The Influence of Justus Lipsius on Juan de Vera y Figueroa's "Embaxador" (1620)

Abstract

Almost thirty years ago M. Marcel Bataillon drew attention to the importance for Spain (as indeed for the rest of Europe) of the Neostoic movement whose great champion and leader was the Flemish humanist Justus Lipsius: ‘El neoestoicismo senalaba un renacimiento del humanismo filosofico. Por su afan de conciliar su fe moral con el cristianismo, fue un nuevo genero de Philosophia Christi. Justo Lipsio fue el nuevo maestro de este genero, a partir del momento en que, vuelto al redil del catolicismo, vino a ensenar en Lovaina.’ During Lipsius's own lifetime, of course, many Spanish scholars and men of substance, including Arias Montano, the Argensola brothers, Baltasar de Zuniga and the young Quevedo, corresponded with him, and the occasional, if often tangential, reference to his name in the literature of the early seventeenth century shows the extent to which he was known, suggesting that his influence had permeated far. However, little has yet been done to trace that influence, and the only study to date ...