Juan de Mariana


Image:El padre Juan de Mariana.jpg|thumb|right|240px|Juan de Mariana
Juan de Mariana was a Spanish Jesuit priest, Scholastic, historian, and member of the Monarchomachs.

Life

Juan de Mariana was born in Talavera, Toledo (Crown of Castile)|Kingdom of Toledo]. He studied at the Complutense University of Alcalá de Henares and was admitted at the age of 17 into the Society of Jesus.
In 1561, he began teaching theology in Rome. Among his pupils were Robert Bellarmine, who became a cardinal. He traveled to Sicily. In 1569 he was sent to Paris, where his expositions of the writings of Thomas Aquinas attracted large audiences. In 1574, owing to ill health, he obtained permission to return to Spain; the rest of his life passed at the Jesuits' house in Toledo in vigorous literary activity. He died in Madrid.

Works

Juan de Mariana's great work, Historiae de rebus Hispaniae, first appeared in twenty books at Toledo in 1592; ten books were subsequently added, extending the work to the accession of Charles V in 1519. In a still later abstract the author covered the accession of Philip IV in 1621. It was so well received that Mariana was induced to translate it into Castilian.
Mariana's Historiae, though in many parts uncritical, is regarded for its research, accuracy, sagacity and style. Of his other works the most interesting is the treatise De rege et regis institutione. In its sixth chapter, the question whether it is lawful to overthrow a tyrant is freely discussed and answered in the affirmative, a circumstance which brought much odium upon the Jesuits, especially after the assassination of Henry IV of France, in 1610. A volume entitled Tractatus VII. theologici et historici, where Mariana criticized the royal monetary politic, was put upon the Index Expurgatorius. This led to the confinement of its author by the Inquisition and to a process of lèse-majesté. Allegedly, either the De rege et regis institutione or the De monetae mutatione influenced Chapter 29 of Part One of Cervantes's Don Quijote. During his confinement, his papers were discovered to include criticism of the Jesuits. This was published after his death as Discursus de erroribus qui in forma gubernationis societatis Jesu occurrunt, and was reprinted by order of Charles III when he banished the Jesuits from Spain.
According to Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, an academic economist specializing in the School of Salamanca, Juan de Mariana and other Spanish scholastics provided much of the theoretical basis for Austrian School economic thought.

English translations