Dos cartas desconocidas de Justo Lipsio, y otras seis que le atañen, en el epistolario de Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado (1583-1658)

Abstract

J. SOLÍS DE LOS SANTOS: TWO UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF JUSTUS LIPSIUS. Manuscript 2598 in the General Library of the University of Salamanca bears witness to a brief exchange of letters in the years 1604 and 1605 between Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) and two young scholars of the Salamancan circle. These letters did not appear in the edition and study of the correspondence between Lipsius and Spanish scholars published by Alejandro Ramírez, who based his work on various printed and manuscript sources, Epistolario de Justo Lipsio y los españoles (1577-1606), Madrid 1966. Nor is there any reference to them in the inventory of the correspondence of the Flemish humanist published by Aloïs Gerlo and H. D. L. Vervliet, which examined all known sources as a basis for a critical edition of the complete letters, Inventaire de la correspondance de Juste Lipse, 1564-1606, Antwerp 1968.

MS. Salamanca BU 2598 is a 198-sheet volume measuring 280 x 180 mm., with binding and folio-numbering dating from well after it was originally put together. It bears the title «Epistolario Selecto de Diversos Varones», but the original title is «Epistolae D[omini] Laurentii Ramires de Prado» (f.2r) and it came from the library of the Colegio Mayor of Cuenca (Salamanca). It was kept, with the catalogue number 906, in the Biblioteca de Palacio in Madrid until 1954, when the manuscripts from the former Salamancan Colegios Mayores which were held there were finally transferred to the University of Salamanca.

The manuscript consists of two clearly differentiated sections. The first, ff. 1-93, contains copies of 80 Latin letters by Spanish and foreign scholars. The rest, ff. 103-198, separated from the letter collection by a number of blank sheets, consists of some notes and abbreviated quotations which suggest a draft to a philological commentary. The most interesting part of the MS., the copies of the 80 letters, can be ascribed to two different 17th century hands, possibly copyists in the service of don Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado, author and addressee of the greater part of the correspondence. In contrast, the draft contained in the second part of the MS. appears to be in the hand of the owner of the codex.

The letters cover the period between September 1601 and November 1606, and most of them deal with matters of literary learning. Worthy of special mention, in addition to the 34 letters by the owner of the MS., who at this time was completing his studies in Law and Humanities at the University of Salamanca, are 2 from Justus Lipsius, 2 from José Esteve, bishop of Orihuela, 8 from Juan Luis de la Cerda, 3 from Martinus Antonius Delrius, 1 from Isaac Casaubon, 1 from Francisco Cascales, 1 from Miguel de la Cerda, 1 from Luis Carrillo y Sotomayor, 3 from Bartolomé Morlanes, 1 from Gil González Dávila and 1 from Cardinal Cesare Baronio, alongside other correspondents whose identification presents some difficulty.

Whatever the importance of these unpublished documents, they have remained practically ignored, since I have only been able to find two mentions of them.

Joaquín de Entrambasaguas, Una familia de ingenios: Los Ramírez de Prado (Madrid, 1943) 22, n. 3, cited this ms. 906, then in the Biblioteca de Palacio, when transcribing a letter from Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, to don Alonso Ramírez de Prado, father of the manuscript’s owner and at the time Treasury councillor. This letter is on f.32v: it would therefore seem that the present page-numbering was carried out in Salamanca University Library itself. In addition, Entrambasaguas, in a note on p. 102, mentions some correspondents and announces a forthcoming critical edition of the MS., which never materialised. Gregorio de Andrés, El Maestro Baltasar de Céspedes, humanista salmantino y su Discurso de las Letras. Estudio biográfico y edición crítica (Madrid-El Escorial 1965) 176, also alludes to this ms., by then in Salamanca University Library, to support a thesis he is arguing, but without a specific reference to catalogue- or page-number to indicate the source of his information. These two cases aside, I know of no other reference or mention —far less description— of this manuscript. In my «El humanista extremeño Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado, entre Céspedes y el Brocense», La recepción de las Artes Clásicas en el siglo XVI (Cáceres 1996) 675, I advanced some information on one of the Lipsius letters, with all due caution and rigour.

Following the procedure adopted in Iusti Lipsi Epistolae (Brussels 1978-; cf. M. A. Nauwelaerts, «L’édition de la correspondance de Juste Lipse», in Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Lovaniensis [Louvain‑Munich 1973] 433-436), the copies of these letters of Lipsius can be referenced as follows:

1604 07 13 Justus Lipsius (Louvain) to Fernando Lopes de Milan (Lisboa) inc Litteris tuis, ut accepi et legi, statim c: Salamanca BU ms. 2598, ff. 22r-23r.

1605 02 03 Justus Lipsius (Louvain) to Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado (Salamanca) inc An non audacter ad me adeas, Delrio meo inducente? c: Salamanca BU ms. 2598, f. 6r.

In the first one, Justus Lipsius replies briefly (15 lines) and courteously to a consultation concerning a passage of Tacitus (Separanda Silani materna bona: Tac. Ann. 3.68.2). The original letter from Fernando de Milan is not contained in the MS. Lipsius’ reply coincides with the points subsequently developed in the first part of the commentary ad loc. contained in his posthumous edition. He congratulates his correspondent on having undertaken a translation of Tacitus into Portuguese and invites him to consult him on further doubts. Of this translation and author there is not the slightest trace in the catalogue by Diego Barbosa Machado, Bibliotheca Lusitana historica, critica e cronologica, I-IV (Lisbon 1741-1759).

The second letter is a 24-line reply to one sent to him by the young Lorenzo Ramírez. Lipsius expresses his satisfaction at his correspondent’s having established a friendship with his own old friend Delrius. Martinus Antonius Delrius (Antwerp 1551, Louvain 1608) had been teaching Sacred Scripture at the University of Salamanca since 1603. In a letter written to Delrius on the same day, 1605 02 03 (cf. Gerlo & Vervliet, Inventaire, p. 379), we learn that Lipsius wrote to a Spaniard named Ramirezius («Sed heus Ramirezius ille egregius: & scripsi»), who is not identified by A. Ramírez, Epistolario de Justo Lipsio y los españoles, 176, n. 245. In this ignored letter, Lipsius thanks Lorenzo Ramírez for his gift of the book by Sanctus Orientius and promises to look out some notes on Martial which he previously used with Raderus, that is, Matthaeus Rader, S. I. (Inichingen 1561, Munich 1634), for the commentary which Lorenzo Ramírez was preparing. In fact, the publication of the second edition of Sancti Orientii episcopi Illiberitani Commonitorium, iterum emendatum ac notis secundis illustratum a Martino Delrio (Salamanca: A. Taberniel, 1604; first edited by Delrius himself: Antwerp 1600), was financed by Lorenzo Ramírez, who wrote a short prologue dated XV. Kal. Octobreis MDCIV. On the other hand, the commentary on Martial was published under the title: HYPOMNEMATA AD LIB. SPECTACVLORVM ET QVATVOR PRIMOS EPIGRAMMATΩN M. Valerii Martialis, collecta ex schedis succisivis Domini Laurentii Ramirez de Prado, which were included in the edition of the complete text in: M. VALERII MARTIALIS EPIGRAMMATVM LIBRI XV (Paris: Michaelis Sonnius, 1607). For the controversy aroused by this commentary, cf. F. R. Hausmann, «Martialis, M. Valerius», in F. E. Cranz, V. Brown, P. O. Kristeller, eds., Catalogus translationum et commentariorum, IV (Washington 1980) 249-296.

Finally, Lipsius also returns to the interpretation of the same passage of Tacitus, this time with reference to the phrase: quippe alia parente geniti. Lorenzo Ramírez proposed the reading quippe alta parente geniti. Lipsius would rather have another expression (Tuum non sperno si dixisset expressius: tali aut illâ parente geniti).

All of these proposed readings are to be found in the above-mentioned commentary in the posthumous edition of 1607, including the suggestion alta parente which Lipsius claims to have been sent by a certain scholar from Spain:

Scripsit ad me ex Hispania vir doctus, in veteri libro se legisse: quippe alta parente. quod ad nostrum illum sensum faciat, sed mallem aliud verbi. (C. Cornelii Taciti Opera quae exstant. Iustus Lipsius postremum recensuit [Antwerp 1607] 100-101, n. 169).

Jozef Ruysschaert, Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite: une méthode de critique textuelle au XVIe siècle (Turnhout 1949) 179, n. 4, echoed this critical commentary in his important study (alia (M); C07: tali ou illa «[vir doctus ex Hispania : alta]»), and also observes, in connection with this vir doctus ex Hispania: “Il s’agit sans doute de M. Sarmiento de Mendoza”. Now, however, with these new letters of Lipsius which I have published in due course, «Dos cartas desconocidas de Justo Lipsio, y otras seis que le atañen, en el epistolario de Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado (1583-1658)», Humanistica Lovaniensia 47 (1998) 278-331, we have evidence that the vir doctus who had sent him the reading alta parente from Spain was in fact Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado. (Translation by J. J. Zoltowski).