Juan de Mariana

The Spanish Jesuit Juan de Mariana (1536-1624), a man of critical insight, accuracy, and courage, is well known as a historian and political thinker.

Juan de Mariana was born in Talavera de la Reina in the old kingdom of Toledo. He joined the Jesuits in 1554 and studied at the University of Alcaláde Henares. In 1561 he went to Rome, where he taught theology to, among other pupils, Robert Bellarmine, who was to become the most famous cardinal of his time. From there he went to Sicily, and in 1569 he was sent to Paris. His lectures on St. Thomas Aquinas were a great success, but in 1574, pleading ill health, he obtained permission to return to Spain. He retired to the Jesuit house in Toledo, where his literary activity was occasionally, and rudely, interrupted by the outside world. He died there on Feb. 16, 1624.

In Mariana's lifetime his writings had brought him into conflict with the Spanish monarchy, the French monarchy, and his own order. His first published work was Historiae de rebus Hispaniae (Toledo, 1592), in two different printings, one containing 20 and the other one 25 books. It reached to the conquest of Granada (1492). He then added 5 more books, making a total of 30 (Mainz, 1605) and bringing the history of Spain to the death of Ferdinand V and the accession of Charles V (1516). In a later abstract he brought events to the accession of Philip IV (1621). The success of the work was such that Mariana himself translated it into Spanish (the first edition was published in Madrid in 1601; J. Stevens translated it into English in 1699). Although uncritical about the legendary past, Mariana does try to bring the history of his country to the best standards of historiography and research of his times; the documentary part, however, is sadly lacking. Stylistically, it is a classic of Spanish prose.

In Toledo in 1599 Mariana published De rege et regis institutione, which was soon to become notorious. When Henry IV of France was murdered in 1610, it was quickly remembered that Mariana had advocated tyrannicide (book I, chapter 6); the book was burned in France, and it attracted considerable odium upon the Jesuits. His Tractatus septem (Cologne, 1609) again brought the author into the limelight of scandal, for two of the treatises (De morte et immortalitate and De monetae mutatione) were placed on the Index Expurgatorius, and the author came to grief with state and Inquisition alike. His tract criticizing his order (De los grandes defectos que hay en la forma del govierno de los Jesuitas, Bordeaux, 1625) came out posthumously, and it did not improve his standing with his own order.

Further Reading

John Laures, The Political Economy of Juan de Mariana (1928), has valuable pages on Mariana's economics, but it has been largely superseded by Guenter Lewy, Constitutionalism and Statecraft during the Golden Age of Spain: A Study of the Political Philosophy of Juan de Mariana S. J. (1960). Indispensable background information is contained in Bernice Hamilton, Political Thought in Sixteenth-century Spain (1963).

Additional Sources

Soons, Alan, Juan de Mariana, Boston: Twayne, 1982. □

Juan de Mariana , 1536?–1623?, Spanish historian and political philosopher, a Jesuit. He taught in Rome and in Paris before going to Toledo, where he wrote his two great works. His Historiae de rebus Hispaniae [history of Spain], a notable achievement in history, presented a unified and coordinated history rather than a simple chronicle. Although sometimes credulous, he was to some extent critical of sources; his ability to create a smooth-flowing narrative was remarkable. His De rege et regis institutione [on the king and the institution of kingship] achieved particular note because it condoned tyrannicide. Mariana argued that when the state violated the welfare of the people, a desperate remedy was justifiable. He extolled the natural simplicity of the communal life of a lost golden age. His humanitarian ideals were widely influential; he is supposed to have had a great effect on Rousseau. His violent attack on debasement of the coinage, in which he expressed arguments later universally accepted, caused him to be imprisoned for a time.

Bibliography: See study by G. Lewy (1960).

Juan de Fuca Plate The small lithospheric plate in the north-east Pacific Ocean which is being subducted slowly under the North American Plate, giving rise to the generally andesitic volcanic chain from northern California to southern British Columbia. The Juan de Fuca Plate is a remnant of the Farallon Plate. The Juan de Fuca Ridge is offset from the East Pacific Rise by the San Andreas Fault.

Mariana, Juan (1536–1624), Spanish Jesuit. His book De Rege et Regis Institutione (1559), justifying tyrannicide, encouraged the belief that the Jesuits were responsible for the assassination of Henry IV of France and the Gunpowder Plot. He also wrote on the history of Spain.