the politica of justus lipsius - anne moss

7/27/2019 The Politica of Justus Lipsius - Anne Moss

1/17

The Politica of Justus Lipsius and the Commonplace-BookAuthor(s): Ann MossSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Jul., 1998), pp. 421-436Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3653895

Accessed: 25/09/2008 11:39

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=upenn.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the

scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that

promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

Journal of the History of Ideas.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3653895?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=upennhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=upennhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3653895?origin=JSTOR-pdf


2/17

T h e P o l i t i c a o f J u s t u s L i p s i u s a n dt h e Commonplace-B

Ann Moss

ThroughoutWesternEurope n the sixteenthcentury, choolboysandgrownmen educated n the Latinschools of the humanistswouldrecog-nize the commonplace-books an indispensableool for makingsenseofthe bookstheyread, orassimilatinghe written ultureransmittedo them,and for possessing he meansof productionn their urn.Thishandyorga-nizer of informationandrathereffective retrievalmechanismhas beentreatedwitha fair amountof contemptafterbeingsidelinedtowards heend of the seventeenth enturyand thenfallingintopublicdisrepute,tsrich stock of preciouscommonplacesdevalued nto the smallchangeofmerebanalities.Nor ndeeddoes it suittheagenda f post-Romanticcholarsandcritics ooking n a simplisticway for signsof originality ndinnova-tion. However, he last few yearshaveseen commonplacesn theirmoresophisticateduisebackonthecritical genda,withseveralparticulartudiesand,latterly, wo majoroverviewspublishedn a single year.'The thesisunderlyinghispaper s thatthecommonplace-books central o anunder-standingof how knowledgewas organized n the early moder period.Morethanthat,the commonplace-bookeys us intoprocedures f inves-tigationanddebateand into the dialecticaland rhetoricalmodesof articu-latingthoughtwhichwereagreed o havepersuasiveorce;andit exhibitsthe commonalityof expectations, he commonplaces, which ensuredacommonroute nto a sharedareaof communicationhen the cultural on-sensusof WesternEuropewas strainedo breakingpoint.One test of this thesiswillbe whether t canbe usefullyappliedo textswhichfit badlyinto interpretativerames familiar o the moder reader.Theparticularurposeof thispaper s to applytheprinciples f common-

'See F.Goyet,Le Sublimedu "lieucommun :l'inventionrhetorique ansl'Antiquite t a laRenaissance(Paris,1996);A. Moss,PrintedCommonplace-booksnd theStructuring fRenais-sance Thought(Oxford, 1996);and also, Ann Blair, The Theaterof Nature:Jean Bodin andRenaissanceScience(Princeton,1997).421

Copyright 998by Journal f the Historyof Ideas,Inc.


3/17

place-book eading o just such an awkward ase, in orderat leastto sug-gest the possibilityof recoveringan historicallyprobable eading trategywhichmaymore ullyrecuperatehe textforthe moder reader. hePoliticaof the eminentStoic philosopherandscholarof antiquity, ustusLipsius(1547-1606),is a networkof quotations rom ancientauthorities inkedtogetherby Lipsius'sownwords.He himselfregardedt as one of his mostimportant chievements.His contemporaries nd theirseventeenth-cen-turydescendantsnewperfectlywell how to read t, and there s plentyofevidence thatthey regardedt highly.2Modemreaders ind it an embar-rassment, otknowingquitewhatto do with a book fromwhichthe authoreclipseshimself,yet keepsa deadhandon it:"Allof it is mine andnothingis."3Modemcriticstend to assume t is all Lipsius,ridingroughshod verthe quotationndicators4;r they prefer o thinkthatnothing s and treatthe textsolelyas a compilation f extracts5;r they get tiedin knotstryingto rescueLipsius'svoice drownedout in his quotations.6But Lipsius'soriginalreaders n 1589 knewhow to readit, becausehe told them:"Forwhat s it buta well-arrangedegister f accounts rCOMMONPLACES?"7If we aregoing to get anywherenearthe originalpointof reception,we mustremindourselvesaboutcommonplacesndcommonplace-books.It was Erasmus n De copia who gave the firstsystematicguidelines ormaking commonplace-books, ut by the time of Lipsius schoolboysinevery Latinschool in NorthernEuropewere busy excerpting rom their2Among tsmostdiscriminatingeaders,Montaigne allsitapprovinglycedocteet laborieuxtissu" Essais,I, xxvi,"Del'institutiondesenfants," d. A. ThibaudetParis,1950], 180).CharlesSorel,ratherater, s onthewholeambivalent bout hestatusof quotationollections,butmakesanexceptionforthePolitica: "LesPolitiquesdeJusteLipsesontdesSentencesqu'il a recueilliesdetousles bonsAutheursde'antiquit6, tellementqu'iln'y a de luiquel'ordreet lacontexture,maisil y aparfaitementeiissi,et c'est le plusbeauRecueilduMonde" LaBibliothequefranfoiseParis,1664],60).3 "... vere possim dicere omnia nostra,et nihil" (JustusLipsius, Politicorumsive civilisdoctrinae ibrisex,qui adprincipatummaximespectant[Leiden, 1589],sig. **V).4 E.g., R.Tuck,Philosophyand Government 572-1651(Cambridge,1993),45-62.5E.g.,J.Lafond,"Lecenton et sonusagedans a litt6raturemoraleetpolitique,"nJ. LafondandA. Stegmannneds.), L'Automnede la Renaissance1580-1630(Paris, 1981), 117-28.6 The best shortaccount of the Politica in relation to otheraspectsof Lipsius'sworks isprobablyM. Morford,"TaciteanPrudentia and the Doctrinesof JustusLipsius," n T. J. Luceand A. J. Woodman eds.), Tacitus and the TaciteanTradition Princeton, 1993), 129-51, andStoics and theNeostoics: Rubensand theCircleofLipsius(Princeton,1991).For a fuller reviewof the politicaltheoriescontainedin the Politica, see G. Oestreich,Neostoicismand the EarlyModer State,B. Oestreich and H. G. Koenigsberger eds.), D. McLintock(trs.) (Cambridge,1982),esp.ch.3;also J.Jehasse,LaRenaissancede la critique:L'essorde l'humanisme ruditde1560 a 1614(Saint-Etienne,1976),and C. Mouchel,Ciceroneteneque dans la rhitoriquede laRenaissance Marburg, 990).For anapplicationoLipsiusof ideascontainedn thispaper, ee J.Waszink,"Inventio n the Politica:CommonplaceBooks and theShapeof PoliticalTheory,"K.Enenkeland C. Heesakkers eds.), Lipsius n Leiden(Voorthuizen,1997), 141-62.7 "Quidenim aliud ista, quamvelut tabulaequaedam dispositae,et LOCI COMMUNESsunt?" Politica[1589],p. 3 of the Brevesnotaepaginated eparatelyat the end of thebook).

422 Ann Moss


4/17

Justus Lipsiustexts as they read, either under the schoolmaster's instructionsor at theirown discretion. The commonplace-book was a probe and an instrumentfor redistributing ext so as to ensure maximal retrievabilityand optimumapplication. Here is one of the many enthusiastic promotersof the prac-tice, writing in 1564:

So that the more importantpassages in the authors set for readingand the more brilliant sententiae, exempla, similitudes, words,phrases, and outstanding figurative expressions may be the morereadily imprintedon the memory and available and ready for useas occasion requires, it is extremely useful to have the common-places of the main intellectual disciplines arrangedin a definiteorder,under which studentsmay note down everythingworth stor-ing to memory from what they hear or read in their texts, appor-tioning their excerpted material into clearly defined categories. Inthis way students will have a storehouse from which to draw anabundantsupply of excellent material, sententiae, similitudes, nar-rations,and so forth, for any matteron which they are requiredtospeak or write.8Lipsius agreed. Pupils under his tuition were constantly exhorted to"read"and at the same time "excerpt."His advice to the young readerofTacitus is to divide his excerptedquotationsinto headed sections, or tituli,the technical term used in commonplace-books. Two of these tituli aremoralia, "those things which go towards shaping us as individuals, withlives which incline to virtues andarealien to vice,"andcivilia, "topicswhichareof concern to the life andgovernanceof the community."9 hese primarydivisions correspond o the two different butrelateddisciplinesof Ethics andPolitics, firstexperiencedas disciplines at school and as sections in the com-

monplace-book.By collecting quotationsandordering hem in his common-place-book he student onstructsorhimself awell-labelledandwell-organizedstore of material, nternalizes t by memoryand constantuse, andhas it at thereadyto reproduce,recycle, andrecombinein compositionswhereauthorialcontrol s most evidentin thechoice anddeploymentof quotation.But commonplace-booksarenot to be put away as childishthings.In hisEpistolicainstitutio 1591) on the subjectof private etterwriting,particularlyin its final threechapters,Lipsiuswas to talkto thegrownman,still faithfultotheintellectualhabitsof hisyouthbutpracticingnow a versatile mitatiovirilis,resourcedby the commonplace-bookat its most eclectic, which shapes an

8 D. Chytraeus,De rationediscendi et ordine studiorum n singulis artibus instituendo(Wittenberg,1564),sig. C 3 -C 3'.9See M. Morford,"TaciteanPrudentia,"134.

423


5/17

adultstyleandarticulateshe "communicationf the soul."In the PoliticaLipsius s also functioningwell beyond he schoolroom: is intended ead-ers are"expertsn Latin,""expertn the knowledgeof things."'0We, now a little expertin knowledgeof the commonplace-book,rereadyto readthe sign uponthe door of the 1589 edition: "Thespider'sweb [textus] s no whit thebetterbecause t spinsit fromits own entrails[andrememberhatthespider s a dangerous pecies];andmy text no whitthe worsebecause,as does the bee, I gather ts components rom otherauthors' lowers.""The honey-gatheringee was the most familiarof allemblemsfor the commonplace-book, nd the contemporaryeaderwasimmediatelyapprisedof the territorynto which he had come. Like anycompilerof commonplace-books,ipsiusclaims for himself the initiativeof findingandarrangingtherhetoricalunctionsof inventioanddispositioessentialto composition): indingquotations n authoritative ourcestoillustratethe topics chosen;and then arranging hem in sections underheads,titulior capita in the technical argon.'2Moreover,he title of thewhole work,Politica, integratest effortlessly nto the universeof com-monplace-books.The pedagogictraditionsstemming n particularromMelanchthonnd Sturmstressed he value of drawingup discipline-spe-cific commonplace-books,with appropriate eadingsand subdivisions,and within suchschemespoliticahad theirplaceside by side with ethicaand economica.Toshow ndetail heentriesunder neof theheadsof Lipsius'spoliticalcommonplace-book,he plateson pages426 and427 reproduceCaput iiof Book II.3 There is a heading ntroducing questionproposed or de-bate (is the office of monarch quallysuitablefor eithersex?). Proposi-tions of this kind, whetherphrasedas questionsor not, hadbeen stapleheadsor, as here, subheads or commonplace-booksince Erasmuspub-lished his blueprintn De copia.Collectedunder he headarea seriesofquotations, ery clearlymarkedypographically,s Lipsius, n his liminarymaterial,nsisted hey shouldbe. Theycan be readconsecutivelywith the'0"SermonisLatinibeneperitus .. rerum tiamperitus" Politica[1589], sig. ** 3 + 2). Thechapters rom theEpistolicainstitutioarein JustusLipsius, ThePrinciplesof LetterWriting:ABilingualTextof Justi Lipsii "EpistolicaInstitutio," d. andtr. R. V.Youngand M. T. Hester(Carbondale,1996),34-51." "Necaranearumanetextusideomelior,quiaex se fila gignunt:nec nostervilior,quiaexalienislibamus,utapes"(Politica[1589],Brevesnotae,4).12 CumenimInventioet Ordoa nobissint,verba amenet sententiasvarieconquisivimusa

scriptoribus riscis" Politica [1589],sig **V).13Thereproductions re taken romtheAntwerpeditionof 1623,andpreciselyreplicate hetypographical ay-outas well as thewordingof theoriginal1589edition. Thepagesaretherectoandtheversoof a single leaf. Forconvenience,they are herelaid out as a single opening,whichmeans that the marginsarereversed.This does not materiallyaffectthe points madeabout thedispositionof the text.

424 Ann Moss


6/17

Justus Lipsiusbenefit of the interveningink passages,but they arealso eminentlyex-tractable, s indeed heyhavealreadybeenextractedromthe textsclearlyidentified n the outermargins,ust as theywouldbe in a commonplace-book.

Thesemobilesnippetsarethe very stuffof commonplace-books,ndin thebook'sliminarymaterialLipsiusassignsto themthe samevaluesaspromoters f commonplace-booksssignedto their collectedquotations.First,they have the stylisticeleganceandsharpness f sententiae,anditwas commonplace-books, ith theirpredilectionor brief andwittysen-tentiae, exempla,and similitudes,which encouragedandresourced hestyle of politicaldiscourse,he argutadictio,characteristicf Lipsiusandmanyof his contemporaries.econd,they have "theweightof receivedauthority,"nd thatauthorityies with the ancients.Theyaretestimonia,auctoritates,andtherebyelementsin stratagems f argumentation.'4Thisbringsus backto the mainhead,or titulus,so phrased s to ini-tiatedebate,andto the innermargins,whichmarkhowtheargumentmightgo. The titulusrefersto a definitionof the office of monarchandto itspartes.Thedefinitions givenin thefirstparagraph,gainhighlightedypo-graphically.preliminaryxtension rrefinementydivision f thatdefinitionis offeredordebaten theformof apartition:this ingle ndividualnwhomsovereignty s invested:manorwoman[unius mperium, irineanfaeminae]?"Anarguments set n trainwhichdrawshereandwill continueodrawhrough-outthissectionontheplacesof argumentecognizedndialectic ndrhetoric.These"places,"r"seats" fargument, otablyn this nstancergumentsromcause,adjuncts,ndexamples, resignalednthe centermargins.Atfirstsight he ower-caseRomanype nsertedn thebodyof thetexttomarshalhequotationsnto inesof argumentmight eem oqueryhestatus fthePoliticaascommonplace-book,orcommonplace-bookompilers ormallykeptthemselveso theirprefaces.The editorof the Politica s indeedpresentheren hisownvoice,connectingisgathered uotationsrbuildinghem, s hesays,into a fabricof his owndesignbonded romtimeto timeby his ownwords.15 owever,t is entirely ongruentwith thenatureandpurpose f acommonplace-bookhat hedialecticalorceof its assembled uotations,heirstatusastestimony ndauthority,houldbedemonstratedndutilizednsug-gestedoutlines orargument. he moresophisticatedxamples f thegenre,

14"Quidutiliuspotui,quamtot sententiasin unumconducere:pulchras,acres, et, ita meSalusamet,adsalutemnatasgenerishumani?...Ut inunoaliquotelo autgladiomultum nterest,aquamanuveniat: ic insententia,utpenetret, aldefacitrobustae licuiusetreceptaeAuctoritatispondus"(Politica [1589], sig. ** 2). Mouchel, Ciceronet Senequeis particularlynformativeaboutargutadictioandprosestyle;Moss,PrintedCommonplace-books,xplains heconnectionbetweencommonplace-books nddialecticalstratagems.'5"Eas[sententias]nterse haud ndecentervinximus,autinterdum elut caementoquodamcommisimusnostrorum erborum"Politica[1589],sig. **2);"Lapides t lignaabaliisaccipio ..architectus go sum,sedmateriam arieundiqueconduxi" ibid.,Brevesnotae,3-4).

425


7/17

426 Ann Moss


8/17

Justus Lipsius


9/17

especially in the Protestant north, not only grouped extracts by topicalheads but furtherdistributed hem by topics or places of argument(defini-tion, genus, species, similars, opposites, adjuncts, examples, argumentsfrom the honorable and the expedient, and so on) or they aligned them tothe Aristotelianpredicaments.Thus when Lipsius starts to move his quota-tions into argumentativepositions, as signaled in the center margins,he ismerely suggesting possible ways that his book could be exploited, entirelyin line with what was to be expected of a commonplace-book.What Lipsius rarely does in the Politica is to construct and to closearguments.The section ends with deliberateambivalence:"thereforewomenare capable of wielding the sceptre, as these latterquotationstestify; and Iagree thatthis should be so, unless the laws and customs of theirforefathersdecree otherwise."Toclose argumentswould indeedgo entirelycounter o thementalityof thecommonplace-book.Thequotations t collectedunder ts vari-ous heads were as diverse as couldbe, for not coherencebutplenitudewas theguiding principle,and open-endedness ts characteristic eature. The reader/researcherwould expect to find a pluralityof opinionsand a skeletonof argu-mentationwhich could be dressed n borrowedwords to confrontanycircum-stance.

In his notes to the original 1589 edition Lipsius makes it clear that heexpects his reader to recognize the Politica as a commonplace-book andtreat it as one: "These are COMMONPLACES,under which you shouldduly register extracts from what you have read or will read on the samesubject. Look and imitate."'6Lipsius envisages an actively cooperatingreaderwho will make the Politica his own by adding to it indefinitely,andthis is exactly the way printedcommonplace-books were advertised. Theintended reader will be quick to slip out of the editor's control. Similarly,the marginalannotations,as in any commonplace-book,release the readerfrom the concatenationof quotationscenter-page.On the nearside areplacesof argumentwhichmay be emptiedof theirpresentoccupants,filled withnewquotations,and even turned o otherpurposes.On thefarside, references o theoriginal ocations of thequotationssend the readeraway to theiroriginalcon-texts,there opickup meaningswhichmay supplementandcomplicatewithallsorts of ironies the sense imposedon the extract n its new place. Suchsubtle-ties are for "readersexpert in Latin"(sermonisLatini bene periti), the veryreaders Lipsius intended, their expertise acquired by making common-place-books from the time of their early adolescence.'7

16 "Quidenim aliud ista, quamtabulaequaedamdispositae,et LOCI COMMUNESsunt[upper aseintheoriginal],adquoscommodereferas ectatibi nhocargumento ut egenda?Vide,et imitare"Politica[1589],Brevesnotae,3).17 The mostnotorioussubteltyof this kindwas, of course,the potentially ambiguous"ure,seca"(bur, lance)applied oreligiousdissentersnBookIV.Inhis AdversusDialogistam,Lipsius

disdainfullymplied ohisvernacularritic,DirckCoornhert,hatonlythenon-Latinatewouldtakethis literally,becausetheywould fail to recognizetheCiceronianmedicalmetaphor.

428 Ann Moss


10/17

More advanced and skeptical Latinists, notably Henri Estienne, hadplayed such games before. In his Parodiaemorales of 1575 Estiennebroughttogether commonplace-book entries and centos. Centos are poems con-structed out of extracted quotations, displaced and relocated with fullyintendedirony and double entendre.Lipsius also called his Politica a cento,a form in which "deviationsfrom the original sense of an extractare freelymade and are to be praised,"ustifying his practice by referenceto the sortof poets Estienne had collected in his Parodiae morales.'8 Perhaps thatkindred spirit and assembler of interspersedquotations, Michel de Mon-taigne, had this potential for irony in mind when he called the Politica a"learned and painstakingly interwoven" cento, in which Justus Lipsiusallowed himself to be seen, in this as in his other works.'9

Nevertheless, in its form, its layout on the page, the Politica is not likeJustusLipsius's other works.They, too, will have begun in theirearly stagesas assemblies of quotationsunder heads. This was an essential part of thenormal productionmechanism for authorsschooled by the humanists andwriting discursively on matterswithin the school disciplines. The finishedwork was to a large extent the productof a combinationof quotations(bethey disguised, paraphrased,reduced to a reference, or reproducedverba-tim) and the dialectical/rhetorical peratorsof which we have had examplesin Lipsius's center margins.

Occasionallywe areable to see thisprocessin operation.DurhamUniver-sity,forexample,hasquiterecentlyacquiredhemanuscriptworkingnotebooksof a contemporary f Lipsius,HenryHoward,Earl of Northampton nd futurestatesmanunderJamesI, inwhichwe canwatchhimfilling his leanyearsunderElizabethby composinga DutifulDefense of theLawfulRegimentof Women,that is to say a book on the same subject-headas Politica II, iii: "unius mpe-rium.virine, an faeminae?"Howard collects quotationsundersubheadsrel-evant to his topic, moves quotations from place to place, and not infre-quently indicates how the argumentis to proceed within the subhead bysketching it out in terms of the dialectical operators. We also have thesense of how the projectprogressedfrom the notebooks in our possession.Sections are crossed out as quotationsare moved to anothersection or into

18"Nonne enim Centonemquendamconcinno (tale omnino nostrumopus) in quo liberisemperet laudatia sententia stiflexus?Consulantpoetas, quiolim et nuncsic luserunt"Politica[1589], sig ** 3 + 1).'9"Jene dis les autres,sinonpourd'autantplusme dire.Cecy [hiscriticismof workswhicharestrung ogether romquotations]netouchepasdescentonsquise publientpourcentons:etj 'enayveude tres-ingenieuxen montemps,...outre es anciens.Ce sont des espritsquise fontvoir etparailleurs tpar a,commeLipsiusen ce docteet laborieuxissude sesPolitiques"Essais,I, xxvi,ed. cit., 179-80).See F.Goyet,"Aproposde 'ces pastissagesde lieux communs,'"Bulletinde laSocietedesAmisde Montaigne,5-6 (Jul-Dec., 1986), 11-26;"Le roledesnotesde lecturedanslagenesedesEssais," bid.,7-8 (Jan.-July, 987),9-30;"TheWord Commonplaces'nMontaigne,"in L. Hunter ed.), Toward Definitionof Topos London,1991),66-77.

Justus Lipsius 429


11/17

other notebooks which representa more advancedstate of the work, whicheventually reached the stage of a presentationmanuscriptbook for whichHoward could claim the authorship,though he never saw it through intoprint.

HenryHoward'sprocedures thenormalone forwritingbooks.Lipsiusforsome reasondecidesthathisPolitica will notfollow thenormandwill remain na statewhich his readerswill recognizeas a commonplace-book, ven as theyregistersurpriseatthis"unexpectedkind of composition."20hedifficultques-tionis why he shoulddothis,aquestionIcanonlybroachby wayof speculationand ookingathowthe Politicawas reformulated rrevampedbyJustusLipsiushimself andby his translators.The world in which the Politica was writtenand printed,in 1589, wasa world riven by political and religious dissension stirringactive warfareinmore than one country in Europe. Ideological divisions threatened o frag-ment the humanist culturalconsensus, and universally accepted typologiesof discoursewerepossibly losingtheircohesivepower.Lipsiushimselfwas inavery precariousstate of equilibrium his flight fromLeiden andreconciliationwith the CatholicChurchwereimminent),21ndthepresentpaper uggeststhatthe Politica appearsto be an attemptto performfragmentation, o explicatedivision, andat the same tine to writefragmentation nd divisioninto a nexuswhich its readerswould immediatelyrecognizeas thatwhich structuredheiruniverseof thoughtandculture.To hear the message, attendto the medium. Justus Lipsius has chosento make his Politica a commonplace-book, that is, he has descended to alevel below thatof a finished work in order o expose to his readersa stratum freadingand writinghabitswhich they all knew aboutand which underlayalltheirsurfacedifferences.In so doing he returnshis readers o theoriginalma-trix common to allhumanistandposthumanistmethodsof conceiving,generat-ing,andorganizingknowledge: hecommonplace-book.Aboveall,perhaps,heknowingly remindshis readersthat the commonplace-book, hat source andemblemof theirmostproductive ntellectualhabits,hasas its peculiarpropertythe inherent apacity obalanceunityandmultiplicity.n thecontemporary orldof bodies politic outside thePolitica, multiplicitymay indeed tend to disorder,unity otyranny.But tothese fatalproclivitiesminds schooledbycommonplace-books may yet oppose a cultural model in which fragmentationand con-tradiction are contained under single heads and new material is incorpo-ratedinto the preexistingand extendiblebody of the book without internaldangerto it.

20Lipsius calls his novel concatenationof borrowedwords a "inopinatumquoddamstiligenus"(Politica [1589], sig. ** v).21 See Jehasse andTuck;andforthe effect of ideological disarrayon writing-paradigms,eeT.Hampton,WritingfromHistory:TheRhetoricofExemplarityn RenaissanceLiteratureIthaca,1990).

430 Ann Moss


12/17

If Lipsius chose to privilege one of the traditionalheads of the disci-pline politica, Principatus,defined as the rule of one (unius), it was not inorderto give it sole sway. It comes with the recommendationhat "anyonewho wishes may have a try at putting together heads to do with govern-ment by democracy or aristocracy."22Moreover,the unitaryprinciple rep-resented by the Principatus head does not reduce to a regimented wholethe clearly fragmented ext, with its separateand dividedentities, its spaces,and its typographical differences. Fragmentation and unity cohere; anddivision, as we have seen in the case of II, iii, rather than destroying theunity of the single "imperium," s a dialectical place of argumentfor ac-commodatingthe gender bifurcation endemic to that unity: "I shall divideand explicate,"or "I shall divide and set in order"(diducam,et explicabo).All throughthe Politica Lipsius proceeds by binaries, which are signsof contrariesin opposition but also seeds of a potential resolution engen-dered by the combinationof quoted extract and dialectical mover. Not theleast importantof these dialectically operatedand productivedivisions isthe one he makes in the early chapters of the fourth book between theunity he demandsof public forms of religious observanceand the diversi-ties he tolerates in private devotional practice. To those used to makingtheir own private collections of public commonplaces and responding ad-equately to the invitation to read the Politica as commonplace-book,sucha division makes sense as a stratagemfor argumentation,and possibly formore than that. Lipsius's carefully woven cento, or, rather,his common-place-book of varied strands and fragments, is offered to the knowingreader as an image of a political system which holds together unity anddiversity in steady balance: "In short, as embroiderersmake a single uni-fied tapestryout of threads of differentcolors, so out of a thousanddiffer-ent parts have I constructed this uniform and cohesive body."23For Justus Lipsius himself the balance tipped in 1591 when he leftLeiden to return o Louvain and to the Catholicchurch. For editions of thePolitica publishedat Catholic centers of distribution,Lipsius let himself bepersuaded nto making some small adjustments.He could have changed theformatof his text,butthe interesting hingis thathe did not.A veryfew quota-tions areomittedfromthe Catholic editions(thecensor'sapprovaldates from1593, though there is a Lyons edition in 1592), but this loss is compen-sated by the addition of others which are uncontroversial and keep theshape of the text on the page. What is of more significance is the disap-pearancefrom Catholic editions of the phrasesin which JustusLipsius had

22"Siquisvolet ...paucaaliquotCapita oncinnetnPopuliautOptimatiumtatu:nameos nonlibavi"(Politica[1589], sig. ** 2 - ** 2v).23"Adsummam,utPhrygionese varii coloris filo unumaliquodaulaeum ormant; ic nos emille aliquotparticulisuniformehocet cohaerans orpus" Politica[1589],sig. ** 2).

JustusLipsius 431


13/17

explicitly relatedthe Politica to a commonplace-book,phrasesto be foundin 1589 at the beginning of the separately paginatedBreves notae.This move correlatesvery closely with observationsthat may be madeabout confessional differences and the history of the commonplace-book.24It was in Reformation Europe, particularly those parts of Europe influ-enced by the pedagogic theory and practice of Melanchthon and Sturm,that the commonplace-bookwas the strongest impetus for the constructionof discourse based on clearly tabulatedratiocinativeprocedures.That wasbecause it was in thatenvironment hat the commonplace-bookwas tightlylinked to the generationof composition by dialectical and rhetoricalplacesof argument. Catholic pedagogues were every bit as keen on collectingquotations under heads, but they played down the dialectical connectionand the opportunity it gave to individuals to produce reasoned discoursefrom their collected knowledge. The Jesuits cut it out altogether,and forthem the commonplace-book became a treasure-trovefor rhetorically so-phisticated performers,a ready resource for wit and verbal pyrotechnics,but it did not put their pupils in control of argument.What exactly does JustusLipsius do in the revised Notae to the Catho-lic editions? He excises all direct reference to commonplace-booksand tothe generatingpowers they gave their readersand collaborators. n its place,he inserts a quotationfrom Suetoniusdescribinghow the emperorAugustuswas wont to collect preceptsand examples ad verbumin the good authors,which he then sent to his officers throughout he empire to serve as guidesto theirconduct. One mightconclude thatthe Catholiceditionsof thePoliticapropose to reserve to princes alone the power to select and activate theassembled quotations, whereas in the Protestanteditions that power wasoffered to the reader, to whom the work was advertised as a common-place-book:"look here, reader,and imitate,"as Lipsius had said while stillat Leiden. Nevertheless, it is only these few phrases hidden in the annota-tions which change.Thereadilyrecognizableformat of the text remains nvi-olate.

The Catholic Justus Lipsius left his Politica to reiterate virtually thesame statement as the publicly ProtestantJustusLipsius had written.How-ever, the CatholicJustusLipsius did write a Commentaryon the Politica inthe form of Monita et exempla politica, published in 1605.25This work,24SeeAnnMoss,PrintedCommonplace-books,h. 6. Thesubjectmerits urther esearch,butthisparagraph ivestheessentialsof myconclusionsso far.Commonplace-books,n so farastheymediatedacommonculture nherited romthe Renaissance ecoveryof antiquity,rossedconfes-sional boundariesandwere agentsfor culturalunityin post-ReformationEurope,a functionIbelieveLipsiuswaspromotingnthe Politica.25 Monita et exemplapolitica. Libriduo qui virtuteset vitiaprincipumspectant,editionspublishedatLouvain,Antwerp,andParis n 1605; twasimmediately ranslatedntoFrench,LesConseilset exemplespolitiquesde JusteLipse (Paris,1606), butthere were probablyno othertranslationsuntilconsiderablyater.

432 Ann Moss


14/17

Justus Lipsiusbecause it is a collection of examples extracted from diverse sources toillustrategeneralpropositions,falls withinthe scope of commonplace-books.But its differencefrom the Politica helps to confirmthe statusof that workas a particularlysophisticatedand carefully poised political commonplace-book. The counsels (monita) of the Monita et exempla are short proposi-tions openly derived from the headings in the Politica, and they serve assection heads or tituli, as they might in a commonplace-book. However,the receptacles they label are filled with materialratherdifferent from thequotations of the Politica, which were authoritative,aphoristic, pregnantwith argument.Here instead are rather ax amplificationsleading to narra-tions of exemplary events and figures from history ancient and modern,long, loose paraphrasesof texts which are not identified. There is neitherthe philological nor the dialectical rigor of the Politica. The closest rela-tives of the later work are, on the one hand, contemporaneouslypublishedLatin collections of exempla, for example, the highly eclectic and continu-ously expanded Theatrumvitae humanaeof TheodorZwinger, and on theother hand, vernacular collections of historical narratives exemplifyingpolitical propositions, for example, the Aggiunte which Giovanni Boterohad appended to his Ragion di stato in 1598 and which translation intoother vernacularsmetamorphosedinto entertainingfictions.Was the Politica metamorphosed n translation? t will be recalled thatit is a severely Latintext, written for the attentionof "sermonisLatini beneperiti."It was only such readers, educated in the humanistLatin schools,and not the Latinless vernacularpublic, who were sensitized to the com-monplace-book format of the text and all that entailed. It should proveinstructive to examine whether translatedversions of the Politica retainedthe page layout and the typographicalsigns which markedthe work as acommonplace-book.If not, they may, however accurate the verbal render-ing, prove a travesty of the original.The Italian version of Ercole Cati, published posthumously at Venicein 1618, pulls away in the direction taken by the Catholic Lipsius of theMonita et exemplaandthe Italian, Botero,beforehim.26Catiretains the frag-mented ookof Lipsius's pagesbut without hedividingspacesand withoutthetypographicaldistinction. Significantly, given his southern Catholic read-ership, he does not reproduce Lipsius's margins replete with dialecticaland rhetorical heads of argument.What he does is to append to the textextensive supplements, sometimes narrativesof some length, providing awealth of exemplification, ancient and, especially, modern. Such diversityis certainly heterogeneous,even heterodox.The heading for debate on the

26ErcoleCati,Della politica,overo delgovernodi statolibrisei (Venice,1618);see also J.-L. Fournel,"Unereceptionambigue: a diffusionde la penseepolitiquede JusteLipseen languevulgairedans l'Italiede la premieremoiti6du XVIIe siecle," in C. Mouchel(ed.), Juste Lipse(1547-1606) en son temps(Paris,1996),479-501.

433


15/17

gender of monarchsinspires Cati to a rousing descriptionof Elizabethpa-rading her heart and stomach before the troops in advanceof the Armada.However, fascinating though such addendaare, they are not a cohesive orstructural element within the body of the text. They are external agentsforeign to it and threatento dissipate and weaken it.If Cati pulls this commonplace-book n the directionof fragmentation,there are other versions which pull away from multiplicity towards unity,particularly when they originate in bastions of confessional conviction.The two French translations,made in 1590 and 1594, were by Calvinistsand were publishedat La Rochelle and Geneva.7 In both cases any resem-blanceto the layoutof a commonplace-bookdisappears.Thetext,bothquota-tions and linkpassages, is printedas continuousprosein solidblocks, withouttypographicaldifferentiation.Referencesto the sources of quotationsarespo-radicand lackprecision.There s verylittle freedomto moveoutsidethetextasit is presentedhere.Themarginalnotes whichLipsiushadprovided oconstructa varietyof argumentsarenow transformednto statements ummarizing on-tent. Whetherwe are witnessing a wholesale takeoverof the Politica or aconcession to the simplerneeds of the unlearned, t is the case thatthe openplacesof theoriginalworkhave been closed.Theywerejustasfirmlyclosed inSpain in 1604, when a vernacularversion appearedwith all the text in longblocks of undifferentiatedprose and without the marginaldialectical indica-tors.28

In England, it is somewhat gratifying to discover, we have a compro-mise. William Jones, in his Sixe Bookes of Politickes of 1594, tends toconsolidate the original text into long paragraphs.29his obscures the com-monplace-bookformat,even thoughhe distinguishesthe quotationsby italictype. What he appreciates,unlike othertranslators,and what he does retain,despiteadvice to omit them,are the argument-indicatorsn Lipsius'smargins.Theirprecisedialecticalfunctionseems lost on him,buthe sees that"theyhavethis singularitiein them (which I have not seene in any other [worke])thatthey do entertaineone another,as if they were a continuedspeech."30f theJones version stays closer with Lipsius than other vernacularrenderings, tis because of his desire not to be thought"a corrupt,and faithlesse transla-tor,"ratherthan for any obvious sensitivity to the commonplace-bookaf-finities of his text. But there is one point where he is a more faithfulpoliti-

27 Charles Le Ber, Les six livres des Politiquesou doctrinecivile de JustusLipsius(LaRochelle, 1590);SimonGoulart,LesPolitiquesde JusteLipsius(Geneva,1594).28Bernardinode Mendo,a, Losseys librosde las Politicas o DoctrinaCivil de lustoLipsio(Madrid,1604);I haveyetto seethe Dutchversionof 1590,thePolish versionof 1595,the Germanversionof 1599, or the Italianversionof 1604by AntonioNumai.29 W.Jones,Sixe Bookesof Politickesor CivilDoctrine,writtenbyJustusLipsius(London,1594).30 Ibid.,sig. A iiiv.

434 Ann Moss


16/17

Justus Lipsiuscal subject than he is a faithful translator:"And as concerning somethingleft out in the thirdChapterof the second Booke, it was a thing done of setpurpose; for some important cause which I meane not here to utter."31What is left out is all the testimony to the moral deficiencies of womenwhich make them unfit to rule. When political commonplace-books con-form to the dictates of political expediency,therewill be things left out aswell as things put in.InitsoriginalLatinform thePolitica hada long andprestigiouspublishinghistory.In bothits Protestantandits Catholicversions,it seems to have beenprinted ittle shortof one hundred imes in the yearsbetweenits firstappear-ance and the middle of the eighteenthcentury.32romthepointof view of thecommonplace-bookmentalityandits long, drawn-outdeclinein the lateryearsof the seventeenthcentury, t would be interestingto determinewhether theoriginalcarefulformatof theLatinwork was retained.Thiscertainlyseems tohave been thecase fortheeditionsappearingn theheydayof its popularity,nthe thirtyyearsor so after1589. In thatperiodcommonplace-bookswere stillcommoncurrency.Printedexemplars,whetherCatholicor Protestantnorigin,hadstarted o takeon a baroqueextravaganceand to growaccretionsof some-times monstrousproportions.The Politica, however,was uniquein the autho-rialcontrolexercised on theteleologicaldesignof itsorganizedextracts,whichdoubtlesshelpedto keep it immunefrom editorial nterference.But if the sug-gestionsmade n thispaperarevalid,its statusas acommonplace-bookwas stillclearly recognizable o its Latinatereadersof whateverpoliticalpersuasionorreligiousconfession,forwhomit wasemblematicof theircommonhumanisticculture,the speech communityto which they all belonged, and their sharedpatternsof thought.It was perhaps ts very format,even morethan the some-whatambiguousreputation f its author, hatensured ts survival orso long initsoriginal orm.As the commonplace-bookbegan to lose its centralhold on the Euro-pean mentality, however, so the tight design of the Politica began to un-ravel. In 1664 and 1674 there are separate,posthumouspublicationsof anedition of thePolitica compiledby MatthiasBeregger for his studentsof state-craft at Strasbourg,where he occupied a chair of history up until 1640.This edition had a very detailed index, and the 1674 version, at least, has asort of praelectio locating the Politica very firmly in the category of com-monplace-books. But the praelectio does not seem to envisage Lipsius'sbook as a resource for the construction of arguments,nor does its writerseem to relish the collected sententiae.For him they are first and foremost

31Ibid., sig. A iiii.32 Forthepublishinghistorysee G. Oestreich,AntikerGeistundmoderer Staatbei JustusLipsius(1547-1606)(Gottingen,1989)and,on its influence,his Neostoicism,ch. 6.

435


17/17

prompts o encouragehe student o makea thoroughnvestigation f thetexts from whichthe extractshave been taken.Lipsius s the surestguideintotherepositoryf materialwhich, n the fulnessof its original ormula-tion, not in the carefullypoisedabstracts f the Politica,will provide hestudents'educationn politicalscience.The marginof textualreferenceshasentirelydeflectedattention wayfromthe marginof dialecticalplaces,andindeed from the quotedextracts hemselves,nowjudgedto be often"obscure" nd "unfinished" nless readback to their source.The com-monplace-book o longergenerates hought,and the Politicahas lost itsresonance. t is not much more thana superblywell organized eferencebookforcollectingold examplesof whatthe writerof thepraelectio hinksis the least ratiocinative f sciences:politics.33

DurhamUniversity.

33 ustiLipsiiPoliticorum ive civilis doctrinae ibri sex... ex institutoMatthiaeBemeggeri(Frankfurt, 674),sig.A 7 + 5v - B 3v. Therearealmostcertainlymoreeditionsof thispublication,possibly presented n differentways, thanI have so far located.My 1664 editionis a"synopsis"made by J. A. Bostius for his students at Jena,and reprinted n 1667; my 1674 edition waspreparedby J. H. Boecler,who succeededBerneggerat Strasbourgn 1640,taughtthereuntil1672,and then removedto Uppsala.See G. Oestreich,Neostoicism,ch. 6, passim.

436 Ann Moss

the politica of justus lipsius - anne moss

Documents