing, as is the quota tion from Pindar. Finally, the allusion to the eagle almost certainly was inserted after 1584, when Lipsius was preparing for the publication of the first century of letters in 1586. 115 This brief example supports Burman's criticism of Lipsius' editing of his letters, and it is instructive about the persona that Lipsius wished to assume when corresponding with a great scholar. Nevertheless, learned allusion and labored compliment were part of the conventions of such correspondence and were not peculiar to Lipsius alone; he himself (as Burman complained) was the recipient of similar flattery. Scaliger was not always impressed, and his spoken comments on Lipsius are a good deal more frank than the sentiments expressed in their correspondence. After Lipsius' death he wrote a kind of obituary to Casaubon, in which he ac cused Lipsius of inconstancy for leaving Leiden, uxoriousness in giving way to the "superstition" of his wife, and ambition, which motivated his moves from one university to another. Yet, says Scaliger, "I loved the The allusion is to Aristophanes, Knights, 1013; cf. Erasmus, Adagia, 1.9.20. Lipsius makes the same allusion (Te, qui vere Aquila in nubibus es) in ILE 2.322, March 7, 1584, probably for the first time; he did not publish this letter and incorporated the allusion into the published version of Ep. Misc. 1.6.
SELF-PORTRAIT WITH FRIENDS
man, as a friend; I honored him, as one who had served the cause of scholarship well. 116 Casaubon, in reply, quoted a letter of Lipsius that proved his lack of constancy, yet he, too, ended by recalling their friend ship: "When I heard the news of his death I wept copiously, for I honored the man and he loved me."'" Indeed, Casaubon (1559-1614) had a genuine affection for Lipsius, and his early letters to him show deep respect. 118 A S E C O N D and quite distinct group of Lipsius' friends included distin guished public figures who were not primarily philologists, some of whom Lipsius met during his visit to Vienna in 1572. These friendships seem to have been free of the egoism and backbiting that characterized the "friendship" with Scaliger, for the friends were not a threat to each other's reputation, and their respect and affection seem to have been mu tual. The friendships with Busbecq and Clusius were especially happy, and in these two relationships, perhaps even more than with the contubernales, Lipsius appears in an uncontrived and favorable light as the peer of two of the most versatile of his contemporaries. Busbecq (Ogier Giselin van Busbeke, 1522.-1591) was a diplomat and scholar, ambassador of the Emperor Ferdinand II to the court of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1554—1555 and 1555-1562. 119 He is better known to posterity as the person who introduced tulips to western Europe, and as the discoverer of the Monumentum Ancyranum·, the latter, first published by Lipsius' friend Andreas Schott in 1579, was published by Lipsius in 116 Iosephi Scaligeri Epistolae 1 2 0 , April u, 1 6 0 6 (henceforth Epistolae). Vervliet, lip sius' J eugd, 4 1 — 4 3 , defends Anna vanden Calstere, Lipsius" wife, from Scaliger's charges, which have been generally repeated in biographies of Lipsius. See Vervliet, 37-43, i o r dis cussion of Anna's influence on Lipsius. 1,7 Epistolae , 5 1 3 . The letter quoted by Casaubon contained extremely hostile comments on Del Rio, quite different from Lipsius' published sentiments. Casaubon also reported at tacks by Lipsius on Scaliger's Elenchus. Casaubon (probably too generously) ascribed Lipsius' asperity to his misera servitus to the Catholics. " 8 Casaubon began the correspondence on February 11, 1 5 8 8 { I L E 3 . 6 0 9 ) , six years be fore he began corresponding with Scaliger (Epistolae , 4 0 6 , April 2 5 , 1 5 9 4 ) · Lipsius' first letter, Ep. Misc. 2 . 8 8 (ILE 3 . 6 9 6 ) is dated August 6 , 1 5 8 9 ; he published only five of the fifty-four letters in their correspondence, while only three of Casaubon s letters to Lipsius were included in the 1 6 3 8 collection. By 1 6 0 3 Lipsius was proving a poor correspondent: in letters 551 and 553 Casaubon complained that Lipsius had failed to answer letters, some times for a year at a time. In 1601 (letter 551) Casaubon wrote to express his pleasure at meeting Lipsius' contubernalis Perez in Paris. 1 , 9 For Busbecq see de Waele, ed., Augerius Gislenus Busbecquius·, NBW 1 : 2 7 9 - 8 2 ; and BN 3:180-91. His Opera Omnia include a Vita by Carrio. Busbecq's first letter (Op. Omn. 4 7 ) d e s c r i b e s h i s first s i g h t o f t u l i p s a n d h y a c i n t h s . S e e M o r f o r d , " S t o i c G a r d e n , " 1 6 7 - 6 9 and nn. 106—8.
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his Auctarium to Smetius' lnscriptiones Antiquae in 1588 (Fig. 14). 11 ° Lipsius was impressed by Busbecq when he first met him in June 1572: Prandium mihi hodie apud heroem nostrum (non enim virum dixerim) Busbequium. post prandium, longiusculae etiam fabulae: sed de litteris, ut apud eum solet. 121 I dined today with our hero (for I would not call him a mere man) Busbecq. After dinner we had a long conversation; but it was about literature, as is usually the case with him. Lipsius addressed one of the Epistolicae Quaestiones to Busbecq in 1577, 1X1 and in 158Z he dedicated his Saturnalia to him, with an elegant acknowledgement of Busbecq's virtus and doctrina, the foundation of his distinguished service. 123 Busbecq's reply is a masterpiece of diplomatic praise, but not without a measure of sincere admiration for Lipsius' intel lect and style. 124 Equally elegant is his letter of thanks to Lipsius for the gift of his De Constantia, a generous appreciation of Lipsius' achievement that has much truth among the compliments. 115 That Busbecq genuinely admired Lipsius can be seen from a letter written from Paris by Janus Gulielmus in March 1584; Gulielmus had met Busbecq a few days earlier and conveyed Lipsius' greetings. He reported that "he never stops mak ing a god of you and putting you before him in all his conversation, so greatly does he admire your sharp intellect and elegant critical sense." 126 Lipsius was deeply affected by Busbecq's death in 1591; he wrote an 110 It first appeared in Schott's edition of Aurelius Victor. For the vicissitudes of Smetius' manuscript see the account in Lipsius' letter to Clusius, Ep. Misc. 2..24, January 14, 1588 (ILE 3.603); stolen in Bruges in 1578, it was bought in England by Dousa in 1585 and brought back by him to Leiden, where it has remained. Modern scholars have not given much credit to Busbecq for his discovery, and Mommsen's history of the inscription, pub lished in 1873, still remains the most reliable (CIL 3.2, 770), along with his Res Gestae Divi Augusti, xvi—xxii. Lipsius, who first mentioned the inscription in a letter in April 1581 [ILE 1.148), was more generous: O thesaurum repertum, non lapidem! (Electorum 1.27). 121 Ep. Misc. r.5, June T3, Γ572 (to Pighius) (ILE 1.15). "- i Ep. Quaest. 1.16. Especially interesting is the reference to Busbecq's collection of coins, which Lipsius had seen in Vienna. For the exchange of letters after the publication of the Ep. Quaest. see ILE 1.108 and 110, February 12 and March 7, 1580 (Ep. Misc. 1.17— 18). 111 ILE 1.188. The Saturnalia was published at Antwerp by Plantin in 1582; it consists of two books of dialogue about gladiators. See BB 3:1068—73. ILE 1.194, January 28, 1582 (Ep. Misc. 1.34). ILE 1.357, July 12, 1584. Lipsius replied on August 23, 1584 (ILE 2.363, Ep. Misc. 1.63). 1 1 6 ILE z.318: is te non desinit deum facere et omnibus sermonibus prae se ferre, quantopere admiretur acrimoniam ingenii et elegantiam iudicii tui.
SELF-PORTRAIT WITH FRIENDS
epitaph for him nearly a decade later in response to a request from Audeiantus and Lucas Wijngaerd. 117 The correspondence with Busbecq is small in quantity (it amounts only to seven letters) but unusual in the quality of friendship that it portrays. Much of it, admittedly, is couched in elegant and complimentary phrases, but throughout the integrity of Busbecq is evident, as well as his manysided intellectual curiosity. The attributes of virtus and doctrina that Lipsius saw in him were those that he tried to achieve in his own life. Busbecq represented a good man who served the state well, the sixteenth-century equivalent of the Roman ideal of the vir bonus dicendi peritus; he was the forerunner of the ideal that Lipsius later aimed at in teaching his contubernales at Leuven. Lipsius' friend Clusius was perhaps of even greater stature than Busbecq, a many-sided scholar and a person who maintained his courage and integrity despite professional disappointment and crippling injuries. His correspondence with Lipsius began in May 1584, and lasted for the rest of Lipsius' life. 118 Charles de L'Ecluse (1526-1609), like Lipsius himself, formed a link between Renaissance and modern scholarship. lZ9 He was trained in classical studies and law at Leuven, and he wrote primarily in Latin, into which he translated many learned botanical works from Span ish, English, and French. He corresponded with Lipsius on philological and historical subjects, 1 ' 0 and he advanced the science of cartography with his maps of southern France and Spain. Above all he was a great botanist, who collected and classified plants from all over the world throughout his life, and he may claim to have been the founder of the science of mycology. He introduced the potato and the tulip (from seeds and bulbs given him by Busbecq) to northern Europe, while his most im portant work, Rariorum Plantcirutn Historic}, is one of the founding works of modern botany." 1 He directed the imperial botanical garden in Vienna from 1573 until 1577, when he was dismissed by the new and 127 Ep. ad Belg. 2..78, January 31, 1601 (to Wijngaerd). The letter pays eloquent tribute to Busbecq whose virtus and prudentia in royal service impressed Lipsius. The epitaph is also given by Carrio in his Vita of Busbecq (see n. 119 above). Busbecq is praised by his contemporary, L. Guicciardini, Descrittione j 338—39· - 8 ILE ζ 343 May 7, 1584 {Ep. Misc. 1.48). The last letter is dated December 30, 1605 (Inuentaire, 395'). Twenty-two letters from Lipsius are included in Portfolio 2 of the Leiden manuscript collection of letters to CIusius, Ulustrium virorum et femmarum eptstolae ad Carolum Clusium (see BB 3:764-66). , . , .c "» See Smit, "Carolus CIusius." The best work on CIusius is Hunger, Charles de L Escluse. A. Louis in NBW 1:311-19 is informative; cf. BN 5:383-403; BB 3:759-84. As, for example, in ILE z.$z 5 , April 1, 1587, discussed below. '3> Published by Moretus in Antwerp in 1601.
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orthodox Catholic emperor, Rudolph II. He recovered his position in 1582 and held it until 1588, when his health (in particular his injured left leg) forced him to retire to Frankfurt. Lipsius had tried to persuade him to come to Leiden in 1587, but he declined on the grounds that at the age of sixty-one he was too old. 1 ' 2 Nevertheless, he was eventually appointed to direct the medical garden at Leiden, and from 1593 until his death in 1609 he continued his botanical research there. The Hortus Clusianus still may be seen at Leiden, reconstructed to Clusius' arrangement. 1 " Clusius became a Protestant, despite his Catholic education, but his views were so moderate that they gave no offence (beyond the dismissal, shared by other Protestant scholars, from Rudolph IFs court), and he was able to pursue his botanical research untroubled by the controversy that em broiled less discreet scholars, such as Lipsius. Like Lipsius he appeared in both Meursius' Protestant and Sweertius' Catholic catalogues of viri clari, 134 and both appeared in Boissard's Thesaurus Virtutis et Gloriae The portrait in Boissard, engraved by Theodore de Bry, is appropriately framed with floral motifs and as the titulus has the following couplet: Consilio Pylium, Chironem vincit in herbis, atque Titum antiqua Clusius historia. Clusius excels the Pylian [Nestor] in wisdom, Chiron [the Centaur] in [knowledge of medicinal] plants, and Titus [Livy] in ancient his tory. Through the hyperbole we can discern the qualities of Clusius that at tracted Lipsius. Their friendship seems to have been brought about by Plantin, who published their works, and it was maintained by their com mon interest in flowers and ancient history. 1,6 In the first letter Lipsius thanks Clusius for a gift (possibly seeds or bulbs) brought by Plantin, and he takes these as arras (sureties) for their future friendship, which he de scribes as banc novam amicitiam, quae inter vere bonos. In Clusius Lip sius saw the same qualities as had attracted him to Busbecq: integritas, ingenua virtus, and doctrina, that is, moral as well as intellectual virtues. Miraeus named Clusius as one of the three friends who helped him espe•3 1 ILE 2 . 5 4 3 , June 3i 1587, for the invitation; 2 .556, July 2 . 5 , 1 5 8 7 , for the refusal. '» It is described in Meursius, Atbenae Batavae, 31 - 3 3 , with Swanenburgh's engraving (cf. Hunger, Charles de L'Escluse, 218). Meursiusthought it superior to the medical gardens at Paris, Montpelier, and Padua. ">< Meursius, Athenae Batavae, 1 8 5 - 8 8 ; Sweerts Athenae Belgicae, 1 6 6 — 6 7 . 2 : 3 - 6 , for Clusius. 1,6 ILE 2 . 3 4 3 , 1· 1• There are forty-nine letters in the correspondence.
SELF-PORTRAIT WITH FRIENDS
cially in his horticulture, 137 and Clusius was generous with his advice and with gifts of plants, including the still rare and valuable tulips—thesaurum hortensem, "garden treasure," as Lipsius called one gift in 1587. 138 This particular gift had been sent despite Clusius' ill health and the dam age caused to his garden by a severe winter, a cold spring, and a wet summer. 139 In the same letter Clusius mentions reading Lipsius' first cen tury of letters and the De Recta Pronunciatione Latinae Linguae, both published in 1586, and incidentally he describes the accident to his left foot that had caused him so much pain. He also asks Lipsius' opinion about a point of orthography in the Monumentum Ancyranum, of which he sent Lipsius a copy, unaware that he already had one, which he was about to publish. This letter is typical of Clusius' humanity and breadth of interest. When he was about to leave Vienna Lipsius wrote to invite him to Leiden (for Dodoens had died in March 1585, and his place was as yet unfilled), and there is a touching sincerity about the invitation, free of the self-serving motives that Burman perceived in Lipsius' correspon dence. Yet it is sad to find that some years later Lipsius wrote to his hor ticultural friend and adviser, Jan Boisot (who also was a friend of Clu sius), to say that Lipsius preferred him as an adviser and thought his garden better kept than that of Clusius, which he had seen at Frankfurt. 140 Nevertheless, the friendship with Clusius was unbroken, and in him, as in Busbecq, Lipsius valued the combination of integrity and learning that exemplified the highest ideals of humanism. That men of such quality thought so highly of Lipsius is a valid, if partial, reply to the criticisms of Scaliger and others. Busbecq and Clusius are representative of Lipsius' humanist correspon dents. They included scholars and public figures whom he had met as a young man in Rome and Vienna (Muret and Busbecq are in this group), older scholars such as Joachim Camerarius (whom Lipsius may have met " 7 Op. Omn. 1.33. The others were Rembert Dodoens and Jan Boisot. Dodoens was Professor of Medicine at Leiden from 1582 until his death in 1585, and imperial doctor at the court of Maximilian II in Vienna, 1574-1577. from which, like Clusius, he was dis missed by Rudolph II; see NBW 1:414-19 and BN 6:85-112. His Cruydeboek was pub lished at Antwerp in 15 54. At Leiden he was curator of the botanical garden. Little is known about Boisot, who lived in Brussels. '» 8 ILE z.586, October 25, 1587 (Ep. Misc. 1.91). ILE 2.525, April i, 1587. Ep. ad Belg. 2.17, November 6, 1594. Lipsius was then making his garden at Leuven for the house that he had built, and presumably needed expert advice from closer at hand than Leiden (where Clusius was). Clusius himself acknowledged the help of Boisot in send ing him tulip seeds (Rariorum Plantarum Historia, 147)· There are twelve letters from Boisot to Clusius in the Leiden collection, Portfolio 5.
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in Leipzig), 141 and nearly every scholar of distinction in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Britain, as well as the Nether lands. 141 In the earlier letters he appears as the ambitious young scholar, eager to impress established figures with his erudition and wit. In some cases he was surprisingly diffident, for example towards Scaliger, whose sharp tongue he evidently feared. As he grew in fame his letters became more assured, yet the letters to humanists and scholars are far from a complete self-portrait. We must therefore turn to other categories of let ters, among which two stand out: correspondence with Catholic church men and with his students. The former category is of special importance during his final years at Leiden and in the time of his return to Leuven and Catholicism. Although these letters are extremely revealing, they tell us more about the inexorable pressures put upon Lipsius by Torrentius, Del Rio, and other churchmen than they do about his character. 143 More revealing are the letters to the friends with whom he felt at ease. We have already quoted many letters to and from Lipsius' students, in which he reveals himself most fully. Many of the letters have a specific purpose, for example the letters of recommendation, in which Lipsius was again following Cicero. 144 The letters to contubernales are especially valuable, and they show (as Lipsius surely intended) the scholar and teacher in his element, preparing future leaders of church and state. Burman's attack on the contubernium is not supported by the letters them selves, for Lipsius' complaints about shortage of money or general unease are not necessarily related to frustration at having to take in students. It has been shown above that this activity was close to Lipsius' heart, that his affection for the contubernales was sincere, and that he gained uncontrived satisfaction from sharing his scholarship and way of life with his students. Beyond the contubernales Lipsius corresponded with many former stu dents. The most extensive group of such letters is the correspondence with Theodore Leeuw, the first student enrolled at the University of Leiden, a See ILE 1.2.0— 21. Camerarius was born in 1500, yet he supported the much younger Lipsius and helped him to get established atJena in 1572. 1 4 1 See ILE vol. 1, p. 1 4 , for a representative list. "·" See, for example, Roersch, "La Correspondence." 144 Book 13 of Cicero's Epistulae ad Familiares consists of recommendations. In 13 . 6 . 4 , for example, P. Crassus is recommended to Caesar on the grounds that he was well edu cated, because he had spent much time at Cicero's house learning Stoicism: nam domi meae . . . multum a puero fuit. The words might equally have been written by Lipsius. For Cic ero's use of consuetudo cotidiana as a reason for recommending a friend see, for example, 13.33.ι and 45 .1. In 13.13 Cicero's friend, Castronius, was, like Woverius, vir et cum virtutibus turn etiam fortuna . . . ornatus; cf. Ep. Misc. 3.47.
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member of the Council of Holland and later of the Supreme Council of the United Provinces at the Hague. '45 The correspondence, which began in 1580, lasted for eleven years, that is, until Lipsius left Leiden. Leeuw himself died young, in 1596. Forty-nine letters survive, and Burman may be right to charge that Lipsius destroyed many more. At any rate, the surviving letters show Lipsius in a pleasant light; he offers Leeuw advice as an older man and his former teacher (in fact, Lipsius was one year older than Leeuw), but he also converses with him as an equal and shares common interests, for example, in gardens. Lipsius respected the distinguished public career of his former student; he was not afraid to maintain the relationship of a teacher and adviser, yet he shared his own views and interests as a friend. This picture is consistent with the portrait drawn from the contubernium, and we can only speculate on the extent to which it has been manipulated, as Burman charged, by Lipsius' destruction of other letters. Equally pleasant, and revealing again of the humane side of Lipsius' nature, is the correspondence with his friends Ghiselin and Lernutius. '46 An examination of the letters leads to the same conclusion as with Leeuw, that Lipsius, when at his ease with friends, was capable of warm humanity and sincere affection. With these friends he shared scholarly interests. He was affected by their sorrows and moved by the death of Ghiselin. 147 He also shared in their joys, and his lively participation in Ghiselin's graduation at Dole, indeed, led to a serious illness. 14 8 Finally, among such friends, we should include Janus Dousa (Jan van der Does), the hero of the siege of Leiden, Curator of the University, and '., Album Studiosorum, no. I. For Leeuw see ILE 1.114 and Burman, Sylloge, I :27· See BB 3:9 66 for Lipsius' Ad Theodorum Leeuwium EfJistolae. Lipsius dedicated his edition of Velleius Paterculus to him. '4" See BN T787-92; Bergmans, "L'Autobiographie," 33 2 -34 for Ghiselin (1539- 1 59 1 , not 1543- 1 59 1 , as given by BN and ILE I, p. 61); and Heesakkers, Praecidanea Dousana, I - I I I (reprint of his "Janus Dousa and Victor Giselinus"). Giselinus described his first impressions of Lipsius in a letter to Dousa of Aprils, 1571, shortly before Dousa's first meeting with Lipsius (Heesakkers, 102-3). Lipsius tried to get him elected as Professor of Medicine at Leiden, but without success. For Lernutius (1545- 161 9) see NBW 1:668-71; BN 11:631-3 8 ; Bergmans, "L'Autobiographie," 3,34-37; andVan Crombruggen, Janus Ler~ nutius. Lernutius was a Latin poet of some dlstmctlon; hiS home at Bruges was LlpslUs refuge before he left for Leiden in 157 8 . " , . . " '47 See Burman, Syl/oge, I.598 (quoted by Bergmans, . L AutoblOgraphle, 33,3-34) for Ghiselin's death. Lipsius tried, without success, to help raise the money to ransom Lernutlus from his British captors; he was captured in 1587 an~ released five years later (Ber~mans: 33 6 , wrongly gives the period as five months). See £p. MISC. 2·53 and 67· LlpslUs StOI" precepts (ciama in Fortunam, nihil agis, etc.) were of httle comfort to the prisoner. 1 . . 8 Ep. Misc. 3. 7; EfJ. Quaest. 3.23. Lipsius' speech on the occasIOn (at the end of 157 8 or early in 1572.) was published in Orationes Octo Jenae potlsstmum habttae, no. 8.
91
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warm friend of Lipsius. 149 Scaliger thought poorly of Dousa: "simple, in nocent, cotnme sa femme et tous ses infans," but he also allowed that he had a fine memory and could recite Catullus and the whole of Propertius by heart. 150 The words simple and innocent also imply the qualities of integrity and courage, virtues that Dousa did indeed possess and were valued and admired by Lipsius. Over one hundred letters and notes be tween Lipsius and Dousa survive, and the correspondence continued after Lipsius had left Leiden. Dousa himself died in 1604. 151 I t w a s in Dousa's Album Amicorum that Lipsius first used his motto, moribus antiquis, which came to be an integral part of his persona. 1,2 Dousa, who was two years older than Lipsius, received a Catholic ed ucation, studying at Leuven in 1561, Douai (1562—1564), and Paris. He was a close friend of Ghiselin and Lernutius. He converted to Calvinism some time before 1570, and his Catholic training and friendships put him into the "liberal" branch of Dutch Calvinists, which was more tolerant of deviations from strict Calvinist theology. Indeed, Plantin, a loyal Cath olic in voluntary exile in Leiden, wrote that so long as a Catholic was obedient to the civil authorities he was under no compulsion to give up his faith. 151 That the new University was so tolerant was in no small mea sure due to Dousa, whose credentials as a defender of Dutch Calvinism were unshakably established by his leadership in the defense of Leiden in 1574. He was able, therefore, to attract the foreign scholars (including the Catholics Lipsius and Dodoens and the fiercely Protestant Scaliger) who were so instrumental in building the academic distinction of the Uni versity. Lipsius was fortunate in his time; the murder of William of Or ange in 1584 weakened the position of the tolerant group, although it was not until 1619, with the Synod of Dort, that the University was purged, with the imprisonment of Grotius as an example of what could have happened to Lipsius in another time. 154 14 * See NNBW 6 : 4 2 5 - 2 9 ; LU 1 — 2 , 1 7 - 1 8 , with fig. 1 (engraving by P. Galle, 1 5 7 4 ) ; and BHAPB 2S7. Scaligeriana ( 1 6 6 6 ) , 9 4 - 9 5 . This is the date given in LU 4 5 1 , n. 2 7 , and 4 8 9 , and by Heesakkers, Praecidanea Dousana. NNBW and BHAPB give Γ 6 0 9 ; at ILE 1 .76 (p. 1 7 8 ) it is given as 1 5 9 9 , which m u s t be t o o early, since the last dated letter from Lipsius t o Dousa is dated J a n u a r y 3 0 , 1 6 0 0 (lnventaire, 2 9 0 ) . Forty-five of the letters to Dousa were included in the Decades X l l X . T h e last datable letter from Dousa (Burman, Sylloge , 2 2 2 ) is dated September 2 6 ,
1591.
" l May 8 , 1 5 7 1 , the date given by Heesakkers, Praecidanea Dousana, 1 0 9 , and ILE 1, p. 1 7 8 . The date is given wrongly as 1 5 7 0 by ILE 2, p. 191; cf. NBW 1 0 : 4 0 5 and Vervliet, Lipsius' Jeugd, 3 0 , n. 4 . In the dedication to Book 2 of the Electorum (ILE 2 . 4 0 7 , February r, 1 5 8 5 ) , Lipsius says, te Dousa Lovanii vidi primum, et ut vidi, . , . arsi. LU 3 , 1 8 , n . 9 . " 4 LU 4 - 5 , 1 3 7 - 3 9 . For Grotius see BHAPB 3 4 9 - 5 3 .
SELF-PORTRAIT WITH FRIENDS
Dousa probably invited Lipsius as early as I 577 , and his acceptance was hastened by the victory of Don Juan at Gembloers early in 1578 Lipsius' letter of January 18, 1578, shows that he had already decided to accept; it expresses warm affection for Dousa, while it also is full of schol arly and personal gossip .'S' Lipsius appreciated Dousa's virtues as a po litical and academic leader, while recognizing his abilities as a classical scholar He educated Dousa's eldest son, Jan, and he shared in Dousa's grief at his early death, in 1596.I n the friendship with Dousa and his family Lipsius seems to have been more truly happy than in any of his other friendships with those who had not been his students or fellow stu dents. The mutual recognition by Dousa and Lipsius of each other's qual ities contributed to the fact that Lipsius' years at Leiden were also his most productive. Let us turn finally to a friendship that was also a business relationship. Christopher Plantin was a remarkable human being as well as a great printer. Born in 1514, he was more than thirty years older than Lipsius, yet he treated the younger man with generous respect, despite what ap pears to have been less than punctilious behaviour on Lipsius' part. Plantin had published Lipsius' first work, the Variarum Lectionum Libri IV, in 1569, but his first extant letter in which he solicits Lipsius' edition of Tacitus, dates from 1 5 7 3 · 1 5 7 ^ was his third letter making the request (and it is unlikely that Lipsius did not receive the first two), yet Plantin showed patience and good will, not unmixed with judicious flattery. He was well repaid: Lipsius, who was also being solicited by the great French scholar-printer, Stephanus, chose Plantin, and remained faithful to his printing house for the rest of his life. He also became a firm friend, and it was to Plantin's house in Antwerp that he fled when the sack of Leuven was imminent in 1578. Plantin's Stoicism was less systematic than that of Lipsius, but his sonnet, Le Bonheur de Ce Monde, is an eloquent expres sion in its way of the philosophy of life expressed in the De Constantia. "> ILE 1.86. '' i For the younger Dousa (1571-1596) see NNBW 6.429-30. Scaliger (Scaligeriana [1666], 94—95) called him simple et idiot. Nevertheless he did rise to be the Librarian of the university (cf. LU 405). The copies in the Houghton Library of Harvard University of the De Constantia, Satyra Menippea, and Saturnalia were those presented by Lipsius to the younger Dousa. The author's inscription for the first of these reads, Iano Duzae iuniori, in bonam spem exemplumque genito adolescenti I. Lipsius D{ono). dedit, and in the text are Dousa's notes, especially from his reading of Seneca. This volume gives a vivid insight into Lipsius' teaching of boys (Dousa was thirteen in 1584). 157 ILE x.45, ca. December 15, 1573. Plantin had just finished his great Biblia Polyglotta and suggested that its type would be kept for the Tacitus, typos namque recenter fusos ad Taciturn tuum servo, a compliment that cannot have been unwelcome to Lipsius. For Ste phanus' enquiry see ILE 1.31, March 23, 1573.
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The quality of their friendship can be judged from their final letters. Plantin's was written from his deathbed, as Jan Moretus noted, in his own hand (haec Socer meus manu propria vix scribere potuit) on June 19, 1589. Plantin looks forward to his death with Christian and Stoic equa nimity. Even the simple salutation, amicus amico Sfalutem] P[lurimam], is moving, for it was the thought of his long friendship with Lipsius (still in CaIvinist Leiden) that sustained him. Lipsius kept the letter, which was presented by Woverius to Balthasar Moretus seventeen years later. 158 Plantin probably never read Lipsius' reply, for he died on July 1, 1589. Nevertheless, it is a moving letter, given here in full: Mi amice, nulla umquam epistola tua aut gratior mihi aut gravior fuit hac postrema. Ianguida manu scriptionem tuam nimis exosculatus sum, & servabo pignus fidissimi inter nos amoris. at dolui in tua afflictissima valetudine, quam tamen mens mihi dictat ac praesagit iam esse meliorem. O deus, & tu, facite me compotem huius voti! aliud nihil scribo, nisi hoc, quidquid a me factum voles, etiam cum me praecedes &c in vili hac terra non eris, impera: non vivum magis amavi, quam postea vere vivum amabo. Salve, Salve, Salve. 1 ' 9 My friend, never has any letter of yours brought more pleasure or heaviness than this last one. I kissed your writing repeatedly, written by your feeble hand, and I shall keep it as a pledge of our most faith ful love. But I was saddened by the grievous affliction of your health, which, however, my mind tells me and anticipates is already better. O God, and you, grant me this prayer! I write nothing else except this—tell me whatever you wish to be done by me, even when you go before me and are no longer on this worthless earth. I have loved you alive no more than I shall love you afterwards, when you are truly alive. Farewell, Farewell, Farewell. These are not the words of a histrio, elegant although they are and illuminated by reminders of Cicero and of Roman funerary ritual. 160 Lipsius admitted in his letter of consolation to Raphelengius, the husband of Plantin's eldest daughter, that he was weak in the face of the loss of his friend, who himself had shown such constantia. 161 When we remember " 8 G V 1 0 , pp. 1 3 - 1 4 . Ep. Misc. 2 . 7 3 , undated. 160 E.g., Salve in Cicero, Ep. ad Earn. 1 6 . 4 . 4 ; Vergil, Aen. 5 . 8 0 ; and Statius, Silv. 3 . 3 . 2 0 8 . 1 6 1 Ep. Misc. z . 7 4 , July 16 , 1 5 8 9 , admitting that his constantia is not so firm a foundation that he can support others. Cf. a letter to Jan Moretus nine years later (Ep. ad Belg. 3 . 4 5 , July 2 2 , 1 5 9 8 ) recalling Plantin's singularis . . . constantia.
SELF-PORTRAIT WITH FRIENDS
the doubts that Lipsius was himself experiencing in 1589, then we can understand how affected he was by the loss of one of his oldest friends. Yet the loss was followed by gain; Lipsius was already a close friend of Raphelengius, who headed the Plantin press in Leiden and first published a number of Lipsius' works, and he remained close to Jan Moretus and his son, Balthasar. Balthasar, no doubt in part because of the close rela tionship that he and Philip Rubens had had with Lipsius, was a lifelong friend of Peter Paul Rubens, from whom he commissioned among others, engravings for the 1615 Seneca and the 1637 Opera Omnia of Lipsius. Thus Lipsius' friendship with Plantin, a business relationship that also was a friendship in the best Stoic sense, bore fruit in the next two gener ations. The last letter to Plantin is an appropriate conclusion to the self-por trait of Lipsius drawn from letters to his friends. The element of artifice was inevitably prominent in correspondence with scholars who were his peers or whom he wished to emulate. He was more at ease with scholars who were not rivals, such as Clusius and Plantin, and in these letters his capacity for friendship is most pleasing. Often (and especially in the let ters that others than Lipsius published) his weaknesses, his moral and religious vacillation, and his vanity, are all too obvious. But these, too, are a necessary part of the portrait. Rubens' portraits of Lipsius are icons, homage to the memory of Philip's teacher and friend. It is the letters that allow us to fill out the details that the artist has idealized. Nevertheless, the self-portrait is not yet complete, for Lipsius left other sketches of himself, in autobiographical letters, in introductions to his works, in his epitaph, and in a number of evaluations of his own work. These are generally more specious than the letters to friends, for in them Lipsius is more concerned with the public and with posterity. They give a less intimate self-portrait than the letters that we have so far examined, and they are a necessary preface to an examination of Lipsius' ethical, political and religious views.
4 LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
T H E O D O R E D E B R Y ' S portrait of Lipsius at the age of fifty (Fig. 15)
shows him in his fur cloak and holding a book. 1 Around the oval frame are a number of flowers and floral motifs; in the corners are two hornets (one with its sting extended) and two butterflies. Below is a Latin couplet: Ausonios olim fuerat quod Tullius inter, hoc inter nostros Lipsius unus erit. What Cicero had been long ago among the Romans, this will Lipsius alone be among our people. Like Cicero, Lipsius was a master of persuasive prose, who engaged in controversy with all the verbal weapons of honeyed argument and sting ing scorn. Lipsius labored to leave a self-portrait of the gentle and clois tered professor, but his writings, and the bitter attacks made upon him by those with whom he engaged in controversy, prove that the symbols of de Bry's engraving justly portray the contradictory elements in his char acter. In this chapter we will see how Lipsius portrayed himself and how he attempted to justify the ambiguities in his career that presented such an inviting target for the attacks of his enemies. The most important document for Lipsius' self-presentation is the au tobiographical letter that he wrote to Woverius on October 1, i6oo. z It is the basis of the Vita by Aubertus Miraeus,' and it has been uncritically used by most writers on Lipsius, who have accepted the persona that he so cleverly created. Gerhard Oestreich, however, has shown how skilfully Lipsius portrayed himself so as to defend himself from attacks by the Catholic church upon his orthodoxy and to disguise the political purpose ' In Boissard's Thesaurus, 7. The engraving is dated 1597. Ep. Misc. 3.87, first published in 1602. ' Vita Iusti Lipsi Sapientiae et Litterarum Antistitis. Aubertus Miraeus Bruxellensis . . • ex scriptis illius potissimum concinnabat. It was published separately in 1609 and added to the second edition of the Fama Postuma (Antwerp: Moretus, 1613). See BB 5:1113. It is printed in Op. Omn. 1:7-37. 1
LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
of his writing and teaching. 4 Although Oestreich tends to overestimate the political intent of much of Lipsius' work, his skeptical conclusions about the autobiography are certainly correct. The autobiography was written at a stage in Lipsius' life when he would have been taking stock of his past achievements and fashioning his image for posterity. By 1600 Woverius and Philip Rubens had left his contubernium, and their absence in foreign lands affected him deeply. 5 The visit of the Archdukes in November 1599 had confirmed his status as the leading scholarly light of the University of Leuven and had strengthened the bonds that tied him to the Spanish interests in the Neth erlands. 6 Yet the knowledge of his ambiguous past—with the changes of religious allegiance, the years of residence at Lutheran Jena and Calvinist Leiden, and the awareness that his Politica was still on the Index—in clined him to refurbish his self-portrait. It seems that already he had de cided that Woverius would be his biographer and executor, and Woverius' prolonged visit to Spain made it the more appropriate to write to him in Seville. 7 In the letter Lipsius presents himself as the quiet scholar, and the play ful opening artfully conceals his purpose. He pretends that it is only in response to Woverius' importunate requests that he is writing his auto biography, for, he alleges, it would be inappropriate or superfluous to write for the public and unnecessary to write for Woverius, who had lived in Lipsius' contubernium: Atqui in contubernio meo fuisti, & hoc paene est, vitam meam totam nosse. quid enim in ea nisi aequale illud & uniforme, quod vidisti? legere, docere, scribere: & cetera tranquillum, & ab actione remotum esse, quid ergo narrem? non maiorum res gestas, non meas pos sum: & tenuia in nobis pleraque aut minuta. But you lived in my contubernium, which almost means that you knew every detail of my life. And what else did you see in my life that was not even and consistent? Reading, teaching, writing: in all else living peacefully and far removed from action. What then should I < Oestreich "Justus Lipsius in Sua Re," 8 0 - 1 0 0 ; cf. Sue, "Justi Lipsi Vita. > The testimonium for Woverius (Ep. Mtsc. 3.47) 's dated August 10, τ599, when he was about to leave for France. Rubens had left Leuven by September 2., 1599, the date of Lipsius first letter to him (Ep. ad Belg. x . 5 3 ) · « Lipsius described the visit in a letter to Oudaert (bp. ad Belg. 2 . 5 7 , November 29, 15 ^See CDR ι 5 3-54 for Woverius' movements. Lipsius first wrote to him in Seville on May 9, 1600 (Ep. ad Belg. 1 . 4 7 ) and he was still there in July 1601 (Ep. ad Belg. 1 . 9 4 ) ·
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relate? I cannot relate the deeds of my ancestors, nor my own deeds: most of my deeds are trivial or insignificant. Legere, docere, scribere, that is, the vita contemplativa of the scholar, who had achieved the Stoic ideal of ataraxia and apatheia, freedom from the emotions and other disturbances of mind and spirit. Having estab lished this persona Lipsius begins his story with the miraculous dream that appeared to his mother, portending the birth of a special child. 8 His heroic stature is further illustrated by miraculous escapes from danger in childhood, evidence for the special protection of his guardian spirit (Ge nius). He emphasizes the respectable ancestry of his family; of his early schooling he says little, beyond recalling the early evidence of his excep tional gifts as a student. He is careful, nevertheless, to say that his knowl edge of French was self-taught and that he never could speak it well. 9 Here (as Oestreich has pointed out) Lipsius is disingenuous. In the re maining account of his education he emphasizes his time with the Jesuits in Cologne and maintains that his decision to enter the Society was thwarted by his parents. When one recalls the important part that the Jesuits played in bringing Lipsius back into the Catholic church in 1591, the prominence given to them in his autobiography is easily explained. The story of the early part of Lipsius' life ends with his mother's death, when he was nearly eighteen years old. If we look at the structure of the autobiography Lipsius' purposes be come quite clear. In the 1675 text the letter is 227 lines long (excluding the lists of books), of which no less than 117 are devoted to the first eigh teen years of Lipsius' life. His Catholic roots are stressed, and his persona as a special child under special Providence is established by miracles and escapes similar to those of a mythological hero. Conversely, the contro versies and changes of religious allegiance that were so prominent a fea ture of his adult life are glossed over or ignored. His eighteen months at Jena came about, he alleges, as an incidental consequence of his journey home from Vienna, when news of the cruelty of Alva in the Spanish Neth8 Lipsius modestly does not interpret the dream. Miraeus (Op. Omn. i:z) is less reticent: the two children embracing were Doctrina and Modestia, to whom, he says, Philologia and Pbilosopbia were known. Miraeus' source can hardly have been other than Lipsius himself. Further, the portrait by T. Galle, on the frontispiece to the 1607 Fama Postuma (repro duced, without signature, in the 167 5 Op. Omn.) shows fama and gloria above the portrait, flanking Lipsius' motto (moribus antiquis), and, below, doetrina, modestia and virtus. Miraeus (p. 7) explains the iconography. » Lipsius was more truthful in his letter of application for a professorship at Jena (ILE 1.18, September 15, 1572.), in referring to his knowledge of French. Scaliger, whose native language was French, was not impressed (Scaligerana [1695], 145).
LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
erlands compelled him to stay there. 10 Like Odysseus (so he says) he al ways fixed his eyes on his home; of his acceptance of Lutheranism and the controversies surrounding his Decanate that made his life there im possible he says nothing." Similarly, when he deals with his thirteen years at Leiden, the most productive and distinguished period of his career, he speaks of himself as a shipwrecked sailor who came safely to land in Hol land, and he says that he looked upon Leiden as no more than a tempo rary exile from his home: insedimus, sed mente, ut stationem earn haberemus, non portum, "I settled there, but with the intention of using it as a temporary anchorage, not as a harbor." Unable to deny that he stayed there willingly, he admits that his colleagues and hosts were kind and generous—homines benignos & beneficos repperi—and excuses his long stay by the turmoil in the Spanish Netherlands. Of Calvinism and his well-known friendships with Dousa, van Hout, and others, there is no word. His departure from Leiden he refers to enigmatically; it was Religio ac Fama that compelled him to leave. Here at least Lipsius came close to the truth: the controversy with Coornhert and the unpopularity of his arguments for religious authoritarianism in the Politica were indeed the proximate causes of his departure in 1591. For the rest, Lipsius passed over his return to Leuven briefly and dis passionately, taking care only to emphasize the offers of distinguished professorships and royal patronage elsewhere in Europe that he had de clined in favor of the patronage of Philip II and the former Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Fuentes (to whom he dedicated his Physiologia Stoicorum in 1604). 11 Lipsius ends the autobiography with a description of himself worthy of Suetonius, which emphasizes his modesty and scholarship—modestia and Alva was replaced by Requesens in December 1573, when it had become clear that he had failed to suppress the second Dutch revolt. After the death of Requesens in March 1576, the Spaniards exacted retribution for the separation of the Dutch Netherlands in the "Span ish Fury" at Antwerp in November 1576, which left Leuven relatively untroubled. Its turn came in January 1578, and its imminent sack by the troops of Don Juan compelled Lipsius to flee, first to Antwerp and eventually to Leiden. » Lipsius was more explicit in his letter to Ortelius of February 9 159Z (Burman, Sylloge, j r 8), The full story of his problems (stemming from his lack of the M.A. degree) can now be read in the correspondence of his time at Jena(ILE '-'7-48)- Onlyth e congratulatory letter and poem to Van Dam (ILE x.z 4 ) were published by Lipsius (Ep. Al'sc- 1.69)· Clearly he wished to suppress the evidence for his Lutheranism, which was pubhshed in 1614 by Thomas Sagittarius in Lipsius Proteus (see above, Ch. 3, n. 103)· " Lipsius was appointed Historiograpbicus Reg,us by Philip II in 1595 (Philip died in K r o Enriquez, Conde de Fuentes, see Parker, Dutch Revolt, z z ^ ,and EUI I59 ZO 7 4 s ν "Enriquez de Acevedo." He was acting Governor in 159Z-1596. Lipsius resorted to ablect flattery in the dedication: studia & ingenium meum exctastt, vel trrtgasn, & perfusum me largiter fateor benignitatis tuae FONTE (Op. Omn. 4:815).
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doctrina once more. In the original version he briefly admits that he had been the victim of calumny, which he claims to have countered by pa tience and silence. This was patently untrue (the public controversy with Coornhert alone disproved it), and in the 1605 edition the reference to calumniatores aut carptores was suppressed, so that the portrait of the quiet scholar is maintained to the end. This self-portrait and Miraeus' derivative biography have determined Lipsius' reputation. In manipulating his image for posterity he was fol lowing a tradition that went back to classical antiquity. Cicero revised his speeches for publication and asked a contemporary historian, Lucceius, to record his actions in a more favorable light than the facts allowed. 13 Petrarch broke up long epistles into shorter letters for publication, so as to achieve a more dramatic presentation, in which his thoughts and emo tions were artistically developed. 14 The tendentious autobiography of Scaliger was part of a long letter to Jan Dousa with the title De vetustate gentis Scaligerae: in qua & de Vita utriusque Scaligeri. 15 Like Lipsius, Scaliger attacked the calumnies of his enemies and protested his virtue. 16 At much greater length he defended the nobility of his family, so as to support his claim to be a scholar whose character was as noble as his lineage. Lipsius was acting no differently in coloring his autobiographical letter. His success was due primarily to his skill in the rhetorical techniques of inventio, dispositio, and elocutio, selection, arrangement, and style. He was helped by the loyalty to his memory of Woverius and Philip Rubens, whose views were given definitive expression in the engravings designed by Peter Paul Rubens. Thus his reputation was established for posterity: his leading attributes were doctrina and modestia, his way of life that of the Stoic sapiens, summed up in the lapidary phrase, legere, docere, scribere. Lipsius had good reason to be circumspect in a letter sent to Woverius in Seville in 1600. Ever since his departure from Leiden he had been closely watched by the Catholic authorities; in the Netherlands he was subject to the supervision of Laevinus Torrentius and Del Rio, and in " Asconius, Mil. 36, for Cicero's splendid published version of his speech for Milo, after he had experienced a failure of nerve in delivering it. Cicero, Fam. 5.12..2— 3, for the request to Lucceius. 14 See Bernardo, "Letter-Splitting," 236—40. Bernardo believes that "artistic effect" was Petrarch's primary concern but admits that "dramatic effectiveness" was also achieved. 15 No. ι in Epistolae, 1-58, dated May 19, 1594. Pp. 50-53 contain the autobiography ("lively and arrogant," according to Grafton, Scaliger, 100), which has been translated by Robinson, Autobiography, 29—33. "· E.g., 57: non possumus esse dissimiles nostri.
LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
Rome his religious orthodoxy was suspect. All the more, then, was he likely to be careful in the picture of himself that he presented in Spain, where Erasmianism had been virtually suppressed by 1600, and in no place more than Seville, which, as a port of entry, was especially likely to harbor heterodox books and preachers.' 7 In 1600 the second trial before the Inquisition of the Spanish scholar Francisco Sanchez de las Brozas (El Brocense) had resulted in his condemnation for uttering Erasmian views. His books were confiscated and he was put under house arrest in the house of his son, where he died on December 5, 1600. 18 Lipsius was an admirer of El Brocense, and the fate of the scholar who had edited the Stoic authors Epictetus and Persius must have made him cautious. 19 That this is likely can be seen from Lipsius' own troubles with the In dex. Passages from the Politica were to appear on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum of Sixtus V at Rome, formal publication of which in 1590 was suppressed following the death of Sixtus in August that year. 10 Six tus' Index was included and expanded in the Index of Clement VIII, which was published in 1596. Lipsius, however, was warned by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine in 1593 of the coming prohibition, by which the Politica would be forbidden donee corrigatur. In letters to Bellarmine, to the Jesuit Benci, and to Cardinal Cesare Baronio, Lipsius protested his ortho doxy and submitted corrections. The tone of the correspondence is proof enough of Lipsius' fear of being silenced or punished by the church. To Baronius he insisted that he was purus inter puros, and to Benci that he was malleable in other things, but hard as iron in matters of religion. 11 17 Bataillon, Erasme, traces the history and decline of Erasmianism in Spain; see 5 6 2 - 8 0 esp for Seville Cf. Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, 82-83, 86, and ζ 1 7 . The fundamental work for the Inquisition is still Lea, History. See esp. 4 : 4 4 1 -51 for the Inquisition at Seville. • 8 For El Brocense see EUI 5 3 :12 . 2 . 0 -21, and for his trials in 1 5 8 4 and 1 5 9 8 - 1 6 0 0 see Bataillon, Erasme, 7 7 8 - 8 0 and 8 1 4 - 1 6 ; Lea, History, 4 . 1 6 2 - 6 8 ; and Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition, 9 4 . It is hard to agree with Kamen's judgement: "It [i.e., the Inquisition] was never an instrument of political repression: political controversy . continued to make Spain one of the freest countries in Europe. . . . Outside of 1 5 5 9 , the Inquisition played a marginal role in intellectual life" ( 2 6 2 ) . '» El Brocense edited Persius in 1 5 9 9 and Epictetus in 1 6 0 0 ; his Latin translation ot Lpictetus was not published until 1 6 1 2 (Bataillon, Erasme, 8 1 5 ) . His fame rested principally on his work in Greek and Latin grammar; see Buisson, Repertoire , 582 -83. Lipsius praised El Brocense as the Mercury and Apollo of Spain, Ep. Misc. 2 . 8 9 , to Sarmiento de Mendoza, March 1 4 , 1 6 0 0 (Ramirez, Epistolario, no. 71), in response to a letter written by Mendoza on January 11, 1 6 0 0 (Ramirez, Epistolario, no. 7 0 ; Burman, Sylloge, 767)· 10 See Reusch, Index, 1 : 5 0 1 - 3 f o r the abortive publication of Sixtus Index; 1 : 5 3 2 34 for the relationship of Clement's Index to that of Sixtus; and ι·578-8 ο for Lipsius. » Ep ad Ital. 9 , May 3 0 , i 5 93. to Baronius, who replied firmly on July v> (Burman, Svllo 0) a letter that Lipsius preferred not to publish. (Baronius was not inclined to comTomisf it seems· see his threatening letter to Jan Moretus, Burman, Sylloge, 8 5 6 , and " 7 T , 7 ) SeeEplad Ital. n, August 2 0 , >593, to Benci, for Lipsius reaction to Bar o n i u s ' reply. M o s t revealing a r e t h e letters t o Benci, Burman, Sylloge, 66 (April 2 1 , 1 5 9 1 ) ,
Je It
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The truth was different, as the Catholic church leaders well knew, and Lipsius had to make several versions of his corrections before they were accepted. In the end he was able to satisfy the censors; the approbatio of the Netherlands' censor, Hendrik van Cuyck, was attached to the third edition of the Politica, dated August 24, 1593, and Lipsius' name did not appear on the 1596 Index." Nevertheless, the Spanish authorities were less easily satisfied, and the Index of the Spanish Inquisitor General, San doval, censored a long list of passages from Lipsius' works, including those parts of the Politica that had originally got him into trouble. 2 ' Lipsius, therefore, was well advised to be cautious in composing his autobio graphical letter. Lipsius' relations with Church authorities are crucial for an under standing of the significance of his interpretation of Stoicism in Christian terms. His appointments at the Lutheran University of Jena and the Calvinist University of Leiden certainly were sources of anxiety to his Cath olic friends and mentors. Although he seems to have been quite successful for nearly thirty years in suppressing accurate knowledge about his Lutheranism in 1572—1574, he was too eminent a scholar for his heterodoxy at Leiden to escape the criticism of Catholic church leaders. Of these, Laevinus Torrentius was by far the most forceful in ultimately bringing Lipsius back to orthodoxy. Torrentius (Lieven Van der Beke, 1525-1595), Bishop of Antwerp, was a scholar and humanist as well as a Prince of the Church. 14 He was edu cated at the universities of Leuven and Bologna, and then spent five years 71 (February 10, 1593), and 73 (July 31 1593). The last of these particularly aroused Bur-
man's scorn: mancipium novum Jesuitarum, etc. See Burman, Sylloge, 619 (July 31, 1593) for Bellarmine's letter cautiously accepting Lipsius' corrections but deferring to Benci's judgement. " Reusch, Index, 578: "Lipsius steht wirklich nicht bei Cl." 1 have examined a copy of the Index of Clement VIIl published at Cologne in 1598 by Cholinus. 11 Index Librorum Prohibitorum et Expurgatorum, Bernardi de Sandoval. . . auctoritate editus, The passages of Lipsius' works censored take five folio pages, 585—89. Besides the Politica they include parts of the De Constantta, De Una Religione, twenty-six letters from Books i, 2, and 3, of the Ep. Misc., eleven of the Ep. Quaest., one of the Electorum, ten of the Ep. ad Germ., and one from the Ep. ad Belg. 3 (with the poems after it). Sandoval particularly took aim at Scaliger and deleted even quite jejune flattery, such as Lipsius' ad dressing him as ocelle Europael Even references to Casaubon as doctissimus or eruditissimus were deleted. Well might Lipsius quake with fear. (See Reusch, Index, 2:42—46, for a description of Sandoval's Index, and 81 for the deletion of laudatory epithets attached to heretics such as Scaliger and Casaubon.) '- 1 BB 5:372-81 (Roersch) is the most useful account of Torrentius' life and works; cf. BN 25:462-75. For Torrentius' correspondence see Delcourt-Hoyoux. For the relations be tween Torrentius and Lipsius see Roersch, "La Correspondance." Torrentius' edition of Suetonius was published by Plantin in 1578, the second edition in 1592. See BB 5:380-81, where Roersch concludes that the part of Langius in this edition was comparatively limited.
LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
(155 2—1 557) in Rome, where he established close relations with the lead ers of the church. He spent the next thirty years at Liege, where he was Archdeacon of Brabant, counselor to successive bishops of Liege, and en gaged on diplomatic and ecclesiastical missions to Spain and Rome. He was appointed Bishop of Antwerp in 1576 but could not take up his du ties until 1587, because of the wars, and he died there in 1595, having been nominated Archbishop of Mechelen (the senior episcopal see in the Spanish Netherlands) just before his death. His classical scholarship, and high ecclesiastical position made him both a formidable critic of Lipsius, whose learning he could both appreciate and criticize, and a powerful friend and ally. We do not know when he and Lipsius became friends; Lipsius addressed one of the Epistolicae Quaestiones to him in 1577, 1 ' and by the time of Lipsius' departure for Leiden (1578) Torrentius had formed a high opinion of the younger man's scholarship and appreciated his potential for influencing the young. In a letter to Plantin, dated Octo ber 10, 1583, Torrentius regretted Plantin's departure for Leiden, where "the new University despises not only all good learning, but God and men alike." 16 He expressed his concern for the spiritual and intellectual health of Lipsius and Dousa, who he prayed would not be among the heretical disturbers of the times (saeculi turbatores). Torrentius became more closely involved with Lipsius on the comple tion of the De Constantia in 15 83. 17 Plantin sent him a copy, and on April 5, 1584, Torrentius sent a long critique of the work to Lipsius. 28 The 15 Ep. Quaest. 1.12, looking forward to Torrentius' edition of Suetonius and offering four notes on Livy. The date of the dedication of Ep. Quaest. is August 18, 1576. In Electorum (published in 1580) 1.11, Lipsius praises Torrentius' classical scholarship, while rejecting an emendation in Suetonius, Claud. 2.1. (Cf. Electorum 1.20 for another emendation rejected.) Even when Torrentius was irritated at Lipsius loyalty to Leiden (e.g., in Delcourt-Hoyoux, 3, to Muret, August 25, 1583), he never wavered in his ad miration for his scholarship (e.g., Delcourt-Hoyoux, 112, to Plantin, December 13, j5g 16 Delcourt-Hoyoux, 23: quae non solum bona omnia studia, sed etiam Deum pariter
atque homines contemnit. ., " De Constantia was published by Raphelengius at Leiden in 1584, and by Plantm at Antwerp shortly after (BB 3:902-3). It was, however, printed during the autumn of 1583, since the magistrates of Antwerp voted a reward to Lipsius for the dedication ω them on November 3, 1583 (cf. Lipsius' letter of thanks, January 8, 1584, ILE 2.301, Ep. Misc. ι ,6) On October 15, 15 8 3, he wrote to the Treasurer and Advocate of Antwerp, Cornelius Pruvnen, sending him a copy of the book. The original vers.on of this letter ,s giver,a.:ILE 1.281 (Burman, Sylloge, 145), with the revised vers.on that Lipsius published in Ep. M S C . 1
ILE L z.%%?(Ep, Misc. ι.96; Delcourt-Hoyoux, 65). Lipsius replied on May 6 (ILE 2.342; Delcourt-Hoyoux, 65b; Ep. Misc. 1.97), and Torrentius sent a further critical letter on July 7 (ILE 2.355; Delcourt-Hoyoux, 88). Lipsms' next letter to Torrentms was sent on January^., ! 5 8 5 «LE 2.40X; Ep. Misc. ,46; Delcourt-Hoyoux, 88b) In it Lipsius expresses respect for Torrentius, but pointedly says nothing about the De Constantta.
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criticisms and Lipsius' reactions are instructive. Torrentius was chiefly alarmed by Lipsius' apparent preference for the doctrines of the Stoics over Christian doctrine: Quid enim Stoicorum aut quorumque aliorum placita ad Christi doctrinam comparata aliud sunt, quam ostentatio mera ac fallax studium aurae popularis? 19 If you compare the decrees of the Stoics or any other [school] to the doctrine of Christ, what else are they than mere show and deceitful seeking after popularity? After attacking the character of Seneca, he tells Lipsius that he could have done much better to take Christ and his followers as moral examples and urges him to add a third book (to the two of the De Constantia) written from an exclusively Christian point of view. All this is written in a lively polemical style that left Lipsius in no doubt about the determina tion of the writer, to say nothing of his skill as a controversialist. In ad dition Torrentius had included thinly veiled references to Lipsius' waver ing religious orthodoxy ("I hear that you are practicing our ancient religion firmly and with constancy"), much in the spirit of his letter to Plantin mentioned above. Lipsius was in a painful dilemma. He was happy, so it seemed, in Lei den, where he was honored as a scholar and enjoyed many warm friend ships. He had, presumably, subscribed to Calvinism, but in the mildest way, and so long as Dousa and people like him were the Calvinist leaders he would be under no compulsion to conform. 50 Yet he had not been able to break the ties that bound him to the religion in which he had been educated, and his fame as a scholar made him someone whom the Cath olics would work hard to keep in the orthodox fold. For the next seven years Lipsius was tortured by these conflicting pressures, and it was only when pressure from a different direction (that is, the public controversy with Coornhert) became intolerable that he finally broke with the Calvinists and returned to Catholicism. For this result Torrentius was as respon sible as any individual. Torrentius' first letter required a reply, and within a month Lipsius was attempting to reconcile the demands of Catholic orthodoxy with his Stoic » » I L E i.331,11. 15-17. >° Lipsius, as a Professor of the University, would have had to make some sort of acknowl edgment of his adherence to Calvinist doctrine; see LU 3, 18, n. 10. Parker, Dutch Revolt, ISi-55, well explains the reasons for the very small numbers of Calvinist communicants in the Netherlands during the period of Lipsius' residence at Leiden.
LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
doctrine. He admitted that he had not expressed his Christian piety suf ficiently and that he had allowed himself to be more Stoic than Christian. How much of this was actually in the letter sent to Torrentius is not certain; in the published version (Ep. Misc. i. 97 ) Lipsius added these words: Aptare enim veterem philosophiam ad Christianam veritatem volui, et in cogitatione ea totus dum sum, illapsa et elapsa mihi quaedam fortasse, quae illam fortasse magis sapiant quam istam. non purgo, correctionem imo polliceor.' 1 For I had wanted to reconcile ancient philosophy to Christian truth, and, while I was totally absorbed in that intellectual task, some things crept in and slipped out which perhaps have more of the flavor of the former than the latter. I do not justify myself, rather I promise to make a correction. Nevertheless, Lipsius stood by Seneca and Epictetus: Spirat nescioquis calor in Senecae aut Epicteti scriptis, qui ad lectorem quoque pervenit: nec disserere illi magis de virtute videntur quam inserere & inculcare. There is a warmth in the writings of Seneca or Epictetus, which reaches the reader also; and they seem not so much to discuss virtue as to plant it and impress it upon him. This was hardly good enough for Torrentius, who returned to the at tack in July, urging Lipsius to use the scriptures as his source for moral doctrine. To sugar this unpalatable medicine Torrentius recalled how he, too, as a young man had spent his time on worthless literary pursuits (tractandis nugis—the reference is to his early poems) before turning to Christian doctrine. However much Lipsius admired Epictetus or Seneca, how much brighter was the light of Christian doctrine! It is small wonder that Lipsius took six months to reply, pleading illness as his excuse. Even then he made no mention of the De ConstantiaJ x In the meantime Plantin had prepared the second edition of the De Constantia, which appeared in 1585 without the changes suggested by Torren tius." The correspondence lapsed for more than six years, but enough 31
I L E 1.342., p. 113, app. crit.; E p . M i s c . 1.97. 2.401, January z , 1585. 3 5 See B B 3:903—4, L.152.. 31ILE
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had been said in 1584 to ensure the Catholic victory the next time Lipsius showed himself to be vulnerable. In the meantime Lipsius changed the text of some of the letters that he was preparing for publication (as Book 1 of the Ep. Misc.) in self-defense. Thus the text of the reply to Torrentius was significantly "improved," while the letter to Pruynen was totally changed.' 4 In the published ver sion (Ep. Misc. 1.59) Lipsius added a defense of his theological errors in the De Constantia, rather disingenuously arguing that it was his igno rance of theology that had aroused "a firestorm of calumny" against him: Elephantes aiunt, etsi amnibus impense delectentur, haud temere tamen eos ingredi, cum inscii sint natandi: idem in Theologia mihi. quam amo, quam aestimo, et tingo salubribus eius aquis libens animum, non tamen mergo. They say that elephants love rivers but do not rashly go into the wa ter, because they do not know how to swim. This is the case with me and Theology. I love it, I value it, and I gladly dip my mind in its health-giving waters, but I do not immerse myself. The reference to calumny is ex post facto, for the letter is dated October 15, 1583, several months before publication of the De Constantia. The published version of the letter was meant for Torrentius to read, and not surprisingly Lipsius inserted an inquiry about his health at the end. As we have mentioned already, it was the debate with Coornhert that finally dislodged Lipsius from Leiden. He had, it seems, been sufficiently disturbed by the Catholic reaction to his De Constantia to take a leave of absence in September 1586. 35 He journeyed to Emden and Oldenburg and was back in Emden when Plantin wrote warmly inviting him to come back to Antwerp and live with him.' 6 As Plantin observed, Lipsius was too well known to be able to conceal himself, and it is clear that Plantin and Torrentius believed that this was the time to make the attempt to win him back from Leiden. 37 The assassination of William of Orange in July ILE 1.2.81: see p. 451 for notes on the differences between the original version, that published by Burman (Sylloge, 145) and the version in Ep. Misc. 1.59 (ILE 2.282). 35 See the introduction to ILE 2.490, p. 299. » 6 ILE 2.501, October 27, 1586 (Burman, Sylloge, 260). 37 Plantin's letter begins tu tantus, mi Lipsi, ut non possis vel in Europa tota celari. Burman comments that this letter is proof that Lipsius had already decided to leave Leiden. Torrentius candidly expressed his hopes for Lipsius' return in letters to G. Stewech (Del-
LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
1584 must also have weakened Lipsius' sense of security, while for Torrentius it was a heroic act, to be celebrated in verse. 38 Nevertheless, Lipsius did return to Leiden in November 1586. Three years later his most influential work, Politicorum sive Civilis Doctrinae Libri Sex. Qui ad Prineipatum maxime speetant, was published by Raphelengius at Leiden. 39 In the short space of some two hundred pages Lipsius encapsulated the knowledge gained from a lifetime's reading of classical authors and used it as the basis for a guide for good government in sixteenth-century Europe. He himself believed that it was his most im portant original work, one that would endure as long as the Latin lan guage itself. 40 Its method is remarkable, one that only a person with an exceptional memory could successfully employ, for the work consists of a series of quotations from classical authors, linked by a commentary and so arranged as to develop a coherent theory of government. 41 Montaigne described it as ee docte et laborieux tissu, but it is more than this, as Lipsius himself explained in the prefatory Monita sive Cautiones. 4Z Its four constituent elements—quotations and commentary (distinguished by italic and Roman type; see Fig. χ6), marginal summaries and source references—together represent a systematic effort to relate the wisdom of classical authors to the practical business of governing a modern state. Books 3—5 deal with Prudentia in government, first prudentia ab aliis (book 3), and then (books 4 and 5) prudentia propria, that is the ruler's own prudence (as opposed to that of his ministers and counselors). This prudence Lipsius divides into prudentia togata and prudentia militaris, the former being subdivided into res divinae and res bumanae. 43 It is the chapters on res divinae that concern us here. court-Hoyoux, ber
236,
November
25, 1586)
and to Lampson (Delcourt-Hoyoux,
2 3 7 , Decem
13, 1 5 86).
. . _ . , 58 See BB 5-379: the poem was published by Moretus at Antwerp in 1594 in Torrentius Poemata Sacra. See Delcourt-Hoyoux, 9 3 , August 5 , 1 5 8 4 (to J. Fonck) and 1 0 2 , October χ, 1 584 (to Cardinal Carafa), enclosing copies of the poem. It is hard to agree with DelcourtHovoux ρ 196, that the ferocity of Torrentius' hatred of Orange can be explained by hu manist views on the virtue of tyrannic.de. See BB 5:379 for further discussion. For the mur der of Orange see Parker, Dutch Revolt, 2 0 7 . , r See BB , : 1 0 4 0 - 4 1 , L . 4 2 8 , with a useful summary of the controversy w.th Coornhert. 4° Ep Misc 4.84, November 3, 1603 (to Woverius). Referring to both the De Constantia and the Politica he says, hoc utrumque opus est cm vita fortasse cum LaUmsl.ttens bit Cf Eo Misc s 2.6, June 6, 1603 (to D. de Villers), quoted by Miraeus, Op. Omn 1.31. - The political philosophy of the Politiea has been well discussed by Oestreich, Neosto,cism, esp ch. 3, "The Main Political Work of Lipsius." See Abel, Sto.z.mus, for further
•""· -'· •>· " 8 · i * * * « are printed at the beginning of Op. Omn. 4 . « Pol. 4 . 2 .
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In 4.2 Lipsius limits the authority of the ruler in religious matters: sic limito. quia non Principi liberum in sacra ius. On the other hand, religion is the binding of the body politic: religio & timor dei solus est, qui custodit kominum inter se societatem. 44 Moreover, the religion of the state should be the worship of one god, and the wise ruler will be conservative in religious ritual. 45 Therefore, Lipsius concludes, those who disturb the traditional state religion must be punished: Puni igitur, siquis turbat. iure ille a diis proximus babetur, per quem deorum maiestas vindicatur. Serio, serio, hoc imbibe: nihil esse in rebus bumanis religione praestantius, eamque summa vi oportere defendi.*6 Punish therefore any who disturb [the state religion]. "He is rightly held to be next to the gods who defends the majesty of the gods." Drink in this maxim in all sincerity: "Nothing is more important in human life than religion, and it should be defended with the utmost force." Lipsius' conclusion is inevitable: ergo firmiter haec nostra sententia est, Unam religionem in uno regno servari. 47 Therefore this is my unshakable opinion—that one religion be ob served in one kingdom. The principle of cuius regio eius religio was familiar enough. It had been established by the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, and it had helped to ensure the survival of Protestantism in northern Europe. 48 Lipsius shows in his introduction to the third chapter that he believed that the principle of una religio—un roi, une lot, une foi—was essential to the well-ordered 44 4'
The quotation is from Lactantius, De Ira, 12 (Migne, PL 7 . 1 1 4 ) . Cicero, Div. 2 . 1 4 8 : maiorum instituta tueri sacris caerimoniisque retinendis, sapientis
est. 4 6 The quotations are from Justinian (I have not been able to confirm Lipsius' reference), and Lactantius, Div. Inst. 5.20. 4 7 These are the opening words of Pol. 4 . 3 . Although this chapter aroused the most heated controversy, it is the only one of the three on religion ¢ 4 . 2 - 4 ) in which the 1 5 8 9 text was not changed in subsequent editions. 4 8 Parker, Europe in Crisis, 4 9 - 5 4 ; Chadwick, The Reformation, 1 4 3 — 4 4 , For the source of cuius regio see Walther and Schmidt, Proverbia, no. 8 9 1 . The earliest source for une foi, etc., appears to be the diary of Ludwig Il ( 1 8 6 9 ) , quoted on p. 2 9 7 of R. and M. Collison, Dictionary of Foreign Quotations.
LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
state. He laments for the destruction of Europe's peace and prosperity in the religious wars: Qua de re ut disseram, non Curiositas me impellit, sed publica Utilitas, & praesens hie Europae status, quern nego me sine lacrimis intueri. O melior mundi pars, quas dissidiorum faces religio tibi accendit. colliduntur inter se Christianae reipub. capita, & milleni aliquot homines perierunt, ac pereunt per speciem Pietatis. It is not curiosity that drives me to discuss this matter, but care for the common good and this present condition of Europe, which, I say, I cannot look upon without weeping. O [Europe], the better part of the world, what fires of dissension religion has kindled in you! The heads of the Christian state clash with each other, and thousands of men have perished at a time, and are still perishing under the pretext of Piety. Lipsius was primarily concerned with public order; hence he divides religion into public and private spheres and counsels merciless punish ment for those who disrupt the observance of the state religion: Clementiae non hie locus, ure, seca, ut membrorum potius aliquod, quam totum corpus intereat.49 This is not the place for Clemency. "Burn, cut, so that one of the limbs, rather than the whole body, may perish." Nevertheless, he advises due deliberation before undertaking such radical surgery: in morbis nihil est magis periculosum, quam immatura medicina, "Nothing is more dangerous in illnesses than medicine given too early." In the next chapter he considers whether the ruler should punish those who differ from the state religion in their private beliefs. In the original edition (1589) of the Politica he counseled toleration. This got him into trouble with the Index, yet even after trying to satisfy the demands of Benci, Bellarmine, and others, he could not bring himself to be as decisive as they required. These chapters (4.2—4), therefore, remained on the In dex throughout the seventeenth century. The controversy with Coornhert was over the definition of religious toleration, which Lipsius desired no less than Coornhert, as has been well pointed out by Giildner: 49 The quotation, slightly altered, is from Cicero's Phil. 8.15. See below, p. 116, for dis cussion of the use of the medical metaphor by Lipsius and his classical sources.
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Der Streit zwischen Coornhert und Lipsius ist damit nicht eine Auseinandersetzung zwischen Toleranz und Intoleranz gewesen, sondern zwischen Religionsfreiheit und Toleranz. 50 Where they differed was over the distinction between toleration and freedom. Coornhert gave a higher priority to religious freedom than to political unity. Lipsius, who better understood the conflicting needs of political stability and religious freedom, argued that the former should take precedence over the latter, in accordance with the principle of cuius regio eius religio. But he also tried to find a compromise by arguing for tolerance of private religious beliefs (where the stability of the state was not threatened) and for reason, rather than violence, in dealing with citi zens whose religious beliefs differed from those of the ruler. He satisfied neither the Protestants nor the Catholics, and his predicament led to the greatest crisis of his life. His efforts at finding a via media are apparent in the summary of chap ter 4. He counseled using "a teacher rather than a torturer"—doctore magis bis opus quam tortore (in the 1637 edition, doctore primum . . . non tortore, "a teacher first,. . . not a torturer"). He argued for allowing the private exercise of religion provided that it did not disturb the good order of the state. Quoting Theodoric he declared that "we cannot order religion, because no one can be compelled to believe against his will." Instead, he counseled, the ruler should take the milder and more secure route of tolerance: Quanto mitior et tutior via altera, Docendi ac Ducendi! Fides suadenda est, non imperanda . . . tolluntur haec talia . . . docendo magis quam iubendo, monendo quam minando. . . . multo firmior est Fides, quam reponit poenitentiaJ 1 How much more gentle and secure is the other way, the way of teaching and leading! Faith must be instilled by persuasion, not by commands . . . Things of this sort are removed by . . . teaching more than by ordering, by advice [monendo] rather than by threats [minGiildner, Das Toleranz-Problem, in: "Therefore the controversy between Coornhert and Lipsius was not a dispute between tolerance and intolerance, but between freedom of religion and tolerance." There are valuable discussions of the controversy in Giildner, 65— 158, and Bonger, Levert en Werk, 119—78. '' The 1589 and 1637 versions of Pol. 4.1 and 4 are given by Giildner, Das ToleranzProblem, 170-74, along with the version given in the Latin translation of Coornhert's reply, posthumously published by Coornhert's friends, Epitome Processus de Occidendis Haereticis.
LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
ando] . . . Faith which has been restored by repentance is far more unshakable. The text as given above is that of the 1589 edition. Even after the revi sions made at the insistence of the church authorities, the 1637 text (re peated in 1675) kept these essential phrases. The emphasis on toleration was unaffected by the addition of a reference to the possibility of punish ment. Lipsius purpose, declared at the beginning of chapter 2, was re peated in the prayer with which he ended his discussion of religion and the state: quod [tu (1637)] ο benigne et miserator Deus (nam voto et suspirio locum hunc claudo) da nobis [divisa haec iunge (1637)]; et effice ut multitudinis credentium sit cor unum, et anima una J2 O kind and compassionate God (for I close this passage with a sigh and a prayer) grant us this [do thou join these things that have been rent asunder (1637)]; and bring it about that "there be one heart and one soul in the multitude of believers." Lipsius desired good order in the state, first, and, next, toleration for private beliefs consistent with good order. The Politica is the work of a scholar versed in the classics: the kind of toleration proposed in book 4 is similar to the Roman Republican ideal of libertas, that is, liberty of the person and mind within the framework of the established order.» His goal was better understood by the Catholics than by his Protestant critics. His choice of the medical metaphor in ure, seca, would have been more readily appreciated by those who were familiar with its Roman sources. Coornhert's intellectual background was different (as will be shown in the following pages), and he appears to have taken ure, seca, literally. Thus Lipsius laid himself open to the charge of advocating religious ab solutism, by which the means, however cruel, justified the end of saving a soul. On the other hand, his plea for toleration in individual beliefs made him understandably suspect to the Catholic leaders, who criticized these chapters privately and eventually placed them upon the Index. The result was a crisis in Lipsius' life and beliefs: the controversy with Coornhert was the immediate cause of his leaving Leiden, ^ while the pressure from the Catholic intellectuals (most notably Torrentius and Del Rio) led 51 These are the closing words of 4.4; the quotation is from Lactantius (I have not been able to confirm Lipsius' reference). » MonumentalJy defined by Livy, 2.1. Cf. Adcock, Roman Political Ideas, 13. Cf. Giildner, Das Toleranz-Problem, 117.
I l l
CHAPTER 4 eventually to his return to the south and to the church. High claims have been made for Lipsius' wisdom as a political philosopher; 55 the contempt of Scaliger for professors who meddle in political and military affairs is perhaps closer to the mark: Neque est [Lipsius] Politicus, nec potest quicquam in Politia: 'nihil possunt pedantes in illis rebus; nec ego nec alius doctus possemus scribere in Politicis. 56 [Lipsius] is no politician, and he has no power in the State. Pedants have no influence in these matters; neither I nor any scholar would be able to write [sc. anything effective] in political matters. WE SHALL turn now to the controversy with Coornhert, and then we shall examine the effect of the Politica on Lipsius' relations with the Catholic church. Dirck (Theodore) Volckertszoon Coornhert (1522—1590) was a manysided poet, artist, theological writer, public servant, and controversial ist. 57 He was the opposite of Lipsius in his courage, combativeness, and constancy in religious and political controversy. Moreover, he wrote in Dutch, and he was committed to making available to the people of the Netherlands in their own language theological and political doctrine as well as classical works in translation. 58 To Lipsius this was a profanation of the Mysteries. He had utter disdain for the common people; to him the only language for learned discourse was Latin, and the proper audience was Nobiles, imo principes viriJ 9 So Lipsius corresponded in Latin, Coornhert in Dutch. While in 1584 their correspondence was courteous and (on Coornhert's side, at least) respectful, by 1590 their mutual mis" Especially by Oestreich, Neostoicism, 57—75. 56 Scaligerana (1695), 245. Scaliger expressed contempt for Lipsius' De Militia Romana in the same passage: non scripsit in Polybium, nec potest; usus tamen est . . . Lipsius libro de Militia Romana omnia cepit ex Francisco Patritio qui ltalice scripsit ea de re. 57 See NNBW 10:207-15; Bonger, Leven en Werk; and Giildner, Das Toleranz-Problem, esp. 80—118, for the controversy between Lipsius and Coornhert. Bonger, 140—56, is harsh on Lipsius, calling him "een religieuze kameleon en . . . een opportunist" (15 5): "karakterloosheid in religiosis" (156), but on 147—48 he gives a valuable summary of the matters upon which they differed, with bibliography on 175—76, n. 386. < 8 Although Coornhert was thirty-five when he learned Latin, he translated Boethius (1585: BB 1:699—701, 763); Cicero (De Officiis, 1561, his first book, printed at his own press in Haarlem: BB 1:569-70, 763; De Amicitia, De Senectute, and Paradoxa, n.d.: BB 1:764); Seneca (De Beneficiis, 1562: BB 5:14 2 -); Homer (Odyssey 1-12., 1561; 12-24, i 6 o 5 [posthumous], wten Latinje [from the Latin]: BB 1:726-28). 5» De Una ReIigione in Op. Omn. 4:300. Lipsius shows contempt for Coornhert's style in the dedication to the lllustres Ordines, 4:275: plebeia, futilis: & concepta plebeio quoque stilo. Cf. 4:284: testor plebi me nihil scripsisse. Principes formamus. On 4:283 and 315 he wonders if Coornhert can understand his Latin.
I.IPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
understandings were so irreconcilable that Lipsius made little effort to conceal his dislike of Coornhert and his libertinist views. Lipsius' earliest mention of Coornhert is in a letter to Philip Marnix, dated March 17,1582. Coornhert is "a certain person from Haarlem ... [whom] I know to be ill-disposed to his country and to religion."60 Two years later, after the publication of the De Constantia, Coornhert asked Lipsius' permission to translate the work into Dutch, which Lipsius willingly gave. 61 Yet he had already given Jan Moretus permission to do the same, without telling Coornhert, who seems to have reacted generously when Moretus' translation appeared. 62 In the meantime, Coornhert had begun to express his doubts about Lipsius' doctrine on free will and necessity. He pointed out that the words lib ere igitur necessaria peccat were self-contradictory: "Sin is either God's doing and man ... is not active, or sin is equally the work of God and man, or God is at rest and man alone acts .... Of these the third is true .... Thus man sins of his own free will and not through necessity."6 3 Coornhert's arguments were unanswerable, and the exchange of letters ended without either allowing the other to convince him. Far more serious was Coornhert's criticism of the chapters on the punishment of heretics in Politica 4.2-4. After an exchange of letters in March 1590, Lipsius lost patience and drafted a brusque letter to Coornhert terminating the discussion: Nimis in sententia dissidemus: qui inter nos conveniat? tu, ut video, liberam Licentiam in Religione cuique permittis: ego suis finibus et legibus astrictam. an scribendo aut loquendo coibimus unquam in eamdem sententiam unam?64 60ILE I.201, Harlemensis quidam tibi notus: mihi haetenus, ut seiam ilium nee patriae nee religioni esse aequum, Cornhartium dieo. See Bonger, Leven en Werk, ~40-4I, for Coornhert's part in the controversies involving Coolhaes III 15 80 , to which LlPSIUS refers with feeling in ILE 1.162 (d. ILE I . 1 3 7): d. Molhuysen, Bronnen, 1 :9, 22; BB 1:7 1 5- 16 . 6, ILE 2.3 26 , March 18, 1584. "" """" 6> ILE 2.3 8 5, October I, 15 8 4 (to Moretus): Constantlae verslOnem In lttterzs su/s probat valde Cornhertius. See BB 3 :911-13 for Moretus' translation, Twee Boeeken vande Stantvastieheyt (Leiden: Plantin, 1584). The dedicatory epistle is dated June 25, 15 8 4. " 63 ILE 2.33 , p. 106, II. 26-32: "Zondigen is een doen Godes en [de] ruste of metdoen 8 der menschen of het is een tsamenwerckinghe Godes ende oo~k des menschen of het IS een ... rusten Godes en [de) een doen der menschen ... Het de~de IS dan waer ... Zondlcht dan de mensche vrijwillich e[nde] niet nootzakelyc." Coomhert s three survlvmg letters from the 15 4 correspondence (lLE 2.334, 336, and 338) repeatedly make the same pomt. HIS pro8 lixiry is in strong contrast to Lipsius' Tacitean brevltas. 64 This letter (printed by Giildner, Das Toleranz-Problem, 16.9) was never sent. Instead . . A rl"l 1 159 0 the much longer and more offenSive letter that he published , , L IPSIUS sent, on p in the De Una Religione, in Op. Omn. 4: 28 0-81.
113
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Our views are too far apart: how can we agree? You, as I see, allow free license in religion to anyone: I allow freedom [sc. of religion] within its set bounds and limited by the laws. Shall we ever unite in the same opinion by means of writing or talking? In this impasse Coornhert, who was not one to avoid controversy in a matter concerning his most firmly held beliefs, published in Dutch his critique of the three chapters. 65 It was dedicated to the magistrates of Leiden, who refused to accept it but (equally damaging to Lipsius) did not forbid its sale. 46 By the time the book was suppressed by the States of Holland, on January 31, 1591, criticism of Lipsius had become so wide spread that he had had to publish a reply. This is the short work entitled Adversus Dialogistam liber De Una Religione, published on October 12, 1590. 67 Coornhert and Lipsius both wished to maintain an orderly and unified state, and both separated the temporal from the spiritual powers, and both argued for toleration in religious matters. 68 Yet their differences were indeed serious. For Lipsius, the principle of cuius regio eius religio was an essential instrument for maintaining peace and order in the state under a good ruler. As a corollary, religious beliefs that did not conform to the religion of the state could be tolerated, but only insofar as they were held privately. As soon as they became a threat to the unity of the state, then they had to be suppressed, if necessary by violent means. Coornhert argued for public freedom of religion, or, as Lipsius put it, liberam licentiam in Religione, where the word licentia implies turbulence, lack of civil discipline, and public disorder. 69 He asked how the ruler could recognize which was the "true" religion and pointed out that the temporal ruler should not be the judge in theological matters (whereas Lipsius had ar gued for limiting the ruler's right of inspectio in religious matters). Fi nally, and most damaging, Coornhert argued that the church should pun ish with spiritual, not worldly, means. 70 s ' Proces pant Ketterdoden ende Dwang der Conscienten. The critique of Lipsius is in the first volume and includes their correspondence of March and April 15 90. 66 See Bonger, Leven en Werk, 149-50. 67 Leiden: Raphelengius, 1590. It is usually referred to as De Una Religione, and these words are included in the title as given in Op. Omn. 4:273-319 (from which quotations here are cited); cf. BB 3:1065. x P. 306.
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The metaphor of disease in political contexts is a commonplace in Greek and Latin literature. 7 ' It was also a commonplace in Stoic ethics, and it is most likely that Lipsius' familiarity with the Neronian Stoics misled him into using a metaphor that naturally occurred to him, while it aroused hostility among contemporaries who did not know or under stand its classical basis. Ore, seca was a quotation from Cicero, who was arguing for the removal of Catiline from the body politic of the Roman Republic. 74 In Stoic literature, Seneca used the phrase in the context of dealing with personal grief, 75 while the notion of moral failure as disease is frequent in all Stoic writing: perhaps the most striking use of the met aphor is in Persius' third satire. 76 Thus Lipsius was justified in saying proverbialis ille sermo est, a medicis sumptus. 77 Where he was not justi fied was in using the metaphor in the context of religious controversy in the sixteenth century. Coornhert might have misunderstood the Latin (as Lipsius alleged), but in any case, as a skilled controversialist, he had an easy target. There could be no meeting of minds on this issue. As for clementiae non hie locus, Lipsius was again defeated by his inept choice of words in a contemporary context. With some justification he protested that he was not cruel and bloodthirsty, and in support of this he amplified his theory of punishment, basing himself upon the grada tions in Seneca's De IraJ s But at the crucial fourth stage, the extreme punishment of mors, he prevaricated, and he could not convincingly jus tify the use of capital punishment by a Christian monarch for noncon formity in religion. Moreover, the brevity of his text in the Politica put 7 » E.g., the juxtaposition of the Funeral Speech and the Plague in book ζ of Thucydides, the opening of the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, and Sophocles, Antigone, 1015. For Stoic use of the metaphor see Rist, Stoic Philosophy, z6, 36; Sandbach, The Stoics, 63. 7 < Cicero, Phil. 8.15. The complete passage runs: in corpore si quid eius modi est quod reliquo corpori noceat, id uri secarique patimur, ut membrum aliquod potius quam totum corpus intereat. sic in rei publicae corpore, ut totum salvum sit quicquid est pestiferum amputetur. 75 Cons, ad Helv. z.z: hie erit non molli via mederi, sed urere ac secare. But cf. Seneca, Ep. 88.Z9, for ure, . . . caede, occide, of torture. 76 Persius, Sat. 3.63—118. The fullest Latin exposition of Stoic teaching on the analogy of the pathe and disease is Cicero, Tusc. 4.11-33. Cf. Cicero, Fin. 3.35. 77 P. 183; cf. z8o, παροιμιώδ-ης enim ille sermo est. 78 Seneca, De Ira, 1.6.Z-4. After describing the increasingly severe stages in treatment of a disease, Seneca continues, ita legum praesidem civitatisque rectorem decet, and describes a similar progression in the punishment of crimes against the state, ending with ultima supplicia scelertbus ultimis ponat, ut nemo pereat nisi quern perire etiam pereuntis intersit. In this passage Seneca repeatedly emphasizes the advantage to the community gained from the punishment of an individual. Lipsius' defence is on pp. 306-10; his stages of punishment are, respectively, mulcta, ignominia, exsilium, and mors. This discussion works out in full the sketch given in the draft of the letter to Coornhert (Giildner, Das Toleranz-Problem, 169).
LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
him at a disadvantage; his classical allusions would have been familiar enough to his intended audience of present and future political leaders, who shared an education based upon the classical texts. When Coornhert and those like him who did not have this elite education read Lipsius, it was not surprising that they took him literally. By the time that Lipsius (in the De Una Religione ) amplified his original text it was too late to repair the misunderstanding. So Coornhert and Lipsius argued past each other. Coornhert prepared a reply to the De Una Religione, but he was already fatally ill, and he died on October 29, 1590. The Dutch text was not published until 1631, but his friends issued a Latin version in 1591. 79 A Latin summary of the con troversy, with what was alleged to be Lipsius' original text of the offend ing chapters, was published at Gouda in 1592. 80 By then Lipsius' position at Leiden was intolerable; as in 1586, under the stress of controversy over the De Constantia , so now he left Leiden, but this time never to return. 81 In March 1591 he departed for Germany, journeying eventually to Mainz, where the Jesuits received him back into the Catholic church, and Spa. From Spa he sent letters of resignation to the University and Burgo masters of Leiden, who did their best to persuade him to return. 81 But on July 12. he reaffirmed his decision (by now he was at Liege) and remained unmoved by the final appeal from the Curators of the University and the Burgomasters of the city on August 24. 8 ' In October these authorities offered Scaliger Lipsius' chair; as they drily observed, "he makes illness his excuse"— morbus hypocbondriacbus scilicet . 84 One year later Lipsius returned to Leuven, and there he stayed for the rest of his life. The oath taken by the professors at Leiden that they would obey the Curators and Burgomasters shows how far Lipsius failed to honor his obligation. 85 His friends at Leiden were shocked at his defection, and even Dousa, his closest friend and supporter, was moved to write reproach fully—quantum mutatus ab illo Lipsio . 86 Raphelengius plausibly wrote ™ Defensio Processus de non Occidendis Haereticis; see BB 1:704-5. The Dutch text is no. 33 (dated 1631) in vol. 3 of Coornhert's Wercken. Cf. BB 1:758. Epitome Processus de Occtdendis Haereticis·, BB 1:708—9. , 8 ' NBW 10:408; Guldner, Das Toleranz-Problem, 116-18; Saunders, Lipsius, 34 41 (not always accurate); and Bouchery, "Waarom . . . Gevierd?" 13-14· 8 i Molhuysen, Bronnen, 175-79 (nos. 156-61). Molhuysen, Bronnen, i8z—83, no. 165. in connection with s i Molhuysen, Bronnen, 183-84, ; —84', no. no. 167. 167. Scaliger's Scaliger s correspondence corresj his move to Leiden is to be found in his Epistolae, pp. 864-77 no. 166: obtemperaturum me, me dominis Curatoribus et MagS Molhuysen, Bronnen, 183, no. .66: obtemperaturum 5
istratui huius urbis. . . . iuro ex animi met sententia. 9, July 86 Burman, Sylloge, no. 119, 1 5 91 · Dousa's J ul Y 3, 3> 1591· Dousa last letter to Lipsius (Burman, no. zzz), is dated September z6, 1591.
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that the real reasons for Lipsius' resignation were the controversy with Coornhert and fear that Farnese might overrun the United Netherlands. 87 Even Lipsius himself publicly admitted that Fama (that is, the public crit icism that he had aroused) was one of the two reasons for his departure. 88 It was not so much pressure from the Catholics that drove Lipsius to his desperate step as his inability to rise above the tarnishing of his reputation (he called it calumnia) by the relentless criticism of Coornhert. The con troversy caused an intellectual and spiritual crisis, and its outcome was Lipsius' return to his homeland and the religion of his youth. His depar ture saddened and perplexed his friends, students, and colleagues at Lei den, and his reputation in the Netherlands has never been fully reinstated. In 1987, for example, in the exhibition devoted to the early history of the University, his name appeared only in a list of distinguished scholars at tracted by Dousa, while at Amsterdam Coornhert's portrait shares the place of honor with that of William of Orange in the exhibition in the Rijksmuseum devoted to the history of the Netherlands. Yet his Leiden friends at his death published a volume of poems in his memory, 89 and his importance in Dutch intellectual history has been significantly recog nized in volumes published to celebrate the quatercentenary of the foun dation of the University. 90 Let us now return to Lipsius' relations with church and state. As we consider his religious and political views at Leuven, we shall be tempted to accept uncritically the vigorous astringency of Burman and Scaliger— mancipium novum Jesuitarum, notes Burman, for example. 91 But we must look instead upon Lipsius' final years at Leuven as those in which he was able to train a group of leaders in church and state, who in their turn represented the political and religious ideals that energized the work of Rubens. Lipsius paid a high price for his return to the Catholic fold. Dousa was right to mourn the loss of his intellectual independence, and the apologetic works of his later years deserved the scorn that Lipsius' 87
Quoted by Giildner, Das Toleranz-Problem, 117. In the autobiography (Ep. Misc. 3.87), Op. Omn. 2.313, paraphrased by Miraeus, 17. 8 » Epicedia in Obitum Clarissimi et Summi Viri Iusti Lipsi; see BB 3:1123 and LU 180. The poem by D. Heinsius, pp. 22-26, is especially moving in recalling the injury done by Lipsius to his friends in leaving: te iudice tantum / despecti querimur subtractaque munera nobis / ingenii laudisque tuae, "scorned so much by your judgement we complain, and [we complain] that the gifts of your mind and glory have been taken from us." Scaliger, Grotius, Baudius, Vulcanius, and Schriverius contributed as well (Scaliger's poem being over two hundred lines long). The copy in the Houghton Library at Harvard University is Heinsius' presentation copy to Isaac Casaubon. See Oestreich, "Justus Lipsius als Universalgelehrter," in LU 176-201; Sue, "Justi Lipsi Vita"; Athenae Batavae, 22, 35; Van Gulik, "Drukkers en Geleerden," in LU 385-87. " Burman, Sylloge, 1:80, on no. 73, July 31, 1593 (Lipsius to Benci). 88
LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
critics heaped upon them. 9 * Yet Lipsius himself did not regret his submis sion to the authority of the church. It allowed him to spend his last years in his native land, teaching able young men who would make their clas sical training the foundation of their public service, while he was free of the dilemmas posed by teaching in a Calvinist university. He was re spected by the secular authorities and honored as the leading light of the University of Leuven. Finally, he was still free to pursue the intellectual activities that were dearest to him, above all, the study of Tacitus and Seneca. The completion of his edition of Seneca in 1605, along with his final expositions of Stoic philosophy, 95 could not have been achieved by one who was merely "a slave of the Jesuits." Nevertheless, the authority of the church was real, and the manner of Lipsius' return to Catholicism shows clearly how the church channeled the abilities of men such as Lipsius and the Rubens brothers to further its goals. The two people most closely involved in reconciling Lipsius to the church were Torrentius and Del Rio, and it was to the latter that Lipsius turned in the crisis of 1591. Martin-Antoine Del Rio (1551—1608) had been Lipsius' fellow student at Leuven and remained a close friend and spiritual adviser.Born into a well-to-do family (his father was a wealthy businessman and Treasurer of the Spanish Netherlands), Del Rio began his career in the service of the King of Spain, as a member of the Council of Brabant and Auditor General (regiis in castris index). In this latter ca pacity he was able to save Lipsius' library from the soldiers of Don Juan after their victory at Gembloers, and Lipsius thanked him in a letter writ ten in Antwerp just before he left for Leiden. 9 ' In 1580 Del Rio entered the Jesuit order, and he taught at Salamanca, Leuven, Douai, Liege, and Graz. He was at Liege during the period of Lipsius' return to the church. Of the eighty letters in their correspondence more than forty were written jjj· this time (1591—1592.)· He was an industrious scholar, although Scaliger had a low opinion of his intellect, and he shared with Lipsius a special interest in Seneca, a commentary on whose tragedies he published.' 6 His best known work was Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri VI, published at Diva Virgo Hallensis, Beneficia eius et Mtraeula , 1604; Diva Virgo Sicbemtensts, swe Asprieollis, 1605. For a selection of criticism see Saunders, Ltpstus , 52-53, and Burman SV "°Manudla,o
ad Stoieam Pbilosophiam and Pbystologia Stoieorum, both published at
R^'see BN 5:476-91; BHAPB 284; EU/ 17 :1540; and Bergmans, "L'AutoW JJLE'ΐ-'βδ
(Ep 3 Misc. !.I 4 ), March 4,
Del R.o himself had lost h.s l.brary in the
sack of his father's chateau at Cleydael in 1577; 44 See Guldner, Das Toleranz-Problem, 133-34•4 5 Lipsius indeed said as much in a letter to Saravia, Ep. Mtsc. z.zo (Van Crombruggen, "Een Brief" in), March 2 3 , 1588: P^Uca f ateor m e "" m I u a m tan J ere > ms ' m v t t u m ' ;' iLue privatim amtcus esse didtc, ...: mvare patrtam aut rempubltcam, antmo et voto Zium vix consilio aut facto. He admitted that this doctrine was at variance with the Stoic doctrine of involvement in public responsibilities. Nor did 1.: mate= him acour igeous friend to those in need: this letter is a reply to Saravia's request for help after he had been bamshed f r o m Leiden ( I L E 2 . 5 8 8 , O c t o b e r 3 1 , 1 5 8 7 ) ·
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he was bound eventually to return to obedience to Catholic authority. By accepting the discipline of the Church he gained the freedom to study Roman history and Stoicism within the parameters of Catholic doctrine; conversely, he lost a large measure of the intellectual freedom that char acterized the work of his years in Leiden. The dedication of his edition of Seneca to the Pope epitomizes his predicament. Thus we have seen why Lipsius was inconstant in religion. Yet despite his apparent quietism he did more than any of his contemporaries to jus tify the use of classical antiquity as a basis for political activity. In his teaching he aimed to train leaders in church and state. His Stoicism pro vided a practical philosophical basis for involvement in public affairs. His prestige made it desirable, indeed necessary, for the Catholic church to secure his loyalty, and he had neither the courage nor the constancy to resist. In any case, by 1600 Plantin had been dead for more than a decade, and the House of Love had ceased to be a factor in the religious life of the Netherlands. Lipsius was firmly in the Catholic camp, and there he re mained for the rest of his life. We now can see precisely what was the context for the autobiographical letter written in the autumn of that year, and so we can understand the distortions and omissions so skilfully wo ven into it by Lipsius. Lipsius' death on March 23, 1606, had quelque chose de tbeatral. I4i Among those present at his deathbed were three Jesuits, and he died a loyal Catholic. Casaubon was appalled, as were Scaliger and Lipsius' Lei den friends: Have you seen [wrote Casaubon to Scaliger] the accounts of his death? I was astonished when I read that in his death-agony he ded icated his fur cloak to the Blessed Virgin and ordered it to be con veyed immediately. God immortal, what old woman's superstition is this? . . . I confess to you, great Scaliger, I am frightened by these examples of men who later set out to attack the truth that they once accepted. 147 1 1 6 BB 3 : 8 8 8 . The fullest account of his death was written on May 9 , 1 6 0 6 , by Francis Van Broecke, a Minor Brother, for his Superior. It is printed in GV 256—61, document no. 2 3 . Woverius published an account in his Assertio Lipsiani Donari (Op. Omn. 1:184—86); cf. BB 3 : 1 1 1 2 . '47 Letter to Scaliger, May 3 0 , 1 6 0 6 , (Casaubon, Epistolae, 513). Jakob Bidermann's play, Cenodoxus, first performed at Augsburg in 1 602, was given a memorable performance at the Jesuit College in Munich in 1609. Act 4 portrayed the death of Cenodoxus ("Vain Opinion"), attended by Philauda ("Self-Love," a word used by Coornhert to describe Lip sius' defense in Defensio Processus [1593], 7) and Hypocrisis, who claimed Cenodoxus as
LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
Indeed, Lipsius' goal (or at least his goal as given in the published de scriptions of his death) was to die with Christiani roboris constantia, "the constancy of Christian strength." When he was encouraged by one of those present to remember the consolations of Stoicism, he replied that "those things were vain and this [pointing to the crucifix] was true Con stancy"—ilia sunt vana . . . baec est vera patientia.1*8 Thus it appeared that Lipsius had betrayed the Stoic doctrine of the De Constantia·. the arguments made by Torrentius in 1584 seemed finally to have prevailed. Yet the truth is more complex. The Catholics may have claimed Lipsius at the end, but the teachings of the De Constantia and the Politica remained influential. Woverius and Philip Rubens, public ser vants trained by Lipsius, were better evidence for the effectiveness of his doctrines in the secular world. The regrets expressed by Casaubon and the contempt shown by Burman should to some extent be discounted by the success that Lipsius achieved in reconciling classical scholarship with contemporary political and administrative needs. It is here that Lipsius and Peter Paul Rubens had most in common. We have traced Lipsius' self-portrait over many years of his life, yet the man still eludes us. His inconstancy in religion, the histrionics of his death (at least as described by his Catholic friends), and the editing, suppres sion, and amplification of his correspondence and published work indi cate a character whose instinct for self-preservation was stronger than adherence to the high Stoic principles of his best writing or to one faith at the price of martyrdom. There are, however, more important aspects of his character, work, and influence. First was his life as a scholar. Endowed with a superb memory, as he himself tells us in the autobiographical letter, 1 ^ he very early mastered Latin philology, literature, and history. He claimed to have been nineteen when he published his Variarum Lectionum Libri IV (they were actually published when he was twenty-two), and he was twenty-seven when her own (11. 1303-21). Since the play was largely an attack on the Neostoic doctrines of Lipsius, the 1609 production could have been a reaction to the histrionics of his death scene. (I am grateful to Michael Hendry and Richard White for drawing my attention to Cenodoxus.) ·** Both quotations are from Woverius' account (Op. Omn. 1.185). 149 WctiioTiii non sine pTueceptotum tnitflculo in puevo: quae nunc, etsi elunguit, non defecit.
First published by Plantin in 1569 in four books. There is no date to the dedication to Granvelle. When the work was published in three books in 1585, the dedication was dated to 1566 (i e , before Lipsius left for Rome and before Alva's arrival in the Netherlands), and the hostile references to Orange and the anti-Spanish leaders were removed. The matter is most fully discussed by Vervliet, Lipsius' Jeugd, 19-2.4; the text of the dedication is printed in ILE i.2., where 11. 87-93 are those suppressed in 1585.
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his greatest work of scholarship, the edition of Tacitus, was first pub lished in 1574. His prodigious memory is apparent in all his work, into which are woven innumerable allusions, quotations, and references to classical authors. In Greek he was inferior to Casaubon and Scaliger, and he did not know Arabic or Hebrew. His extraordinary reputation among his contemporaries and his influence then and in the century following his death derived from his ability to relate his classical scholarship to contem porary affairs: "Lipsius . . . created a brand of philology that was entirely relevant to current and practical problems." 151 Finally, Lipsius believed in the ideals of classical antiquity. This disposed him to prefer the estab lished order to revolution as a young man, as, for example, in the dedi cation to Granvelle, and made inevitable his return to the Catholic church and the Spanish Netherlands in the final fifteen years of his life. Only at Jena was he outspoken in attacking Catholicism, and we have seen how energetically he tried to disown his speeches from that period. Ofhis most influential works written in Leiden, the De Constantia was concerned with the attitude of the individual towards public troubles, and therefore it less obviously questioned the established Catholic order. Nevertheless, acute Catholic scholars like Torrentius were not deceived, and Lipsius' discomfort with their criticism was well founded. When he came to write the Politica his political conservatism was once more dominant, and in this work he argued for unified and stable government that favored the power of the benevolent ruler over the rights of the nonconforming indi vidual. Thus the most damaging critic of the work was the Protestant Coornhert. In his final period at Leuven his conservatism was used to support the Catholic and Spanish interests, while his ability to relate clas sical antiquity to the present made him preeminent as a teacher and scholar. There are, then, three parts to the "essential" Lipsius: the classical phi lologist, the practical student of antiquity, and the admirer of ancient Ro man principles. These were the elements of his character and work that he strove to portray for posterity. First there is his motto, MORIBVS ANTIQVIS, which expressed his private and public ideals. The phrase was part of a famous line from the Annates of Ennius quoted by Cicero and Augustine.' 51 The whole line "51 Grafton, "Portrait," 3 8 6 , who also rightly says that "antiquarianism . . . proved to be the most practical of all Lipsius' studies." " 1 Ennius, Ann. fr. 5 0 0 , Vahlen, (frag. 4 7 6 Warmington). Quoted by Cicero, Rep. 5 .1, and Augustine, De Civ. D. z.zi. See Skutsch, Studia Enniana, 51-53, who assigns the frag ment to Ennius' account of the execution by T. Manlius of his son (Livy, 8.7 .16).
L1PS1US, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
runs, moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque, "the Roman state stands firm by means of old-fashioned customs and men." Ennius was explain ing the secret of Rome's stability, and eventual victory, in the crisis of the second Punic War; in other words he (like Vergil and Vergil's patron, Augustus) saw that Roman greatness rested on the proper respect for the principles and achievements of earlier Romans and the proper employ ment of those principles in contemporary contexts. Lipsius first seems to have adopted the motto in 1570, that is, after his return from Rome. 153 It not only expressed his character and principles, but also showed how he sought to use the past for the benefit of the present. The words are prom inent in his portraits, and they were thought by his contemporaries to epitomize his way of life. 154 The same devotion to classical principles is evident from the preface Ad Lectorem to the Epistolicae Quaestiones, 155 written on his twenty-ninth birthday, October 18,1576. It ends with forty-three lines of Plautine iam bics, 1 ' 6 in which Lipsius claimed Virtue for himself and accused his de tractors of dishonesty. He was probably responding to the charges of pla giarism made by Muretus, but he broadened the argument by identifying the principle of moribus antiquis with virtue. Thus in the autobiographi cal passages he emphasized the traditional moral values that were part of his education while separating himself from contemporary values. 157 It was typical of Lipsius to claim the high ground in controversy, and he was able to do so convincingly because of his complete mastery of Roman literature and history. Towards the end of his life, as he planned for his posthumous reputation, his scholarship, both as an end in itself and as applied to contemporary life, became even more strongly identified with virtue. This is made quite clear from two letters written in 1603 to trusted friends, in which he expresses himself with a directness that has every appearance of greater sincerity than the carefully contrived autobio graphical letter of 1600. Writing to Denys de Villers, he maintained that he had shown Modum & Modestiam in intellectual as well as other asmj
See Vervliet, Lipsius' Jeugd,
Album Amicorum on May
30,
8, 1570
n. 4, who incorrectly reports its first use in Dousa's
(for !571)-
The' i WorkTespeaal^ devoted mnotes orfuvy, indicating that Lipsius was thinking ab °'Foi^™ h pTeTiT(oncon^mporary
scholars' respect for the truth): "cumnon inter"they don't give a straw" (cf. Pkutus, Rudens, 580). In Plautus, Ampb. 633-53, foetus, liberaliter; mores ma.orum
doctrinam instith 1. 9: nec istos mores novi saecuh novt,
CHAPTER 4
pects of his life. 1 ' 8 These words may be translated as "discipline and mod eration," and Lipsius claimed that he, unlike other scholars, had written concise and disciplined works, full of practical advice. He boasted that he alone had addressed important issues (singularia argumenta) in an or derly way so as to combine pleasure with wise precepts. 159 His boasts were justified. He was preeminent in relating antiquity to the problems of contemporary life. Of the works listed in this letter, only the Saturnalia did not have a practical bearing on private ethics (as with the De Constantia) or the governance of the state (as with the Politica) or on military discipline and tactics (as with the De Militia Romana). A few months later Lipsius wrote to thank Woverius for his Eucharisticum. l6 ° After some perfunctory modesty (for Woverius had praised Lipsius generously), Lipsius candidly estimated his own gifts. This is the most informative of his self-portraits and probably the most reliable. He distin guished three gifts: first, critical sense (judicium), which, he added, led him to write in an orderly way, ordinem in scribendo & dispositionem. Second, he had the gift of self-expression (eloquentia) in speech and in writing. This, too, allowed him to articulate his thoughts with brevity and clarity. Third (and in his view most important), he used his gifts for the service of his fellow-man. The passage is worth quoting at length: Quod judicii, ingenii, eloquii, stili quidquid in me fuit, in publicum contuli, & usui, non pompae, volui servire. vide mea vel a iuvenilibus annis, semper scintillae aliquae ad Virtutem aut Prudentiam praelucentes . . . ego ad Sapientiam primus vel solus mei aevi Musas converti: ego e Philologia Philosophiam feci, vide Constantiam meam, dicet: vide Politica, idem: & hoc utrumque opus est, cui vita fortasse cum Latinis litteris manebit. Whatever critical sense, intellect, eloquence, and style I possessed, I shared with the public. My wish was to be the servant of the public good, not of my own glorification. Look at my behavior even from 158 Ep. Misc. 5 , 2 6 , June 6, 1 6 0 3 . De Villers was a close and lifelong friend, with whom Lipsius h a d been at school when h e w a s only six. See Bergmans, "L'Autobiographie," 3 Z I — zz, n. 8. 1 & certe Modum in omni vita, sed & Modestiam in animo amavi. alii pbilologi. . . meo aevo a vano multum traxerunt: ego strinxi, & interius adduxi; & ad utilia aut profutura . . . raro scripsi, cui non saptentiae aut prudenttae. . . monita aut praecepta sint inspersa . . . pauci an nemo, meo aevo singularia argumenta aggressi sunt. . . : ego feci, in Constantia, in Politicis, Saturnalibus, Militia, Admirandis: ac sparstm etiam materias, quae usui aut oblectationi generi humano essent, disposui & ordine digessi. ordine, quem in omnibus scriptis amavi. 160 Ep. Misc. 4 . 8 4 , November 3 , 1 6 0 3 . For the Eucharisticum see above, ch. z, n. 1 0 9 .
LIPSIUS, THE CHURCH, AND POSTERITY
my youthful years—always some sparks were lighting the way to Virtue or Prudence . . . I was the first, or the only one, of my time to turn my scholarship to Wisdom; out of Philology I made Philosophy. my instancy, it will say this; see my Politics, they will say the same; and each of these works will last perhaps as long as Latin lit erature itself. Ego e Pbilologia Philosopbiam feci."' This is the epitome of Lipsius' achievement; it is the reason for his prestige during his lifetime and for his influence for more than a century after. It is the inspiration for Ru bens' The Four Philosophers and the !637 title page (Fig. 17). The whole passage is full of Stoic terms—Virtus, Prudentia, Sapientia—and Stoic ideals (for example, usui. . . volui servire), yet it shows how he used Stoic doctrine for the practical benefit of his contemporaries. For Lipsius uniquely the Muses had become the handmaidens of practical wisdom. A few months after this letter to Woverius Lipsius sent him the epitaph that he had composed for himself. It was inscribed on his tomb in Leuven and runs as follows: Quis hie sepultus quaeris? ipse edisseram. nuper locutus & stilo & lingua fui. nunc altera licebit. ego sum LIPSIUS, cui literae dant nomen, & tuus favor, sed nomen. ipse abivi, abibit hoc quoque, et nihil hie orbis, quod perennet, possidet. vis altiore voce me tecum loqui? humana cuncta fumus, umbra, vanitas, et scenae imago, & verbo ut absolvam, NIHIL. extremum hoc te alloquor: aeternum ut gaudeam, tu apprecare. l6i Who is buried here, you ask? I myself will tell you. In the past I spoke with pen and tongue. Now I may speak by means of one of these. I am Lipsius, whose fame has been given by my writing and your fa161 Lipsius is referring to Seneca, Ep. 108.13: itaque quae philosophia fuit facta pbilologia est. This letter was one of the best-known of Seneca's essays; in it (esp. 23-38) he criticizes scholars for making scholarship an end in itself. Cf. Grafton, "Portrait," 389, who is, how ever, critical of Lipsius' readiness to make classical texts serve contemporary purposes at the expense of their intrinsic excellence. 161 It is printed in the first volume of the 1637 and 1675 Opera Omnia as part of the Fama Postuma (together with Lipsius' letter to Woverius of February 11, 1604, transmitting the epitaph), and by Sweerts, Athenae Belgicae, 496, in its original verse form. The epitaph composed by Sebastian Rolliard for the Senate of Antwerp follows the text of the epitaph composed by Lipsius.
CHAPTER 4
vor—but only fame. I myself have gone, my fame too will go, and this world possesses nothing that may last. May I speak with you more seriously? All human affairs are smoke, shadow, and vanity: a scene in a play, in a word, NOTHING. These are my last words to you: do you pray that I may eternally rejoice. Fortunately these were not his last words. In the two remaining years of his life he completed his Stoic textbooks, the Manuductio and the Physiologia, and his edition of Seneca. To the end he sought to bring the classical texts into contemporary life, and the pessimism of the epitaph is belied by the positive assessment of his work given in the 1603 letters to De Villers and Woverius. Peter Paul Rubens shared this positive view and expressed it most comprehensively in the title page to the 1637 Opera Omnia (Fig. 17). To this and to Seneca and Tacitus, the pillars of Lipsius' triumphal arch, we now shall turn.
5 TACITUS AND SENECA
T H E REPUTATION OF Lipsius rests securely upon his editions of Tacitus and Seneca. The Tacitus was first published in 1574 and is one of his earliest works; the Seneca was published in 1605 and was his last work. They are, so to speak, the two pillars supporting the fabric of his life's work, as is made very clear by the splendid title page designed by Rubens for the 1637 edition of Lipsius' Opera Omnia (Fig. 17). 1 The engraving by Cornells Galle was completed before December 1634, but the actual publication was delayed for nearly three years by a shortage of paper. 2 The 1637 title page was the result of three decades' reflection upon the importance of Lipsius. Like The Four Philosophers, it was also a memo rial to Philip Rubens, and, like the designs for the 1615 Seneca, it was the fruit of the close friendship and business relationship between Rubens and Balthasar Moretus, himself a contubernalis of Lipsius.' Rubens' com position is an allegorical representation of his view of Lipsius' achieve ment, which coincided with Lipsius' own view, written some thirty years earlier: ego e Philologia Philosophiam feci." The design itself is architec tural, based upon the motif of an arch. Arches to all students of Roman antiquity were associated with the Tri umph. The main entrances and exits of the Roman Forum celebrated the victories of Fabius Maximus, Augustus, Tiberius, and Septimius Severus. Outside the Forum, but nearby, were the arches of Titus and Constantine. Rubens would have studied the three surviving arches (those of Titus, Septimius, and Constantine) during his time in Rome, and he would have been familiar with their symbolic importance in Roman literature and history. The triumphal arch had been used in the design for the beautiful • Antwerp: Moretus, 1637, 6 vols. The first four volumes are those published in 1637. Vol. 5 is the 16x7 edition of Tacitus, and vol. 6 is the 1631 Seneca, with the same title page and illustrations as the 1615 edition. * See JV 1:2,99-309, nos. 73-74, with figs. 2.46-49. For Rubens' title pages see also Held, Rubens and the Book. 3 See Bouchery, "Petrus Paulus Rubens," 5-52» * Ep. Misc. 4.84, November 3, 1603.
CHAPTER 5
title page of Smetius' Inscriptionum Antiquarum Liber (Fig. 14), the pub lication of which had been overseen by Lipsius, who had added to the work his own AuctariumJ Rubens' earliest title page with this sort of architectural structure was designed in 1613 for Aguilon's Opticorum Libri Sex, and he was closely involved with the 1615 Seneca (Fig. 3), whose title page (not designed by Rubens) was again based upon the arch. 6 Not long after completing the title page for Lipsius' works, Rubens was planning and executing the decorations for the Joyful Entry of the Cardinal Infante Ferdinand, which took place on April 17, 1635. 7 F° r the Entry Rubens designed a series of arches and stages along the route by which Ferdinand was to enter the city. Forty-three of the designs were published with a commentary by Caspar Gevaerts in a folio volume whose title page was designed by Rubens (Fig. 18). 8 The symbolism of the title page illuminates the meaning of the almost contemporary title page to the Opera Omnia of Lipsius. A portrait of the King of Spain, Philip IV, surmounts the arch, enclosed in a wreath that was partly the corona civica, the oak-leaf garland awarded in Roman antiquity to citizens who had saved the life of a citi zen, and partly the corona triumphalis, the victor's laurel wreath. The arch itself is supported by terms of Mars and Mercury, flanked respec tively by personifications of Victory and Peace. Mars, as the inscription upon his pedestal says, represents triumph in war: "Be present, avenging Mars, by force pave the road for your triumphs." 9 Mercury represents the arts of peace, and his inscription reads, "Kindly in peace, interpreter of the gods, master of persuasion." 10 The title page for the Pompa Introitus echoes the work of Lipsius. He 5 Leiden: Raphelengius, 1 5 8 8 .JV vol. 2 , fig. 2 5 0 . "/V vol. i, no. 1 0 and fig. 5 5 , for Aguilon; JV 1 : 1 5 1 - 6 7 , nos. 3 0 - 3 2 , with figs. 1 0 2 - 1 3 , for Seneca. 7 See Martin, Decorations; JV 1 : 3 2 7 — 3 3 , no. 8 1 , with figs. 2 7 3 — 7 4 . 8 C. Gevartius, Pompa Introitus . . . Ferdinandi Austriaci. Gevartius (Caspar Gevaerts), 1593—1666, was Town Clerk of Antwerp from 1621 until 1662 and a friend of Rubens, who painted the portrait of him now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, and reproduced in White, Rubens, pi. 222; see BN 17 :694—700. Rubens designed the title page before the end of 1636 for the original printer, Moretus, with Theodore van Thulden as the publisher. Moretus was replaced by Meursius (Jan van Meurs) in 1638, and the book was printed in 1642, with the dedication to Ferdinand (who had died in November 1641), pre dated to July 1641; see JV 1 :330. The title page (Fig. 18) was engraved by Jacob Neefs; G e v a e r t s ' e x p l a n a t i o n o f its allegorical c o n t e n t is transcribed in J V 1 : 3 3 1 - 3 2 , n . 2 . » Ultor ades, Gradive, viam vi sterne triumphis. Gradivus, "he who marches out," is a title of Mars; the temple of Mars the Avenger (Mars Ultor) at Rome was built by the em peror Augustus. Thus Ferdinand was complimented by the allusion to the Roman emperor, bringer of the Pax Augusta. >° Pace bonus, divum interpres, suadaeque magister.
TACITUS AND SENECA
labored to interpret Roman antiquity to his contemporaries, and specifi cally to further the interests of the government of the Spanish Netherlands through his military, political, and ethical works. The victory of Ferdi nand over the Swedish forces at Nordlingen in 1634, and his subsequent entry into Antwerp, gave concrete expression to the doctrines of Lipsius. The arch was not only triumphal in its symbolism. It was an entryway, a screen, and a connecting device. Rubens had in fact used it for exactly these purposes in the design for his own house in Antwerp, where the rustication of the arch is similar to that of the arch in the 1637 title page (Fig. 19). 11 The arch of the Opera Omnia, therefore, has many associa tions. It refers to Roman antiquity and to triumphal celebrations, for, while the triumphs of Lipsius were in the peaceful realm of scholarship, his political and military writings led to military victory. It celebrates the supremacy of an individual and records his excellence for posterity. In ancient Rome these goals were achieved by visual devices (statues and reliefs) and by inscriptions; in the title page the portrait of Lipsius and the title of the book perform the function of the Roman inscription. The arch separates the viewer's world from the realm of Lipsius' works, and its two supporting figures, Tacitus and Seneca, invite the reader to enter. Allegor ical figures celebrate Lipsius' achievements, while the funerary lamp above his portrait keeps his memory alive with its flame. Above the keystone of the arch is the portrait of Lipsius (similar to that of the 1615 edition of Seneca), framed in a laurel wreath and flanked by his motto, moribus antiquis. The laurel wreath was the victor's reward at the Pythian Games in honor of Apollo, and it was worn by the Roman triumpbator: thus it honors the scholar who has excelled all others. Flanking the portrait and the lamp are personifications of Philosophy and Politics, each of whom is seated on a plinth erected immediately behind the head of the principal classical author who was Lipsius' inspiration— Seneca for Philosophy and Tacitus for Politics. Philosophy is an old woman with the attributes of Hercules, the lionskin and the club. Her age and her expression convey the wisdom of experience, while the attributes of Hercules associate her with the Stoic hero, who labored for the good of mankind and chose virtue over ease." She holds two books, inscribed respectively Stoica and Constantia·, the former appears to be a neuter plu ral adjective ("Stoic [writings]") and to refer to Lipsius' expositions of 11 11
Baudouin, Rubens House, 6-8. Cf Seneca Constant, z.i: bos enim [sc. Ulixem et Herculem} Stota nostn sapientes pronuntiaverunt, invictos laboribus et contemptores voluptatis, et victores omnium terrorutn. Ulysses and Hercules were prominent in the title pages of the 1605 and 1615 Seneca.
CHAPTER 5
Stoic philosophy in his Manuductio and Physiologia Stoicorum, while the latter refers to his first and most influential Stoic work, the De Constantia.1^ Seneca is placed immediately below Philosophy, as the classical source for Lipsius' interpretation of Stoicism. Beside Seneca is Minerva, goddess of Wisdom but also armed, as befits the goddess who protected the ancient city of Athens and shared (with Juno) the Temple of Jupiter upon the Capitoline Hill at Rome. On the viewer's right the personification of Politics, placed immediately above Tacitus, refers above all to Lipsius' Politica, in the preface to which he acknowledges the inspiration of Tacitus. 14 She holds a rudder, symbol of good government, and a spear, symbol of military authority, while upon her knee she balances a globe, symbol of worldly power. She wears the turreted crown, attribute of the Roman goddess Cybele and indicative of civic power and order. 15 Below her is the term of Tacitus, beside whom is Mercury, the guarantor of peace and the giver of persuasive speech essential to the leader of a well-ordered state. At the foot of each column of the arch sits a female figure. On the left is Virtue, armed with sword and helmet; 16 facing her on the right sits a two-faced woman holding a serpent in her right hand, while her left hand rests upon a wheel, a symbol of good government. This figure is Prudentia, the attribute par excellence of the good Prince and associated by Lipsius especially with Tacitus. 17 Beneath the center of the arch are Roman military devices—eagle, spears, legionary standard, and battering rams—many of which appear else where in Rubens' work. 18 Here they refer particularly to Lipsius' writings on Roman military techniques, the De Militia Romana and the Poliorceticon. Below this group are Romulus and Remus being suckled by the wolf. Thus symbols of Lipsius' study of Roman history, and especially of Roman military institutions, are placed at the base and center of the arch, •' This seems more accurate than the rendering of JV 1 : 3 0 2 : "STOICA and CONSTAN TLY which are the titles of two books published by Lipsius." 14 In the Auctorum Syllabus he says inter eos eminet Corn. Tacitus extra ordinem dieendus: quia plus unus ille nobis contulit, quam ceteri omnes. The Latin word gubernator meant both a steersman and a ruler. See Gevaerts' interpre tation of the figure of Cybele (JV 1:331). "· See JV ι :302-3 for this identification. The figures in the entre fenetre of Rubens' Decius Mus cycle have been proved by R. Baumstark to be "Victoria and Virtus." Virtus is helmeted and holds a short sword in her right hand. See Cat. no. 216; Baumstark, Rubens, 123-27. 17 Lipsius discusses the ruler's Prudentia in books 3-5 of the Politica, and he frequently refers to Tacitus' Prudentia: e.g., acer scriptor . . . et prudens (dedication to the 1574 Tac itus); Tacito . . . ad prudentiam . . . duci (Ep. ad Belg. 2.52); Prudentia certe est quae respublicas constituit, servat, auget (dedication to the 1581 Tacitus). " 8 E.g., in the Decius Mus cycle, Decius Mus Relating bis Dream (Fig. 26), The Exequies of Decius Mus (Fig. 29), and The Trophy.
TACITUS AND SENECA
balancing his own portrait above the keystone. The practical results of that study are epitomized in the allegorical figures of Virtue and Prudence with their attendant classical gods, in the authors who were the principal sources for Lipsius' reinterpretations of classical moral and political philosophy, and, finally, in the figures of Philosophy and Politics, who preside over the arch and the figure whom it honors. The 1637 title page brilliantly amplifies The Four Philosophers in the light of a quarter-century of experience. The earlier work had emphasized Seneca, to whom Lipsius had devoted his final work of scholarship, published in the volume presented by Philip Rubens to the Pope. In the 1637 title page Tacitus is the equal of Seneca. Rubens rightly placed Tacitus and Seneca at the center of Lipsius' achievements, for Lipsius' lifelong study of these two authors was the foundation of his influence. They were, to use Rubens' symbolism, the pillars of his triumphal arch. For thirty-six years Lipsius devoted much of his scholarly effort to Tacitus. I9 At his death he was preparing another edition (which was brought to publication by Woverius in 16°7)/° and he began his study of Tacitus during his time in Rome, in 1569. Scaliger singled out the editions of Tacitus as his most significant work, and the succession of editions published in his own lifetime and in the century after his death bears witness to his authority. A recent scholar has not unjustly said that "up to the nineteenth century a commentary on the text of Tacitus in the main consisted of comments by, and on, Lipsius."22 For the purposes of our present inquiry we shall need to establish the significance of Lipsius' work on Tacitus for his own time, particularly as it affected his circle and their friends, including Peter Paul Rubens. To achieve this we shall need to examine how Lipsius set about his studies, why he thought Tacitus so important, and, finally, how he related his study of Tacitus to the contemH
porary world. 23 '9 Lipsius' own estimate, from the Ad Lectorem of the, 1607 edition: iam anni triginta sex sunt, cum adolescens Romae animum hue intendi, et Itbros veteres eomparavl, ut melIOr illustriorque per me prodiret. 8. 20 Antwerp: Moretus, 1607. See BB 5: 2 97-9 , ' ' 2' Sealigeriana (1666), 207. Plantin, Raphelengius, and J. Moretus publIshed eight editions between 1574 and 1607 (1574, 1581, 15 8 5, 15 88 ',15 8 9,1595, 1600, and 1607), t in I ding the simultaneous editions publIshed In Lelden and Antwerp. For the full no c U d UI "C I' T' " list, including those published outside the Netherlan s, see ery, orne IUS aCltus,
99- 102 .
Brink, "Justus Lipsius," 3 2 . _ ' " • ' '" Especially useful for this inquiry are: Etter 1 aCI~.us; Ul~;r ~or~~hus TaCitus ; ,~uyse Lipse et les Annales and "Juste Llpse, Edlteur ; Brmk, Justus LIPSIUS ; and t u st sch aer, D' " M I' "T 'I'J vI'ew of Juste Lipse et les Annales (1949)· Isappomtmg are u ler, ac' d L' ' I M omlg lano, re . " d S h Ilhase Tacitus' the latter's judgments on TaCitus an IpSIUS are extreme y C e , , f h k f ' h F Itus, an 34-40) and he was not apparently aware 0 t e wor 0 Oestrelc. or . bl ( unreIla e e.g., 1 , 21
23
143
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Lipsius' scholarly interests were profoundly affected by the friendship of Muretus during his time in Rome. Up until this time he had been more inclined to the study of Cicero, Plautus, and Propertius, but Muretus turned him decisively towards Tacitus. Muretus had wished to lecture on Tacitus at the University of Rome, but he had been discouraged by the Catholic authorities, on the grounds that Tacitus' hostility towards the Christians and the Jews made him unfit to read with students. Neverthe less, Muretus continued to study Tacitus and to prepare his notes, which he showed to Lipsius.14 Equally important, he and Manutius used their influence to introduce Lipsius to Fulvio Orsini (Ursinus), librarian of the Farnese library, and to Cardinal Sirleto, the Vatican librarian. As a result Lipsius collated three manuscripts, one from the Farnese library and two from the Vatican.15 These he compared with printed editions, notably those of Gryphius and Rhenanus.16 Lipsius did not collate the first Medicean manuscript, which had first been used as the basis for a printed text by Beroaldus.17 It is the sole authority for the first six books of the Annals, from which all other manu scripts of that part of the Annals are derived. It had been brought to Italy from Germany in about 1508, at the behest of the Medici Pope Leo X, and therefore found its way to Florence and the Laurentian library.18 Lipbibliographies see Etter, xi—xix (up to 1 9 6 5 ) , and Ulery, 9 7 — 1 0 2 ; Schellhase's survey of scholarship on Tacitism (ix—xiii) is unjustifiably critical of his predecessors. 14 Etter, Tacitus, 45—58; Ulery, "Cornelius Tacitus," 1 2 5 — 2 9 , transcribing the preface to the 1604 (Ingoldstadt) edition of Annals 1 —6, which consists mostly of Schott's encomium on Muret. Schott, who was also a friend of Lipsius, does not mention the controversy with Lipsius, nor does he allude to the Vatican's opposition to Muretus' lectures. 15 For the manuscripts see Ruysschaert, "Juste Lipse, Editeur," 52—57, and Juste Lipse et Ies A n n a t e s , 2 6 - 3 6 . T h e t h r e e w e r e V a t . L a t . 1 8 6 3 a n d 1 8 6 4 a n d N e a p o l i t a n u s I V . C . 2 1 , fifteenth-century copies of the Medicean manuscripts. Cf. Brink, "Justus Lipsius," 33—36. Lipsius refers to his three manuscript sources in the Ad Lectorem to the Notae of 1 5 7 4 (Ulery, "Cornelius Tacitus," 169—70) and in the Ad Lectorem of the 1589 edition (Ulery, 118). He acknowledges help from Schott, who transcribed excerpta quaedam sive notulas from a manuscript in Spain, and from Modius, who transcribed iudicia sive coniecturas from Agricola's manuscript. This may have been Leiden BPL 16B, for which see Heubner [Annates, Teubner, 1983], lx-xi, or, as Ruysschaert, "Juste Lipse, Editeur," 58, believes, from Agricola's copy of the Editio Spirensis (Venice, 1473), now in Stuttgart, [Inc.] 20.15218.
Annates (Lyon: S. Gryphius, 1 5 4 2 ) , containing the notes of Ferrettus ( 1 5 4 1 ) , Rhenanus (1533), Alciati (1517), and Beroaldus (1515); Lipsius' copy is in the Leiden library. He used Rhenanus' second edition of the Annates (Basel: Froben, 1544). See Ruysschaert, juste Lipse et Ies Annates, 18 -26; Brink, "Justus Lipsius," 33 -36; Ulery, "Cornelius Tac itus," 1 0 2 - 7 ; Etter, Tacitus, 2 6 - 3 3 . " F. Beroaldo, P. Corneti Taciti libri quinque noviter inventi atque operibus editi (Rome: Guilleretus, 1515). Beroaldus refers to five books, since the distinction between books 5 and 6 was not recognized until 1541, by Ferrettus. See Brink, "Justus Lipsius," 51, andHeubner, Annales, 179, who follows Haase, "Tacitea," in placing the break after 5.5 rather than 5 .11, the placing of Ferrettus. 18 See Heubner, Annales, iii-vi, for the codices Medicei; of the first he says Corveiensi e monasterio codex furto subductus . . . petenti Ioanni de Medicis . . . concessus.
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sius probably had neither the time nor the money to make the journey to Florence, and the editorial methods of his time were such that he needed no apology for relying on printed editions, nor did he feel that he needed to repeat the work already done by Beroaldus. "1 did not have an oppor tunity to see it, he says, and, to tell the truth, after others had seen it I did not even wish to see it." z ' The greater part of the Annals (books n—16) and all the surviving parts of the Histories also rest upon a codex unicus, the second Medicean, an eleventh-century manuscript written in Beneventan script at Monte Cassino. It, too, was stolen from its monastery and brought to Florence, where in 1437 it was willed by its then owner to the Convent of San Marco and from there brought to the Laurentian library. Lipsius knew of it, since he had read the commentaries of Ferrettus and Vertranius Maurus, both of whom mentioned it. The former probably had collated it, the latter admitted that he saw the manuscript of the Pandects in Florence but did not have the time to study the Medicean manuscripts.' 0 It was finally used by the diplomat and scholar Curtius Pichena for his notes published in 1600, followed by the text and commentary of 1607. 31 I" response to Pichena's notes Lipsius began another revision, which led to the posthu mous edition of 1607. He has been criticized for not inspecting the Me dicean manuscripts, but within the conventions of his time he was acting responsibly in relying on the collations of others and revising his edition in light of new scholarship that came to his attention. 31 As Brink has Unicum exemplar manuscriptum Europa babet, reconditum in Bibliotbeea Medieaea, quod aeeurate . . . Philippus Beroaldus exprimi euravit. ait et Ferretus vidisse. quorum fide nitar, nam mihi inspiciundi eius occasio non fuit, et, ut vere dicam, ne cupiditas quidem (introduction to Annals 11 in the Notae to the 1574 edition, p. 692, quoted by Ruysschaert, Juste Lipse et Ies Annates, 32). Ruysschaert, "Juste Lipse, Editeur," 57-58, justly defends Lipsius' methods against the attacks of Brink. Introduction to his Notae on the Annates and Historiae (Lyon: A. Gryphius, 1569) (Ulery, "Cornelius Tacitus," 109): neque vero mibi Florentiam transeunti, visis quibusdam Pandectarum locis in Laurentii basilica, amplius quiequam per otium videre licuit. Vertran ius deserves some sympathy; the Ms of the Pandects containes 907 folios, which can have left him little time for other manuscripts. See the introduction by Mommsen, Digesta Iustiniani Augusti, xii-xi, for its description and history. Its antiquity (according to Mommsen, "not necessarily before the seventh century," i.e., not long after Justinian's death in 565) would have inclined Vertranius to spend his time on it, rather than on more recent manu scripts. See Ruysschaert, Juste Lipse et Ies Annates, 37-38, and "Juste Lipse, Editeur," 5052, for Vertranius. He (and not Lipsius) first separated the Historiae from the Annates. His first edition was published in 1560; for problems over daring see Ulery, 100; Etter, Tacitus, 32. ,· 7" In a letter to Nicolas Hacqueville on December 3, 1600 (Ep. Misc. 3.61), Lipsius gave advice on how to approach history, organizing the subject into clearly defined categories and expressing his preference for Roman history. In Burman, Sylloge, 301, he calls History vitae magistra, et civilis atque moralis Philosophiae speculum aut exemplum. 7. Tacitus was well aware of the contrast: nobis in arto et inglonus labor (Ann. 4.31). The whole passage (Ann. 4.31-33) is Tacitus' most important discussion of the nature of h.storical writing and the difference between himself and Livy. In a way, L lp sius 1574 and ι «81 dedications are commentaries on these chapters. 7χ See n. 14 above for the Latin of the quotation from the Auctorum Syllabus.
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any age. He now focused these general qualities upon the particular func tion of the historian as the teacher of prudentia civilis ac militaris, the subjects that occupy two thirds of the Politica. The words may have been those of Tacitus, but it was the mind of Lipsius that selected and orga nized the material: "Mine is the selection and organization, but I have gathered the words and opinions from ancient authors." 73 The result is an astonishingly complex yet concise handbook for rulers, very largely in the words of ancient authors yet unmistakably the work of Lipsius addressed to his contemporaries. He had understood the polit ical stance of Tacitus, somewhere between the libertas of Thrasea and the tyranny of the Roman emperors, and this justified choosing him as a guide for a benevolent monarchy. Thus Lipsius achieved his goal of inter preting the ancient texts in the light of the contemporary world. In the process, however, the very things that he admired in Tacitus were dimin ished, among them his loftiness, universality, and psychological bril liance. Instead Lipsius created a brisk, austere, and ruthless mosaic of precepts that Catholic and Protestant princes seized on to justify their own actions.74 Nevertheless, even in the Politica Lipsius did not forget why he admired Tacitus. In the notes to chapter 9 of the first book, De Memoria Rerum, he once again found him superior to Livy and Sallust.75 His superiority lay specifically in his prudentia and iudicium, the former shown in his political wisdom, the latter in his choice of material, his historical truth, and his moral and psychological insight. He is "a garden or nursery of precepts," to be commended, above all, "to the counselors of princes even more than to princes themselves. In him they have a true guide for Wis dom and Prudence."76 When one thinks of Lipsius' own teaching, of the public careers of his students, and of the public service in which they and their parents were engaged, one can understand why he found in Tacitus ideals that satisfied him as scholar, teacher, and preceptor to leaders in church and state. One 7 ' Cum enim inventio tota et ordo a nobis sint, verba tamen et sententias varie conquisivimus a scriptoribus priscis (from the Ad Lectorem). 74 This is very well discussed by Grafton, Portrait, 387—89, who concludes that Lipsius abidcated his responsibility as a humanist "to understand the past on its own terms." Etter, Tacitus, 135—37, is rather more neutral, but she rightly emphasizes the difference between Lipsius' views in the Politica and those expressed in the Jena oration and the 1581 dedica tion. 75 Pp. 17—r8 in the 1610 edition (Antwerp: Moretus). 7 * Nec enim Historia solum est, sed velut hortus ac seminarium praeceptorum . . . consiliariis magis Principum quam ipsis commendo: qui babeant hunc Sapientiae simul ac Prudentiae verum ducem. The whole passage, too long to quote here, should be read.
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can understand also why Rubens' 1637 title page was so accurate in its perceptions, and, finally, why Peter Paul Rubens himself understood so well Lipsius' importance to the rulers of the Spanish Netherlands." In the notes to the Politicci Lipsius found in Tacitus the guide for wis dom and prudence, Sapientiae simul & Prudentiae verum ducem. The 1637 title page more accurately records Lipsius' usual opinion, which was that Tacitus was a source for prudentia, that is, political wisdom necessary for the good prince, and Seneca for sapientia, that is, the moral excellence taught by philosophy, necessary for the good citizen, whether prince or subject. One quotation will suffice from many: "Tacitus and Seneca, the former [is] a guide to prudence, the latter to wisdom."? 8 Let us now turn to Seneca, the dux sapientiae,
IT is probable that Lipsius' serious concern with Seneca was the result of his conversations with Muretus in Rome. 79 In 1576 Muret accused Lipsius of plagiarizing his own emendations, "which many had known of from me long before you came to Italy," and he mentioned that they had discussed some of these together in Rome. 80 Three years later Lipsius mentioned to Muretus that he intended to dedicate to him a work that he was preparing on the life and writings of Seneca, and he warmly recalled their time together in Rome. 81 Nevertheless, the work De Vita ac Scriptis Annaei Senecae was not published separately, and it became part of the 1605 edition, while Muretus (who was by then long dead) was praised in the Introductio Leetoris. 8i We can trace the development of Lipsius' work on Seneca in the years preceding the publication of the De Constantia in 1584. He seems to have 77 The present discussion mentions only the Netherlands. Etter Tacitus, discusses the in fluence of Tacitus throughout Europe; see 62-69 for the influence of Tacitus upon Bodin and Montaigne. Lipsius did not like Bodin's Metbodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (Paris, 1566); see ILE 1 .197. Montaigne became a personal friend, and his views coincided more closely with those of Lipsius; see Ep. Misc. 1 . 4 3 . 78 Ep. ad Belg. 2 . 5 2 : Tacito & Senecae: Hli ad prudentiam, buic ad sapientiam duci. 79 Lipsius was introduced to philosophy during his years at the Jesuit College in Cologne (between the ages of thirteen and sixteen), according to the autobiographical letter of 1 6 0 0 , but he does not mention Seneca. 8 ° ILE ι.66, May 1 9 , Γ 5 7 6 (Muretus to Lipsius), p. 1 6 4 , 11. 2 0 - 2 5 , f° r the accusations about Seneca. The passages to which Muret objected are Antiquae Lectiones 4 . 7 and 5.6. Lipsius suggested twenty-nine emendations to Seneca's prose works (other than the Apocolocyntosis) in the Epistolicae Quaestiones of 1577. Muret's notes were published by Grassi at Rome in 1 5 8 5 . 81 ILE 1 . 1 0 2 (Ep. Misc. 1 . 5 3 ) : paro . . . De Vita ac scriptis Annaei Senecae; quem non invitus inscripsero tibi; vadem scilicet amicitiae eoeuntis et sanescentis. viximus amicissime. Muretreplied on February 8 , 1 5 8 0 (ILE 1.107). 81 P. i in the 1 6 5 2 edition, elegantis ingenii & iudicii vir. Nevertheless, Lipsius criticized Muretus' readiness to contradict earlier editors.
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been interested in establishing a text during the 1570s, but then to have become more interested in the ethical doctrines of Roman Stoicism. We can see this process in his work on the Senecan declamations and the tragedies. There was confusion over the authorship of the Suasoriae and Controversiae, which before Lipsius were indiscriminately assigned to Lucius Annaeus Seneca, despite the fact that they were known to have been written by someone who had heard Ovid (born in 43 B.C.) and Livy (born in 59 B.C.) declaim, whereas Lucius was known to have died under Nero. In his Electorum Libri Lipsius made the definitive distinction, and the declamations were assigned to their correct author, Lucius' father, Marcus. 83 Lipsius then urged Andreas Schott to take over the publication of the declamations, which appeared, dedicated to Lipsius, in 1603. 84 For the Senecan tragedies also Lipsius seems to have been interested at first in establishing a text, but then to have lost interest and to have turned the work over to another. He owned a fourteenth-century manuscript, which was given him by the German diplomat, poet, and scholar Paulus Schede (Melissus). This came into the possession of Woverius on Lipsius' death. 85 His Animadversiones were published separately in 1588 and in cluded with Raphelengius' text in 1589. 86 By the end of 1580 Lipsius was already deeply involved with Stoic phi losophy: "Reading is my only comfort—not those more pleasant works, but stronger medicine. Philosophy, I mean—Stoic philosophy—into which I am digging deeply." 87 A year later he wrote that the Stoics, 8 J Electorum. i.i. Nevertheless, Lipsius calls him Lucius on pp. zo—zi. Book ι was pub lished separately, and reissued when book ζ was published in 1585. See BB 3:927—28, ILE ι.ι ο ι, for the dedication of book 1 to the Archduke Matthias, Governor of the Netherlands, 1577—1581. See Grafton, "Portrait," 384, for Lipsius' method of distinguishing between the two Senecas. 84 Antwerp: Moretus, 1603, and Paris: Douceur, 1607 (BB 5:130). In ILE I . Z I Z — 13 (Burman, Sylloge, 91; Ep. Misc. 1.45), July 6(?) and 7, 158Z, Lipsius offers to send Schott his own notes. He knew that Schott, who was living in Toledo with the Spanish scholar, Antonio de Covarrubias, had access to a good manuscript, valde veterem et integrum·, this is Bruxellensis ZOZ5 (formerly Toletanus) and is described by Kiessling in Senecae . . . Colores, vii—viii. 85 This is Holkhamicus 390m, no. 4Z9 in MacGregor (1141 [M 83], 1143, IZ05—6); cf. Leo, Senecae Tragoediae, 1:13-15. In ILE 1.141, April 3, 1581, Lipsius thanks Melissus for sending him a book, which could have been this manuscript. 86 Antmadversiones in Tragoedias quae L. Annaeo Seneeae Tribuuntur (Leiden: Raphelengius, 1588); F. Raphelengius, Decern Tragoediae quae L. Annaeo Senecae tribuuntur . . . V. Cl. Iusti Lipsi emendatiores. . . . The Animadversiones are included in the 1637 Opera Omnia, 1:355-80. See BB 3:900, 1116-17, 5:iz3-z7- Casaubon, in his introduction (p. 15, unpaginated) to J. J. Sealigeri Opuscula Varia ante bae non edita, contrasts the absence of malice in Scaliger's Animadversiones in Q. (sic) Annaei Seneeae Tragoedias with the Animadversiones of Lipsius. Scaliger himself said, quam perversum Lipsi iudicium in Senecam Tragicuml (Scaligerana [1695], Z43). ILE I . I Z 8 (Ep. ad Belg. z.i), December 3 1 , 1580 (to Lernutius): nec medicina ullanisi
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uniquely among classical authors, could be reconciled with Christian be lief, and a few months later he admitted that the younger Seneca's wis dom was a special source of delight. 88 It is clear that during these years Lipsius became especially interested in Seneca's philosophy as a source of comfort in the troubles of his own time; in his peaceful existence at Lei den he had both the time and the distance to consider objectively the value of Stoicism for those who were directly affected by the troubles of the Netherlands. Thus, as with Tacitus, he moved from philology to phi losophy: Seneca's works became a text for his time, rather than an object of study in their own right. So we can observe how Lipsius' focus became narrower, as he dismissed the Senecan declamations and the tragedies, and then turned to the ethical doctrines of Stoicism. The title of the De Constantia is good evidence for this intellectual movement: De Constantia Libri Duo, Qui alloquium praecipue continent in Publicis malts, "Two books on Constancy, which especially contain consolation in times of Public adversity." Ironically, the publication of the De Constantia was the beginning of Lipsius' inner turmoil at Leiden, and it preceded by only a few months the assassination of William of Orange. 89 The book's title was more prophetic than Lipsius knew. Thus the establishment of the text of Seneca became subsidiary to the interpretation of Stoic ethics for the use of his contemporaries. Presenting an advance copy of the De Constantia to Ratio (in Ghent, in the Spanish Netherlands) Lipsius wrote, "I have just now fashioned these books for the use of my Belgians and as a consolation for my afflicted homeland." 90 In the same spirit, he dedicated the work to the Magistrates of Antwerp with these words: "I am the first to try to level and build this road to Wisdom, . . . which alone can lead to Tranquility and Peace." 91 Finally, in the published version of his letter to the Advocate and Treasurer of Antwerp, Cornelius Pruynen, he was even more explicit: "From these waa littens: non istis amoenioribus ...sed ab UUs robust,or,bus Philosophiam d,co in quam me penetro: et qmdem Stowan,. He was reading Epktetus and Arr.an, as well as Seneca »» ILE ι 192 ( Ep. Misc. 1 .33), January 23, 1582 (to Alexander Ratio, Professor of Phi losophy at Ghent and formerly Professor Extraordinarius at Leiden). Lipsius again named Epictetus and Arrian, as well as Seneca. ILE 1 .213 (Ep Misc. 1 .4s), July 7, 1 582. (to Seho ). unice me sapientia in filio (sc. the younger Seneca) delectat. 89 For the title see BB 3 :902; the work was published by Plantm at Leiden, and at Antwerp T 7 MBurman, Sylloge, 122), September 18, 1583: ClUos recens edolav, in usum meorutn Belgarum et alloquium adflictae patriae. On January 1, 1 583, he was anticipating Jvfng Plantfn the manuscript of the work, whose theme he described as non ahenum a ι φ ΐΓΓίΓτ , ι ί Ianuarvr ι c83, to Theodore Canter). sa TlLE TJ 7i : banc Sapientiae viam, sternere et munire aggredimur primi; . . . quae sola lat "/L£ h i
possit ducere ad Tranquillitatem et Quietem.
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ters I drink . . . that which is useful for my soul. For what use are pedantic points and observations?" 9 * All this explains the originality of Lipsius' approach to Seneca. The natural goal of the editorial work that he began in the 1570s would have been an edition of Seneca's works. Instead, he left the completion of his texts of the declamations and tragedies to others, and he postponed his edition of the philosophical works for over twenty years. He also used this time to reflect upon Stoic doctrine and only published his handbooks on Stoicism shortly before the edition of Seneca's works. 93 Thus there were four distinct periods in the development of his work on Seneca: first, the preliminary work on the declamations and tragedies; second, the De Constantia; third, the two handbooks on Stoic doctrine; and finally, the Opera Quae Exstant Omnia of 1605. Although the last of these has proved to be the most enduring monument of scholarship, it is the second that is the most significant for the development of Lipsius' thought and for his influence upon his contemporaries. The sack of Antwerp in 1576 and the burning of Leuven in 1578 brought home to Lipsius the horrors of the wars. After his move to Leiden he found a measure of security and friendship. He seems to have become more philosophical, encouraged by the comparative tolerance of the Calvinist authorities in Leiden, by his success as teacher and scholar, and by the daily pleasure of reflection in his gardens. This was the period in which he moved finally away from philology to philosophy, from schol arship as an end in itself to scholarship as a means to improving the qual ity of contemporary life. Rather than edit a text of Seneca, he was inspired to interpret Stoic doctrine for Christians by writing a treatise of his own. Calvin had shown the way with his commentary on the De dementia, and in France Montaigne was, like Lipsius, interpreting the wisdom of ancient Rome ad usum vitae.94 The De Constantia of Lipsius is quite different in focus from the Senecan treatise, whose full title is De Constantia Sapientis: nec iniuriam nec contumeliam accipere sapientem. Seneca focuses upon the sapiens, and Et hinc [sc. bis aquis] tamen haurio . . . quae ad animae meae usum. nam acumina aut dissertatiunculae quid iuventf ILE 1 .182; cf. Ch. 4, n. 27. In the context Lipsius was excus ing his avoidance of theological exactness, but his strictures applied equally to philological pedantry. " Manuductionis ad Stoicam Pbilosophiam Libri III·, Physiologiae Stoicorum Libri III See BB 3:1074. »•» See especially Lipsius' letter to Montaigne (Ep. Misc. 2 . 4 1 , April 2 0 , 1 5 8 8 ) , in which Lipsius sharply criticizes philology unless it is joined cum prudentia quadam ac recti iudicii norma . . . ad usum vitae. He found this conjunction uniquely in Montaigne; cf. Ep. Misc. 2.55, August 3 0 , 1 5 8 9 , and 2 . 9 2 , September 1 8 , 1 5 8 9 .
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his examples of constantia are heroic, Ulysses and Hercules from mythol ogy, Cato Uticensis from Roman public life. He speaks of a perfection that neither he nor ordinary people can achieve, and although he distin guishes between the proficiens and the sapiens, he lays himself open to the charge made by Calvin against the Neostoics, ferrea ista philosophia." Although Lipsius thought very highly of Seneca's treatise, his goals were rather different. First, he aimed to present Stoicism systemat ically as a philosophy that could comfort ordinary people in times of trou ble (an aim stated quite explicitly in the title, qui alloquium praecipue continent in Publicis malts). Secondly, he aimed to reconcile Stoicism with Christianity, showing especially where the latter could correct the former. The 1584 editions contained a single letter to the reader, Ad Lectorem, De Consilio Meo Scriptionis et Fine·, in the 15 8 5 edition another Ad Lec torem . . . Praescriptio precedes the original address. In the original letter, De Consilio . . . , Lipsius discusses, firstly, the significance of his effort to make the study of classical antiquity useful—"always steering my ship away from the sophistries [of the Pkilologi], I directed my voyage to the only haven of a tranquil mind"—secondly, the originality of his ap proach—"I have sought out consolations against public evils: who has done it before me?"—and finally, the personal nature of his treatise—"1 have written many other things for others, but this book chiefly for my self: the goal of those was glory, but of this, salvation." 96 In the second Praeseriptio, Lipsius answers the criticism that he has not been Christian enough by affirming his piety and his lack of expertise as a theologian, and he again contrasts his philosophy with the pedantry of other scholars. He likens himself to an architect bringing new materials to shore up the antique structure of Philosophy. 97 In 1583, the year in which he completed the De Constantia, Lipsius was thirty-six years old, too young to present himself in the persona of sage and philosopher. He therefore put his doctrine in the mouth of his respected friend, Langius (Charles de Langhe), who had died some ten « Inst. Christ. 3.8.9 (ed. P. Barth and W. Niesel [Munich: Kaiser, 1968], 4:168). In this passage Calvin seems to have first used the phrase Novi Stoia (Neostoics). «s Op. Omn. 4:513-19: navim semper avertens ab illis argutiarum salebris, velificatiOfteffi Offtrtetn direxi ad utturti tranquillae mentis portum . . . solatia malis publicis quaesivi: quis ante me? . . . alia pluria aliis mihi scripta: hunc librum praecipue mihi: ilia famae; at baec saluti. , ,,. Lipsius was clearly anxious about the criticisms of Torrentius; see above, Ch. 4. He was being disingenuous; for example, si mihi Theologum agere propositum, aberravi: si Philosophum, cur culpant? . . . Philosophum ego agam: sed Christianum ...sum enim ex Hs, quibus Pietas in corde magis, quam in ore.
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years previously, while the dramatic date was a visit to Langius in Liege during the journey to Vienna in 1571. 98 Lipsius himself is the young in terlocutor, seeking a retreat from the troubles of Alva's regime in the Netherlands. Langius shows why he cannot escape troubles by running away and instead counsels constantia, which he defines as rectum et immotum animi robur, non elati externis aut fortuitis, non depressi, "the right and immovable strength of mind that is neither elated nor depressed by external or chance events." The "true mother" of Constancy is Patience, defined as "enduring whatever happens to a man externally or internally, willingly and without complaint." 99 Reason, which is defined as "a true judgment and feeling about things human and divine," is the criterion by which constancy is measured. 100 Constancy thus is the way to tranquility, the means that will make one free from hope and fear, a king indeed, subject only to God and free from the yoke of Fortune and the emotions. 101 In these first six chapters Lipsius brilliantly introduces his basic defini tions and touches on the principal Stoic doctrines to be analyzed in the body of the dialogue. The definitions are lucid and concise, introducing the essential Stoic attributes—reason, freedom from the emotions, pa tience in adversity, and cheerful subjection to God. They are enlivened by poetic figures: the person troubled by adversity is like one sick from fever; the emotions are a disease needing medicine; they are like the vulture that devoured Prometheus; reason turns towards God as a heliotrope towards the sun; constancy, like Helen's drug Nepenthes in the Odyssey, drives out care and sorrow, and brings one safe to harbor from the tempests of adversity. Thus Langius introduces his specific discussion of the emotions (adfectus, Greek pathe) that disturb constancy (7-12). He shows first that Lipsius has false ideas about what is truly good and evil, and that of the evil things that he fears the public are worse than the private. Lipsius, he says, is prevented from facing these with constancy by three emotions, simu lation or deception; pietas, or piety towards one's country; and miseratio, or pity for another's misfortunes. In each case what appears to be a virtue * 8 See above, Ch. 3 , pp. 6 4 - 6 6 . "" Rerum quaecumque homim aliunde accidunt aut incidunt voluntariam et sine querela perpessionem (1 .4). The idea, derived from Chrysippus, was discussed by Seneca in letter 107, which Lipsius admired. 100 jj e re bus humanis divinisque . . . verum iudicium ac sensus (1 . 4 ) . The weighing meta phor (Rationis trutinam) is typical of Stoic ethics; e.g., Persius, Sat. 1 . 6 - 7 , 4 . 1 1 - 1 2 . , 5 . 1 0 0 01. IC " x.6, which is really a hymn of praise to Constancy. All text references to the De Con stantia are to chapter.
TACITUS AND SENECA
is in fact a vice: one deceives himself thinking he is grieved by the suffer ings of his country, but in truth he grieves for himself; one makes a virtue of piety towards one's country, but in truth piety should properly be shown towards God or one s parents, while love (caritas or amor patriae) is the proper feeling towards one's country. 101 Pity for another's suffer ings is the vice of a feeble spirit (vitium pusilli minutique animi), unwor thy of a Stoic. 10 ' The first book is notable for its military metaphors. Langius is a com mander who compels his opponent to deploy his troops in the field (8) and skirmishes with them before joining battle in full force. Lipsius' emo tions are impediments to constancy; Langius will skirmish with them be fore bringing into battle his main forces, which are the positive arguments that support constancy. The argumentum to chapter 13 (beginning the next section of the dialogue) declares that he will use them "to attack and take by storm the public evils"—publica mala, quattuor ea praecipuis argumentis oppugnanda a me & expugnanda—and he introduces this part of the dialogue (13—22) with an extended military metaphor: venio enim tandem a velitatione ad veram seriamque pugnam; et omissis levibus istis telis 8t lusoriis, ad decretoria arma. milites copiasque meas omnes ordine & sub signis inducam; quarum quadruplex mihi agmen. . . . quae copiae si locis suis apte pugnant & repug nant: etiamne resistere mihi ultra aut os obvertere audebit exercitus tui doloris? non audebit. vici. et cum hoc omine, signa canant. 104 For I come at last from skirmishing to real and serious battle. I leave those light and practice weapons and take up those that will decide the issue. I will lead forth my soldiers and all my army in order under their standards, divided into four battalions. . . . If they fight and re sist properly in their posts can the army of your sorrow resist me or dare to face me? It will not dare. I have won. And with this omen let the trumpets sound. This passage is more than mere ornament, for it reveals how the pattern of Roman military organization permeated Lipsius' thought. It is the 101 Lipsius differs here from Cicero (D e O f f . 1.58) who puts duty towards country ahead of duty towards parents and family. In this chapter (11) Lipsius attempts to distinguish between Christian pietas and that of the pagan Stoics. * 9 7 - 9 8 , 102, 1 2 7 - 3 0 , 1 5 2 ->ena> Jesuits, 4 1 , 79, 98, 1 1 8 - 1 9 , 1 3 0 , 1 3 2 Johann Wilhelm, Duke, 127, 1 2 9 Jones, Inigo, 204 Jupiter, Liberator, 184; Victor, 198-99 J u s t l c c U u s t i t ' a ) ' f ' - 7 , 2o8n.xx 7 Justinian, xo8n. 4 6 Juvenal> . lacomsmus, 39 Lactam,us, xo8nn. 4 4 and 46, i i 3 n . 5 x Laehus, X4-15, " - 2 2
INDEX Laevinus Torrentius. See Torrentius Lampson, Dominic, 121—22, 1 8 8 Langius, Carolus (De Langhe), 62, 64-66, 68, 82, i o 2 n . 2 4 , 1 6 1 - 6 8 , 1 9 1 Laurentian library, 1 4 4 - 4 6 Leeuw, Theodore (Dirck), 8 o n . i 0 4 , 9 0 - 9 1 Leiden, 28, 30, 64, 7 7 - 7 8 , 8 8 - 9 3 , 1 0 3 - 4 , 1 0 6 - 7 , 12.2, 12.4, 130, 1 5 3 , i54n.68, 1 6 0 , 174; University of, 2 7 n . i 7 , 30, 3 3 , 78-79, 90-92, 102, 1 0 4 ^ 3 0 , 1 1 7 - 1 8 , 122 Leo X , Pope, 1 4 4 Lepidus, M. Aemilius, 1 5 2 Lernutius, Janus (Lernout), 62, 91—92, i58n.87 Leuven (Louvain), 3, 6, 26, 3 0 - 3 1 , 33, 3 5 36, 57, 62, 7 5 , 87, 9 2 - 9 3 , n 8 , 1 2 2 - 2 4 , 1 3 0 , 1 3 4 , 1 3 7 , 1 6 0 , 1 7 4 ; University of, 4, 3 o n . 5 2 , 39, 4 1 , 43, 64, 97, 1 0 2 , 1 1 7 , 119, 122 Libertas, Roman, i n , 1 5 4 ; Stoic, 55, 1 5 2 - 5 3 X84 Liege, 34, 64, 1 0 3 , 1 1 7 , 1 1 9 , 1 6 2 , 188; Bishops of, 34, 1 0 3 , i 2 i n . i o i Lipsius, Justus, birth and childhood of, 98; and Carrio, 6 1 - 6 4 ; and Casaubon, 68, 8 5 n . n 8 , 1 3 2 ; and Clusius, 8 7 - 8 9 ; contubernium of, 15, 24, 26, 2 8 - 3 3 , 38, 4 0 - 4 2 , 4 6 - 4 8 , 5 1 , 82, 90, 97, 1 2 4 , 1 7 4 - 7 6 , 2 2 2 - 2 3 ; death of, 3, 1 2 , 3 4 35, 132—33, 1 7 0 , 2 2 3 ; departure of, from Leiden, 8 1 , 84, 100, 106, i n , 117—18, 1 5 2 ; at Dole, 59, 9 1 ; editorial methods of, 1 4 3 - 4 7 , 1 5 4 , 1 5 8 - 6 0 , 1 7 1 7 3 ; education of, 5 6 - 5 7 ^ 1 8 , 98, 1 3 5 , 157n.79; epitaph for, 44, 48, 1 3 7 - 3 8 ; and The Four Philosophers, 3 - 1 4 , 30, 32, 45, 50, 1 7 4 , 1 8 1 - 8 4 , 2 2 2 - 2 3 ; gardens of, 32, 64, 89; as Historiographicus Regius, 9 9 n . i 2 , 1 2 3 ; houses of, 3 0 - 3 1 , 87—89, 9 1 ; as interpreter of the ancient world, 52, 1 2 5 - 2 6 , 1 3 4 , 1 3 6 - 3 8 , 1 4 0 4 1 , 1 4 3 , 147—49, 1 5 6 , 159—61, 168, 173—75, 179—80, 2 1 1 ; at Jena, 29—30, 64, 9 7 - 9 8 , 1 2 7 - 3 0 ; at Leiden, 2 8 - 3 0 , 64, 77, 9 2 - 9 4 , 97, 99, 130, 159, 174; at Leuven, 3 0 - 3 3 , 57, 62, 75, 99, 1 2 2 - 2 6 , 1 2 9 - 3 0 , 1 3 4 , 174; and Muretus, 5 6 - 6 1 , 68, 1 3 5 , 1 5 7 ; pessimism of, 137—38; plagiarism by, 5 7 - 6 0 , 1 5 7 ; political views of, 1 0 7 , 1 1 2 , 1 5 2 , 1 9 3 , 2 0 7 - 1 0 ; as Professor: at Leiden, 92, 1 1 7 , 1 7 4 ; at Leuven, 1 2 3 , 1 7 4 ; religious views of, 33, 62, 64, 78—82, 8 5 n . i i 7 , 95, 97-99, 1 0 1 - 6 , 1 0 8 - 1 1 , 1 1 3 - 2 3 , 1 2 6 - 3 3 ; >n Rome, 6, 33n.62, 5 6 - 6 1 , 89, 1 5 7 ; and Peter Paul Rubens, 3 - 6 , 1 2 - 1 3 , 4 ° , 240
138—39, 1 8 1 - 8 4 , 1 8 6 - 8 7 , 1 9 3 , 222.; and Philip Rubens, 3, 1 2 , 36, 38, 4 0 - 4 1 , 1 3 8 , 1 8 5 ; and Scaliger, 32n.6o, 68, 7 7 78, 8 3 - 8 5 , 90; scholarship of: classical, 120-21, 1 3 1 , 133-38, 147-48, 182-83; Greek, 32, 80, 83, 1 3 4 ; Latin, 82, 1 3 3 34. *47, *73; a n d Self-Portrait with Friends, 1 2 - 1 3 , 1 8 3 ; Stoic doctrine of, 13, 15, 2.2-28, 52, 1 0 4 - 6 , 1 3 1 - 3 3 , 1 6 0 - 7 1 , 175-77, i79-8o, 182-83, 1 8 8 - 8 9 , 1 9 3 - 9 5 , r97, 204, 2 0 7 - 1 1 , 2 1 4 - 1 6 , 2 2 2 - 2 3 ; style of, 39, 72.-76, 8 1 , 1 5 5 , 1 6 3 - 6 4 , 1 6 7 - 6 8 ; teaching of, 3, 12., 1 4 - 1 5 , 28, 3 2 - 3 3 , 5 2 - 5 5 , 7 0 - 7 5 , 78, 82, 9 3 ^ 1 5 6 , 1 2 4 , 1 5 6 , 1 6 0 , 1 7 4 , l 8 i > 2 ° 7 i and Vaenius, 188; in Vienna, 64 s ' 8 5 ' 86n-IZZ> 9, I Z 7> 162; views of: on dogs, 5, n , 3 3 ^ 6 3 , 68; on duties of a P " n c e , 1 2 4 - 2 6 , 2 1 6 - 1 7 ; on eating and drinking, 30, 3 3 ^ 6 3 ; on elephants, 3 o n . 6 3 ; on friendship, 1 4 - 2 8 ; on gardens, 11, 66, 9 1 , 1 6 5 , 1 9 1 ; on historiogr a P h y> 3 ° n . 6 , 15 511.70; on horses, 3 3011.63; on philology, 1 3 6 - 3 7 , 139, 160; on punishment, 1 0 9 - n , 1 1 3 - 1 7 , 1 6 6 - 6 7 ; on Roman antiquities, 6; on S e n e c a > ^ 3 - 8 0 ; on suicide, 1 6 9 ; on Tacitus, 1 4 9 - 5 7 ; on travel in Italy, 68; and Wovenus, 3, 1 2 , 26, 36, 4 1 - 4 2 , 4 4 46, 4 8 - 5 1 , 9 6 - 9 7 , 100, 1 3 6 - 3 8 , 1 7 6 , 12.3. WORKS De Amphitheatro, 66 Animadversiones in Tragoedias, 1 5 8 L. Annaei Senecae Opera, 3, 5, 7 - 1 0 , 18, 27, 3 6 - 3 7 , 4 4 - 4 5 , 48, 55n.io, 82, 119, 123, 132, 1 3 8 - 4 3 , I 7 I - 7 4 , 177, 1 7 9 - 8 5 , 196, figs. 2, 3 Ad Annales Corn. Taciti Liber Commentarius, 1 5 1 , 153—55 Antiquae Lectiones, 3 3 , 62, i 5 7 n . 8 o Auctarium to Smetius, 86, 1 4 0 Autobiography, 9 6 - 1 0 0 , 1 3 5 De Constantia, 62, 64-66, 7 7 , 82, 86, 93, io2n.23, 1 0 3 - 7 , 1 1 3 , 1 2 1 , 1 3 1 , 1 3 3 - 3 4 , 1 3 6 - 3 7 , 142, 1 5 1 , 155, ^57, 159-70, 173, 178-79, 183, 185-86, 208, 2 1 4 C. Cornelii Taciti Opera, 5, 44—48, 5 7 60, 63, 82, 93, 1 3 4 , 1 3 9 - 5 7 , 1 8 1 , fig. 12 De Cruce, 1 2 2 n . n o Curae Secundae, 1 5 5 Dedications: to Seneca, 1 7 1 ; to Tacitus, 149-50, 153-55, 156^74 Dissertatiuncula, 1 2 6
INDEX Diva Virgo Hallensis, 4 0 , 44n.11 2, 11911.92,131 Diva Virgo Sichemiensis, 11911.92 De Duplici Concordia, 1 2 6 - 3 0 Electorum Libri, 60, 10211.23, x 5 8 Epistolae, 2 7 , 331111. 63 and 65, 44, 4 8 -
Longolius (Christophe de Longeuil), 7511.85 Lucan, 2311.28, 33, 340.65, 129, 16711.114, 17011.131, 178, 2 0 1 - 2 , 22011.37 Lucilius, 1 9 - 2 1 , 4 8 - 4 9 , 215
4 9 , 5 5 . 6 7 - 6 9 , 7 7 - 9 6 , 10211.23, 106, 10711.40, 1 x 3 , i z 7 n n . 126 and 127, I 3 5 _ 3 7 ) 1 5 1 . 1 5 4 - 6 0 , I 7 6 n n . 144 and 145, 183 Epistolicae QuaesUones, 6 5 , 68, 76, 83, 86, i 0 2 n . 2 3 , 103, I 2 4 n . n 6 , I 5 7 n . 8 o , 2000.85 Epistolica Institutio, 6 9 - 7 7
Luther, Martin, 1 2 9 - 3 0 Lutheranism, 99, 1 2 7 - 3 0
Mach.avelh, Niccolo, 2 i 7 n . 2 7 Macrob.us 63n.43 Madrid, 2 1 8 - 1 9 Mainz, 117
80-81
Manlius (T. Manlius Torquatus), 1 9 9 - 2 0 0 ,
ludicium super Seneca, 1 7 7 0 . 1 4 8 , 179 Ad Lectorem-. to De Constantia, 161, 1 7 3 ; to Seneca, 1 7 1 - 7 5 , 179; to Tacitus, 1 4 7 - 4 8 , 154, 1 5 6 0 . 7 3 De Magnitudine Romana, 2 0 m . 8 4 Manuductio, 22, 24, 2 7 - 2 8 , 1 1 9 0 . 9 3 , 138, 1 4 2 , 1 4 8 , i 6 o n . 9 3 , 169, I 7 5 n . i 4 2 , 1 7 6 - 7 8 , 183 De Militia Romana, 1 1 2 0 . 5 6 , 136, 142, 183, 200n.83 Monita et Exempla Politica, 126, I78n.i52, 206-9 Opera Omnia, 128, 137—43, I 5 8 n . 8 6 Oratio in Calumniam, 128 Oratio in Funere Illustrissimi Principis, 127 Orationes Jenae Habitae, 73-740.82, 75n.86, 790.101, 910.148, 127-30, 149, 151, 153, 1560.74 Physiologia Stoicorum, 5 4 0 . 9 , 99, i i 9 n - 9 3 , 138, 142, i 6 o n . 9 3 , 1 6 9 - 7 1 , 183 Poliorceticon, 142 Politica, 9 7 , 9 9 , 102, 1 0 7 - 1 3 , 121, 134, 136—37, 142, 1 4 8 , 1 5 5 - 5 7 , 164, 166, 1 6 8 , 1 7 6 0 . 1 4 6 , 181, 183, 193, 203, 205—10, 2 1 6 , 1 2 2 De Recta Pronunciatione, 56, 6 0 - 6 1 , 89 Saturnalia, 8 6 , 9 3 0 . 1 5 6 , 136 Satyra Menippea, 8 3 , 9 3 0 . 1 5 6 Thrasea, 5 4 n . 8 De Una Religione, 1 0 2 0 . 2 3 , i i 2 n - 5 9 , H3n.64 Variarum Lectionum Libri, 4 0 , 5 6 - 5 7 , 6 1 , 74, 93, 1 3 3 C. Velleius Paterculus cum Animadversionibus, 9 1 0 . 1 4 5 De Vita et Scriptis Senecae, 179, 1 8 4 Lipsius Proteus, 7 9 , 9 9 " - " , 1 2 8 - 3 1 , • , TJC TJO-(O Livy, i u n . 5 3 , 1 3 5 0 . 1 5 5 , 149 5°» 1550.71, 156, 158, 1 9 7 - 2 0 3
Mantua, 13, 189; duke of, 13 Manutms, Paulus, 7 5 n . 8 5 , 144 Marnix, Philip, 113 Mars, 140, 206 Martinius, Franciscus, 6 1 - 6 2 Matthias, Archduke, 1580.83 Maximilian, Emperor, 1491-53 Mechelen, 103 Medicean manuscripts, 1 4 4 - 4 7 Medici, Marie de, 2 0 3 - 4 , 2 1 1 - 1 3 Melanchthon, Philip, 1 2 9 - 3 0 Metissus (Paul Schede), 158 Mercury, 140, 142, 183, 190, 206 Meursius, Jan, 88, i 4 o n . 8 Mignault, Claude, I 2 n . 3 i , i 8 3 n . 6 , 2170.27 Mioerva, 50, 190, 2 0 5 - 6 , 2 0 8 - 1 0 , 2 2 1 0 . 3 9 . See also Pallas Athena Miraeus, Aubertus, 4, 4 4 n . i i 3 , 5 2 - 5 3 , 88, 96, 9 9 0 . 8 , n 8 n . 8 8 ; Vita lusti Lipsi, 3 n - z , 41-45 4411-113, 96, 100, 1 2 5 0 . 1 5 4 Modius, Fraociscus, 14411.25 Mons, 2 1 2 - 1 3 Montaigne, Michel de, 107, 1570.77, 160 Monumentum Ancyranum, 8 5 - 8 6 , 89 Mopsus, dog, 4 Moretus, Balthasar, 8 - 1 0 , 3 1 - 3 2 , 37, 39, 4 4 0 . 1 1 3 , 4 5 - 4 6 , 5011.130, 77, 9 4 - 9 5 , 139, 147, 1 8 1 - 8 5 , 187, 222 Moretus, Jan (the elder), 3 1 0 . 5 4 , 9 4 - 9 5 , 1 1 3 , 147 Moretus, Jan (the younger), 127 moribus antiquis, 98n.8, 1 3 4 - 3 5 , 141, 182 Muretus (M.-A. Muret), 5 5 - 6 1 , 68, 7 3 0 . 8 2 , 75, 77, 8 2 - 8 3 , 89, 113, 135, r 4 4 , i 4 9 " - 4 7 , 157, 17*5 opinions of, about Lipsius, 32n.6o, 5 7 - 6 1 ; Com^ntarii in Taciturn ; 6 ; Epistulae, 3 2 0 . 6 0 , 57; Variae Lectiones, 5 7 - 5 9 / . • , ' „. Mythology, classical, 195, 203, 2 1 6 - 2 1
Fax Historica,
241
INDEX Neostoicism, 50, 1 3 3 1 1 . 1 4 7 , 1 6 1 , 1 7 0 , 1 8 1 . See also Lipsius, Stoic doctrine of Nero, 9, 5 4 , 1 5 1 - 5 2 , 1 5 8 , 1 7 8 , 1 8 4 , 2 1 4 Netherlands, Dutch, 1 1 8 , 1 6 8 , 2 2 3 Netherlands, Spanish, 3 4 - 3 5 , 3 8 , 4 1 , 4 3 , 97-100, 1x9, 123, 125-26, 134, 1 5 2 53, 1 5 7 , 1 5 9 , 1 6 2 , 184, 188, 194, 2 1 2 Niclaes, Hendrik, 1 3 0 - 3 1 Nordlingen, 1 4 1 , 1 9 7 Numa, 1 2 9 Nunez, Fernando. See Pincianus Odysseus. See Ulysses Odyssey, 1 6 2 Olivares' Count Duke of, 2 i 3 n . 8 Olivier, Cardinal Seraphin, 3 7 ^ 8 4 Orange, William of. See William of Orange Oranus, Franciscus (D'Heure), 3 3 - 3 5 Orsini, Fulvio (Ursinus), 5 - 6 , 9, 1 4 4 . ; and northern humanists, 6n.9; lllustrium Imagines of, 5n.8, 6, 9, i 8 r Ortelius, Abraham, 99n.11 otium, Stoic, 2 1 1 - 1 5 Oudaert, Nicolas, 4 4 n . n 1 Oudejans. See Audeiantus Ovid, 9, 1 5 8 , 2 x 9 - 2 2 ; Metamorphoses of, 9 219-21 „ „ Pacuvius, 7 8 n . 9 3 Pallas Athena, 7, 50, 2 1 9 . See also Minerva Pallavicini, Niccolo, 1 9 6 Panaetius, 1 4 - 1 5 , M , 54 Pandects, 1 4 5 Pansa, 1 6 Parma, Duke o f (Alessandro Farnese), 1 1 8 , 1 8 8 , 2 i o n . i 2 9 , fig. 4 o pathe, freedom from, 26, 1 6 2 - 6 3 , 1 7 s , i 9 o n . 4 2 , 194, 2 1 4 - 1 5 Paul V, Pope, 3, 7, 3 7 , 1 3 2 , x 4 3 , 1 7 1 Paulina, 1 8 4 , 1 8 6 , fig. 24 Peace 206 Peires'c, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de, 7 n . X 3 , 204nn. 98 and 1 0 0 , 2 1 1 , 2 1 3 ^ 9 Perez, Adrienne, 34 Perez, J . - B . (Perezius), 3 3 - 3 4 , 37 Perez, Martin, 34 Perrenot, Antoine. See Granvelle Persius, 1 7 - 1 9 , 2 1 , 3 3 , 1 0 1 , x 6 z n . i o o , 177 Petrarch, 1 0 0 Philip II, King, 4 3 , 99, 1 2 5 Philip IV, King, 4 3 , 1 4 0 , 2 1 2 , 2 1 8 - 1 9 Philostratus, 2 1 6 phronesis, 1 4 8 Pichena, Curtius, 1 4 5 - 4 7 Pico, x 6 4 n . i 0 7
pietas, 4 8 , 1 6 2 - 6 3 , 2 0 0 - 2 0 1 Pincianus (F. Nunez), 172. Pindar, 8 3 - 8 4 Plantin, Christopher, 3 l n - 5 4 , 59, 6 3 , 88, 9 i _ 9 5 , i ° 3 - 6 , X 3 ° - 3 i > *47> *54> 1 5 9 ^ 8 9 , 1 9 1 , 2 2 3 ; Biblia Polyglotta, 9 3 n . i 4 7 ; Le Bonbeur de Ce Monde, vii, 93, 1 9 1 , 223 Plantin Press, 3 i n . 5 4 , 4 5 , 9 5 , I 5 4 n . 6 8 Plato, 53n.5, 5 5 , 1 4 8 , 1 6 6 n . n o Plautus, 3 3 , 5 9 ^ 3 0 , 7 4 - 7 6 , 8 o n . x o 7 , i 3 5 n . i 5 6 , 1 4 4 ; style of, 7 4 - 7 6 Winy (the younger), 16, 7 4 , 1 2 6 , 16-711.114, i 8 8 n - 3 3 ; Epistulae, 16; Panegyricus, 1 2 6 Plutarch, 1 9 , 7 1 . 148, 1 6 7 1 1 . 1 1 4 , 191 Pole, Cardinal Reginald, 7 5 n - 8 5 , i 2 i n . x o i Poliziano, 74 Pollio Everard ' ( V a n d e PoI1 >> z S ~ z c > Polybius, 1 i 2 n - 5 6 Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi, 1 4 0 - 4 1 , 195, * o 4 , 2 0 8 - 1 0 , 2 1 6 , 2 1 9 ; Arches of: the Mint, 208, 2 1 0 ; St. Michael, 1 9 7 , 2 0 8 , 21 o, figs. 2 7 and 3 9; Portico of the Emperors of, 2 0 9 - 1 0 ; Temple of Janus of, 2o6nn. 1 0 8 and 1 0 9 , 2 o 8 n . i i 8 Pontius Allifanus, 1 6 Poussin, Nicolas, 86, 2 0 0 Prodicus, x8n. 1 4 . See also Hercules, choice c ot
proegmena, 175 proficient, Stoic, 24, 1 6 9 , 1 7 9 , 192 Propertius, 3 3 , 80.1.107, 9z, 1 4 4 Providence {providentia), 1 6 4 - 6 5 , 1 7 0 , 1 7 S ~77 prudentm, 1 0 7 , x 3 7 , X 4 2 - 4 3 , 1 4 7 - 4 8 , n 155-57, 175-76, 1 8 1 , 203-X0 p ™ynen Cornelius, i ° n . 2 7 , xo6 159 3 Pypelinckx, Maria, 3 7 , 4 7 ; death of, 38 Pythagoras, , 8 , 25 Quevedo, Francisco de, i 6 9 n . i 1 8 Quintilian, 5 1 ^ 1 3 1 , 7 i n . 7 i , 1 7 7 , i 8 2 n . 3 Raphelengius, Franciscus, 56, 7 0 , 9 4 - 9 5 , 1 0 3 ^ 2 7 , 107, 147, 158 ratio, Stoic, 5 1 , 65, 1 6 2 , 1 7 0 , 1 7 3 , 1 7 5 , 207—8 Ratio, Alexander, 1 5 9 ratio status, 1 4 8 reason, Stoic. See ratio, Stoic Regulus (M. Atilius), 2 0 2 Religion, personified, 2 0 5 , 2 i o n , i 2 9 Requesens, Don Luis de, 99n.xo Res Gestae. See Monumentum Ancyranum Rhenanus, Beatus, 1 4 4 ^ 2 6 Richardot, Antonius, 3 3 - 3 4 242
INDEX Richardot, Jean (Jan), 3 4 - 3 j , 3 7 , 39, 47 Richardot, Peter, 35 Richardot, WiUem (Gulielmus), 3 3 - 3 5 , 3 7 Richlieu, Cardinal Armand, 204, 2 1 3 R o c k o x , Nicolaas, 3 1 1 1 . 5 2 , 34, 2 i 8 n . 3 o Rolhard, Sebastian, I 3 7 n . i 6 2 Roman ideals, 1 2 5 , 1 3 4 - 3 5 R o m a , personified, 1 8 2 Rome, 3 7 , 1 5 7 ; monuments of: Forum, 1 3 9 ; Palatine Hill, 4 ; Temple of Mars Ultor, i 4 o n - 9 ; triumphal arches, 1 3 9 Romulus and Remus, 1 4 1 Rubellius Plautus, 5 4 Rubens, Clara (daughter of Philip), 4 7 Rubens, Clara Serena (daughter of Peter Paul), 1 9 3 Rubens house (Rubenshuis), 7 , 1 4 1 , 1 8 9 93, 2 2 2 Rubens, Jan, 36—37, 4 1 , 4 7 Rubens, Nicolaas, 1 9 1 , 1 9 6 Rubens, Peter Paul, 3 - X 3 , 28, 3 7 - 3 8 , 4 o , 4 3 , 5 ° , 5 2 , 82, 95, 1 0 0 , 1 1 8 , 1 2 9 , 1 3 3 , 139—43, 168—69, 1 7 9 - 8 0 , 1 8 1 - 2 2 3 ; in Antwerp, 3 7 , 1 2 9 , 1 4 1 , 1 8 5 , 189—93, 2 0 4 , 2 2 3 ; Catholicism of, 82, 2 2 2 ; diplomatic activity of, 4 3 , 1 9 5 , 2 1 1 — 1 3 ; education of, 37—38, 1 8 7 ; friendships of: with Balthasar Moretus, 3 7 , 4 6 , 95, 1 3 9 , 1 8 1 , 1 8 7 , 222—23; with Woverius, 1 2 , 4 2 , 46, 50, 2 1 1 , 2 2 2 - 2 3 , fig. 9; in Italy, 1 9 6 ; knowledge of languages of, 1 8 7 0 . 2 9 ; in Mantua, 1 3 ; marriages of: to Helena Fourment, 1 9 4 , 2 1 x, 2 2 0 , 2 2 3 ; to Isabella Brant, 38, 1 8 9 , 1 9 1 , 1 9 3 - 9 4 ; retirement of, from public service, 2 1 1 - 1 5 , 2 2 3 ; in Rome, 6, 9, 3 7 , 39, x 4 9 n . 4 9 , 1 8 7 ; at Steen, 2 2 0 ^ 3 8 ; Stoicism of, 4 , 1 2 - 1 3 , 28, 4 5 , 1 6 8 , 1 8 1 2 1 8 , 2 2 2 - 2 3 ; use of allegory by, 28, 139-43, 182-83, 188-90, 203-10, 2 1 5 - 1 8 , 2 2 1 - 2 2 ; use of classical mythology by, 1 9 3 , 2 0 5 , 2 1 6 - 2 2 ; in Verona, 1 2 , 4 2 .
The Benefits of Good Government, 1 0 4 , 1 0 6 , fig. 3 4 Hercules Overcoming Discord, 205, fig37 Minerva (Wisdom) Suppressing Sedition, 205, 2 0 8 - 9 , fig- 36 The Royal Bounty, z o 4 , 208 Temperance Overcoming Intemperance, 2 0 4 The Unification of England and Scotland, 20 4 —7, fig. 35 Conslantme Cycle, 1 9 5 The Continence of Scipio, 2o8n. 117 The Crowning of the Hero, 1 9 6 - 9 7 The Death of Seneca, 185-86, fig. 23 Decius Mus Cycle, i 4 2 n . i 6 , 1 9 5 - 2 0 3 . CARTOONS FOR The Consecration of Decius Mus, 1 9 9 - 2 0 0 , fig. 29 The Death of Decius Mus, 1 9 9 - 2 0 0 , fig. 30 Decius Relating His Dream, 1 9 9 , fig. 28 The Dismissal of the Lictors, 199 The Obsequies of Decius Mus, zoo, 2 1 8 , fig. 3 1 Victoria and Virtus, I 4 2 n . i 6 , 200 DESIGNS: Heroum Epistolae, 2 0 5 ; Legatus, 2 0 9 ^ 1 2 5 ; I. Lip si Opera Omnia, 95, i 3 7 - 4 3 , 1 6 5 , 1 8 1 , 1 9 0 , 1 9 3 , 1 9 5 , 2 0 3 , 208, 2 1 6 , fig. 1 7 ; Opticorum Libri, 1 4 0 ; Philip Rubens, Electorum, 39; Pompa Intrnitus Ferdinandi, 1 4 0 - 4 1 , 1 9 5 , 1 9 7 , 204, 2 0 8 - 1 0 , 2 1 6 , figs. 27 and 39; Portrait of Philip Rubens, 39, fig. 11; Plantin Press device, 4 5 - 4 6 , fig. 1 2 ; Romanae et Graecae Antiquitatis Monumenta, 2 o 6 n . i o 8 The Drunken Hercules, 1 9 7 Dying Seneca (drawing), 7 - 9 , x8x, 1 8 3 85, 1 9 3 , fig. 6 The Four Philosophers, 3 - 1 3 , 1 4 , *9, 30, 3 * , 4 0 - 4 1 , 43, 45-4 174, l 8 l _
WORKS
t
Achilles Cycle, 1 9 5 , 2 1 6 - 1 8 , 2 2 1 . CARTOONS FOR Achilles Instructed by Chiron, 2 1 6 1 7 fi 4 1 Bnse'is Returned to Achilles, 2 1 8 The Death of Achilles, 2 1 7 - 1 8 , fig. 43 The Wrath of Achilles, 2 1 7 Ceiling of the Banqueting House, 1 9 5 , 2 0 4 - 9 , figs- 3 2 - 3 8 , 2 2 2 . PANELS
OF
The Apotheosis
g
5 )
I 9
3_
9 4 J
2 2 2 , frontispiece
The Garden of Love, 2 1 6 Henri IV Cycle, 2x311.8, 219 The Hero Crowned by Victory, 197, fig. ^ The Horrors of War, 2 Z i n . 4 o The Last Judgement, 17M.133 Marie de Medici Cycle, 1 9 5 , 2 0 3 - 5 , zo 9> Lucius Scaevola before Porsenna, 2030.97 PORTRALT O F
J"
LL
PSIUS'
1 8 1 - 8 3
Portrait of Seneca (bust), 8 - 1 0 , 1 8 1 - 8 3 ,
of James I, 2 0 4 - 6 ,
2 z i , figs. 3 3 and 38
7 243
INDEX Rubens, Peter Paul (cont.) The St. Ildefonso Altarpiece, 2.15 Samson and Delilah, z i 8 n - 3 0 Self-portrait with Friends, 12—13, 34, 37, 40, 183, fig. 9 Torre delta Parada Decorations, 218— 22; Panels for: Democritus and Heraclitus, 221—22; Sketch for: Apotheosis of Hercules, 221, fig. 44 The Triumph of the Eucharist, 195 The Walk in the Garden, 191 Rubens, Philip, 3, 7, 1 1 - 1 3 , 26, 3 3 - 4 1 , 43, 4 6 - 4 7 , 51, 95, 97, 100, 122, 129, 133, 139, 143, 171, 185, 187, 189, 191, fig. 11; affection for: Lipsius, 40; Peter Paul Rubens, 38, 40; Woverius, 4 6 - 4 7 ; in Antwerp, 38, 41; and contubernium, 26, 33, 37, 40, 46—48, 51; death of, 3, 11, 13, 41, 4 6 - 4 7 , 193; epitaph for, 4 6 47; in Leuven, 26, 33—35; in Rome, 6, 37, 39, 41; scholarship of, 3, 3 5 - 3 6 , 3 8 - 4 0 ; and Stoicism, 1 2 - 1 3 , 36n.76; style of, 39—40; in Verona, 12, 42.
1470.37; Autobiography of, 100; opinions of, about Lipsius, 3 i n . 6 0 , 400.97, 60, 720.77, 76—78, 80, 83, 980.9, 112, 129, 143, i 5 8 n . 8 6 , 1720.136 Scarberger, Willem (Gulielmus Scarberg), 33-34 Schede, Paulus. See Melissus Schlusselberger, Conrad, 130—31 Schott, Andreas, 62, 66n.5o, 85, 1440.25, 154, 158 Scipio Aemilianus, 14, 54, 207 selectio, 33n.6i, 75, 1 7 4 - 7 5 Seneca, L. Annaeus, 4 - 1 2 , 1 9 - 2 6 , 33, 4 8 51, 5 4 - 5 5 , 7 1 - 7 4 , 77, 79, i ° 4 - 5 , " 9 , 139—43, 148, 1 5 1 - 5 2 , 155, 1 5 7 - 6 1 , 169, 1 7 1 - 8 7 , 1 9 0 ^ 4 2 , 1 9 1 - 9 4 , 2 1 3 15; charges against, 1 7 8 - 7 9 ; death of, 179, 1 8 3 - 8 6 ; doctrines of, 15, 19—26, 45, 51, i 6 9 n . n 8 , 1 7 5 - 8 0 , 182, 184, 190—94, 2 1 2 - 1 5 ; representations of, 5 11, 181—85, 4, 7, 23, 24; style of, 72, 74, 7 7 - 7 8 , 173, 1 7 6 - 7 7 ; text of, 158, 160, 171—73.
WORKS
WORKS
Electorum Libri Duo, 11, 38—40 Epicedion, 40^96 Latin poems, 11, 3 4 - 3 6 , 3 8 - 4 0 S. Asterii Homiliae, 3 4 ^ 7 0 , 3 9 - 4 0 , 4 3 n . i o 8 , 470.121, 500.127 Rubens, Philip (the younger), 47, 1 8 7 ^ 2 7 , i 9 i n n - 4 3 aod 47, 193 Rudolph I, Emperor, 210 Rudolph II, Emperor, 88
De Beneficiis, i64n.io6 De Brevitate Vitae, 54n-9 De dementia, 1 2 4 - 2 5 Consolatio ad Helviam, n 6 n . 7 5 Consolatio ad Marciam, 1700.31 De Constantia, 1 4 m . 1 2 , 1 6 0 - 6 1 , 173, 1970.62 Dialogi, 1720.135 Epistulae Morales, 1 9 - 2 8 , 4 8 - 4 9 , 55n.io, 1370.161, i66nn. 110 and 112, 1 7 3 - 7 4 , 1 9 1 - 9 3 , 2 0 2 - 3 , 115 Hercules Oetaeus, 2210.42 De Ira, n 6 n . 7 5 De Otio, 2 1 3 ^ 1 2 , 2 1 4 ^ 1 3 De Providentia, i 6 4 n . i o 6 Quaestiones Naturales, 1 7 0 ^ 1 3 1 Tragoediae, 1 5 8 - 6 0 De Tranquillitate, 1 9 0 ^ 4 2 , 214, 2 2 1 22 De Vita Beata, 1640.105, 173, 1 7 8 - 7 9 , 191 Seneca, M. Annaeus, 158 Seville, 97, 1 0 0 - 1 0 1 Sidney, Philip, 56n.i7 Siegen, 37 Simonides, 9 Sirleto, Cardinal, 330.62, 144 Socrates, 18, 54n.8, 152, 184 Solon, 121, 165 Sophocles, n 6 n - 7 3 Spa, 117, 121 Spain, 97, 101, 194, 2 1 1 - 1 2 , 223
Sagittarius, Thomas, 790.101, 99n.11, 128—30 Sadoleto, Iacopo, 750.85 St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, 1 2 8 - 2 9 Sallust, 72, 74, 1 4 9 - 5 0 , 156 Salamanca, 119 Salmasius, Claudius (Saumaise), 80 Sambucus, Johannes, 1 4 9 ^ 5 3 Sanchez, Francisco. See Brocense, El Sandoval, Bernard, 102 Sandys, George, 9, 22in-39; Ovid's Metamorphosis, 9 - 1 0 , 22inn. 39 and 42 sapiens, Stoic, 22, 24, 26, 28, 65, 160, 169, 1 7 5 - 7 6 , 1 7 8 - 7 9 , 1 9 2 - 9 3 , 204, 211,214 sapientia, 26, 28, 54, 65, 137, 157, 159, 1 7 5 - 7 6 , 1 8 3 - 8 4 , 205, 2 0 7 - 1 0 , 2210.39. See also Wisdom Saravia, Adriaan, 1 3 0 - 3 1 Scaliger, Josephus Justus, 2911.45, 68, 7 6 78, 8 0 - 8 5 , 8 9 - 9 0 , 92, 930.156, i o 2 n . 2 3 , 1 1 7 - 2 0 , 123, 128, 132, 134, 244
INDEX Statius, 9411.161, 2 1 6 , 22011.37 Statius Annaeus, 1 8 5 - 8 6 Stephanus (Henri Estienne), 6 4 0 . 4 3 , 93 Stoa, Middle, 14 Stoic doctrines: on adversity, 1 6 6 ; on disease, 116, 1 9 2 ; on ekpyrosis, 1 7 0 - 7 1 ; on exempla, 27, 197, 2 0 1 - 3 ; on freedom from the emotions, 9 8 , 1 6 2 - 6 3 ,
tolae, 2 0 5 ; to Inscriptionum Antiquarum Liber, 140, fig. 14; to Legatus, 2 0 9 ^ 1 2 5 ; to I. Lipsi Opera Omnia (1637), 1 3 9 - 4 3 , 164, 181, 183, 190, 193, 203, 208, 216, fig. 17; to Opticorum Libri, 140; to Ovid's Metamorphosis, 9; to Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi, 1 4 0 - 4 1 , 216, fig. 14; to Romanae et
r 7 5 , Z I 5, on friendship, 1 4 - 2 8 , 52, 2 1 4 ; on kataklysmos, 1 7 0 - 7 1 ; on living according to Nature, 2 1 5 , 2 2 2 ; on otium, 211—15; on pity, 162—63, lJ( 4 2 Vertranius Maurus, 1 4 5 - 4 7 Vertumnus, 64 Victoria, 1 4 2 1 . 1 6 , 2 0 0 2 0 6 Vigenere, Blaise de, 2 1 6 - 1 7 Virtue (virtus), Stoic, 1 5 - 1 6 , 18, 26, 28,
Tacitus, 9, 4 4 - 4 5 , 54, 5 6 - 6 1 , 7 3 - 7 4 , 77, 119, 130, 1 3 8 - 3 9 , I 4 I - 5 7 , 159, 167, 1 7 9 - 8 1 , 1 8 4 - 8 6 ; commentaries on, 1 4 4 - 4 7 ; manuscripts of, 1 4 4 - 4 7 ; prudentia of, 1 4 2 , 147—48, 150, 153, 155— text 57; style of, 7 2 - 7 4 ; M3-47 W o R K S
Agricola, 1 5 2 , 1 6 7 0 . 1 1 5 Annates, 1 4 4 - 4 5 , 1 5 1 , 1 5 3 , 179, 1 0 0 Dialogus, 124 Historiae, 145, 1 5 4 , 189, 1 9 3 1 . 5 1 temperance, 2 0 4 , 2 0 6 - 8 Terence, 7 4 Tertullu's, Cornutus, 16 Testimonia, from Lipsius, 2 8 - 2 9 , 3 3 ^ 6 3 , 3 7 n . 8 4 , 3 9 n . 8 8 , 4 1 - 4 2 , 9 0 , 971-5 Theodoric, n o Theophrastus, 2 2 0 Thrasea, Paetus, 54, 1 5 ^ 5 3 Thrasyllus, 16 Thucydides, 1 i 6 n . 7 3 , 151 Tiberius, 16, 1 3 0 , 1 3 9 , 1 4 9 1 - 5 ° Timanthes, 1 8 2 - 8 3 Title pages: to L. Annaei Senecae Opera ( 1 6 0 5 ) , 7, xo, 1 4 1 1 - 1 2 , 181, fig- 2; to L. Annaei Senecae Opera (1615), 7, 1°, i 4 i n 12 fig. 3; to C. Cornelii Taciti Opera, 4 5 - 4 6 , fig. 12; to Heroum Epis245
INDEX Virtue (cont.) 5 1 , 1 3 5 , 1 3 7 , 14Z—43, i j z n . 6 4 , 1 7 3 , 1 7 9 , i 8 z , 1 8 4 , 1 8 6 , 1 9 7 , Z 0 0 - Z 0 3 , Z05, 107, zio, Z14, Z17
1 5 8 , 1 7 6 , 1 8 7 , 1 9 2 , Z I I - I Z , Z 2 3 ; career of, 4z—44, 50, i z z ; and contubernium, 33, 4 1 - 4 Z , 47, 5 0 - 5 1 , 176, 187, z z z Z3; friendships with: Lipsius, xz, z 6 , 3 6 , 4 1 - 4 Z , 4 4 - 4 6 , 48—51, 9 7 ; Peter Paul Rubens, i z , 4Z, 46, 5 0 ; Philip Rubens, xz, 4Z, 46—47, 4 9 ; scholarship of, 3, 4 3 , 4 4 , 1 3 3 ; De Consolatione, 4 4 , 4 6 ; Eucharisticum, 4 4 , 49, 1 3 6 ; Lipsiani Donari Assertio, 3, 4 4 , I 3 z n . i 3 6 ; Panegyricum, 5 0 ; Vita Simonis, 50 Woverius, Johannes (of Hamburg), 4 i n . i o o
Wargnier, Willem, 4 4 n . n 1 Wijngaerd, Lucas, 87 William o f Orange (the Silent), 36—37, 9 2 , 106—7, 1 1 i 3 3 n . i 5 o , 1 5 9 Wiltius, Henricus, 28—29 Wisdom, Stoic, 1 5 , z8, 175—76, 1 8 2 , 1 8 4 , Z 0 5 , Z09—10, Z 1 7 . See also sapientia Wouters, Cornelius, 56—57 Woverius, Johannes (Jan van de Wouwer), 3—5, 11—iz, z 6 , 3 3 , 3 6 , 3 8 , 4 1 - 5 1 , 67, 9 o n . i 4 4 , 94, 9 6 - 9 8 , 1 0 0 , 1 3 6 - 3 8 , 1 4 3 ,
Zeno, 7, zo, 53n-5 Zsamboky, Janos. See Sambucus Zurich, 1 2 6 - 2 8
246
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