Justus Lipsius

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Justus Lipsius

Justus Lipsius (Joest Lips or Joost Lips; 18 October 1547 – 23 March 1606)
[1] was a Flemish philologist, philosopher and humanist. Lipsius wrote a series
of works designed to revive ancient Stoicism in a form that would be
compatible with Christianity. The most famous of these is De Constantia(On
Constancy). His form of Stoicism influenced a number of contemporary
thinkers, creating the intellectual movement of Neostoicism. He taught at the
universities in Jena, Leiden and Leuven.
 Contents

[hide]

• 1 Early life

• 2 Academic career

• 3 Later life and legacy

• 4 Political thinking

• 5 Works

• 6 Notes

• 7 References

• 8 External links

Early life[edit]

The Four Philosophers (c. 1615. Oil on panel; 167 x 143 cm, Pitti Palace,Florence). One of Lipsius's
students was Philip Rubens, the brother of the painter Peter Paul Rubens. In his friendship portrait of
about 1615, the painter depicted himself, his brother, Lipsius and Jan van den Wouwer, another pupil of
Lipsius, (left to right) along with Lipsius' dog Mopsulus. A bust of Seneca behind the philosopher
references his work, while the ruins ofRome's Palatine Hill in the background further commemorate the
classical influences. Rubens painted a similar friendship portrait while in Mantuaaround 1602 (now in
the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne) that also includes Lipsius.

Lipsius was born in Overijse, Brabant (in modern Belgium). His parents sent

him early to the Jesuit college in Cologne, but they feared that he might

become a member of the Society of Jesus, so when he was sixteen they

removed him to the University of Louvain in Leuven.

The publication of his Variarum Lectionum Libri Tres (1567), which he

dedicated to Cardinal Granvelle, earned him an appointment as a Latin

secretary, and a visit to Rome in the retinue of the cardinal. Here Lipsius

remained for two years, devoting his spare time to the study of the Latin

classics, collecting inscriptions and examining manuscripts in the Vatican.

After he returned from Rome, he published a second volume of miscellaneous

criticism (Antiquarum Lectionum Libri Quinque, 1575); compared with

the Variae Lectiones of eight years earlier, it shows that he had advanced from

the notion of purely conjectural emendation to that of emending by collation.

Academic career[edit]

In 1570 he travelled through Burgundy, Germany, Austria, and Bohemia,

where the University of Jena engaged him as a teacher for more than a year, a

position which implied conformity to the Lutheran Church. On his way back

to Leuven, he stopped some time in Cologne, where he must have comported

himself as a Catholic.

He then returned to Leuven, but the Eighty Years' War soon drove him to take
refuge via Antwerp to the Northern Netherlands, where, in 1579, the newly
founded University of Leiden appointed him professor of history. He held the
position of rector of the university for four terms and was a driving force
behind the growth and innovation in the early years.[2]

The eleven years that Lipsius spent in Leiden were the period of his greatest

productivity. It was during this time that he prepared his Seneca, and

perfected, in successive editions, his Tacitus, and brought out a series of other

works. Some were pure scholarship, some were collections from classical

authors, and others were of general interest. One of this latter class was a

treatise on politics (Politicorum Libri Sex, 1589), in which he showed that,

though a public teacher in a country which professed toleration, he had not

departed from the state maxims of Alva and Philip II. He wrote that a

government should recognize only one religion, and extirpate dissent by fire

and sword. This avowal exposed him to attacks, but the prudent authorities of

Leiden saved him, by prevailing upon him to publish a declaration that his

expression Ure, seca ("Burn and carve") was a metaphor for a vigorous

treatment.

Later life and legacy[edit]

The Justus Lipsius Commemorative Coin

In the spring of 1590, leaving Leiden under pretext of taking the waters in Spa,
he went to Mainz, where he reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church. This
event deeply interested the Catholic world, and invitations from the courts and
universities of Italy, Austria and Spain poured in on Lipsius. But he preferred to
remain in his own country, and he finally settled in Leuven, as professor of
Latin in the Collegium Buslidianum.[1]
He was not expected to teach, and appointments as privy
councillor and historiographer royal to King Philip II of Spain eked out his
trifling stipend. He continued to publish dissertations as before, the chief being
his De militia romana (1595) and his Lovanium (1605), intended as an
introduction to a general history of Brabant.[1]

Lipsius died in Leuven.

The former headquarters of the European Council (2004-2017) and Council of

the European Union (1995-2017), the Justus Lipsius building, bears his name,

having been constructed over the site of Rue Juste Lipse which linked Rue

Belliard to Rue de la Loi in the European Quarter of Brussels. The building is

still used by both institutions for offices and low-level meetings, hence Justus

Lipsius features heavily in the EU-lexicon.

In 2006, he was selected to appear on the 10 euro Justus Lipsius Silver

commemorative Coin, minted by Belgium. The reverse side of the coin shows

his portrait together with the years of his life (1547–1606).

Political thinking[edit]

The German historian Gerhard Oestreich has argued that Lipsius's ideas about
the ideal citizen, a man who acts according to reason, is answerable to himself,
is in control of his emotions, and is ready to fight, had found wide acceptance
in the turbulent times of the Reformation. The Lipsian view, translated to
politics, would have been at the basis of rationalisation of the state and its
apparatus of government, autocratic rule by the prince, discipline dispensed to
subjects, and strong military defence. The principles would have laid the
foundation for military revolution that transformed first European warfare and
then the internal organisation of the European states themselves.[3] These
conclusions of Oestreich have met with some scepticism in the academic
community, and the notion that Lipsius' political ideas had a decisive influence
on political developments and military reforms in the Dutch Republic has been
challenged.[4]
 Works[edit]

Illustration from De militia romana libri quinque, 1596

• Variarum Lectionum Libri Tres (1567)

• De Constantia Libri Duo, Qui alloquium praecipue continent in Publicis

malis (Antwerp: Plantijn, 1584)

• On Constancy / De Constantia, edited by John Sellars and translated by John

Stradling (1594), (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2006).

• Politicorum sive Civilis Doctrinae Libri Sex (Leiden: Plantijn-Raphelengius,

1589) Online version

• De militia romana (Antwerp: Plantijn-Moretus 1595)

• Admiranda, sive de Magnitudine Romana Libri Quattuor (Antwerp: Plantijn-

Moretus, 1598) Online version

• De bibliothecis syntagma (Antwerp: Plantijn-Moretus, 1602)

• Manuductionis ad Stoicam Philosophiam Libri Tres, L. Annaeo Senecae, aliisque

scriptoribus illustrandis (Antwerp: Plaintijn-Moretus, 1604)

• Annaei Senecae Philosophi Opera, Quae Exstant Omnia, A Iusto Lipsio

emendata, et Scholiis illustrata (Antwerp: Plantijn-Moretus, 1605)

Notes[edit]

1. ^ Jump up to:a b c "Lipsius, Justus". Encyclopædia Britannica. 16 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 743.
2. Jump up^ Willem Otterspeer: Het bolwerk van de vrijheid : de Leidse universiteit, 1575–1672.

Amsterdam : Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, 2000. ISBN 90-351-2240-2

3. Jump up^ Oestreich, G: Neostoicism & the Early Modern State, Cambridge University press, 1982

4. Jump up^ Chapter 1. Justus Lipsius and the Post-Machiavellian Prince , in: Christopher

Brooke, Philosophic Pride: Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to Rousseau, Princeton University

Press, 2012, p. 12-36

References[edit]

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public

domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lipsius, Justus". Encyclopædia

Britannica. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 743.

External links[edit]

• Media related to Justus Lipsius at Wikimedia Commons

• Papy, Jan. "Justus Lipsius" . In Zalta, Edward N. Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy.

• Sellars, John. "Justus Lipsius" . Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

• Justus Lipsius His First Book of Constancy

• Justus Lipsius His Second Book of Constancy

• "Justus Lipsius". Catholic Encyclopedia. 1913.

• WorldCat Identities
• VIAF: 51706656
• LCCN: n50051738
• ISNI: 0000 0001 2132 706X
• GND: 11857342X
• SELIBR: 206310
• SUDOC: 028557883
• BNF: cb12036983h (data)
• BPN: 23743249
Authority control
• ULAN: 500321549
• MGP: 119254
• NLA: 35307948
• NDL: 00621004
• NKC: jn20000603776
• ICCU: IT\ICCU\CFIV\068975
• BNE: XX1121813
• RKD: 431951
• SNAC: w67p96mv
 Categories:

• 1547 births

• 1606 deaths

• 16th-century Latin-language writers

• 17th-century Latin-language writers

• Christian humanists

• Roman Catholic philosophers

• Flemish classical scholars

• Flemish Renaissance humanists

• University of Leuven alumni

• University of Leuven faculty

• Classical scholars of Leiden University

• 17th-century Dutch people

• Neo-Stoics

• People from Overijse

• Philosophy and thought in the Dutch Republic

• Religion in the Dutch Republic

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