Chapter Eight. Justus Lipsius Between War And Peace. His Public Letter On Spanish Foreign Policy And The Respective Merits Of War, Peace Or Truce (1595)

Abstract

Position of Justus Lipsius as professor of History and Latin at Louvain University was unassailable. He was basking in his well-deserved fame as a philologist, philosopher, and historian. Although his letter was sent as a private missive to Francisco de San Victores de la Portilla, a Spanish nobleman and captain in the service of the Brussels government who had married into an Antwerp family, its contents were very soon divulged and even translated from the original Latin into French. The correspondence between Justus Lipsius and Francisco de San Victores about Spanish foreign policy must be considered against this background of crisis in Spain and trouble in Brussels. Worries of Justus Lipsius are expressed in a few of his many letters from the year 1595 about his possible move to Bologna, where the university had offered him the most important chair in the Faculty of Arts, the professorship of Literature. Keywords: Brussels government; Francisco de San Victores de la Portilla; Justus Lipsius; Spanish foreign policy; war