Recent Lipsius studies: Iusti Lipsi Epistolae (ILE)

Last June, Princeton-based professor Anthony Grafton was seen conversing, at the “The Jewish Book in a Christian World” conference at Antwerp (19 June 2008 post), with Dirk van Miert, the Dutch Neo-Latin scholar, based at London, with whom Grafton is collaborating on a critical edition of Joseph Scaliger’s collected letters.

In 2002, Grafton became a recipient of the prestigious Balzan Prize. Prize winners are required to spend half of the prize to finance research in their field, preferably by young scholars. Grafton chose the critical edition of letters written by or addressed to Joseph Scaliger, a project carried out at the Warburg Institute in London. The Scaliger Institute at the University of Leiden Library is co-sponsoring.

The result will be a 7-volume opus covering about 1,400 letters. The project’s aim is to provide “crisp, reliable” transcripts, according to the Balzan Prize website, and to present the letters both electronically and in print. Initially, the editors thought the corpus to encompass some 1,000 letters. To their surprise, their thorough work yielded much more fruit, and far exceeds the initial estimate.

Along similar lines, how is ILE?

Short for Iusti Lipsi Epistolae, Belgium’s own critical edition of the collected letters of a humanist, Justus Lipsius (1547-1606)? ILE was initiated in print in 1978, with the publication of a first part, which covered the letters written by Lipsius in the period 1564 until 1583. Aloïs Gerlo, M.A. Nauwelaerts and H.D.L. Vervliet served as editors.

Ten years earlier, in 1968, Gerlo, Nauwelaerts and Vervliet had made an inventory of letters to and from Lipsius. According to their estimate, the corpus consisted of 4,300 letters. Meanwhile research for ILE has yielded more letters, including overlooked scrap versions, so that the editors see the first estimate augmented by almost two hundred. ILE has set rules to define the corpus.

As longstanding publication series, Iusti Lipsi Epistolae is the pride of the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten (KVAB) at Brussels. The complete set can be ordered directly via the KVAB website.

So far, the following parts have been published:

-part I, covering 1564-1583, published in 1978;

-part II (1584-1587), edited in 1983 by M.A. Nauwelaerts with the help of S.Sué;

-part III (1588-1590), edited in 1987 by S.Sué and H. Peeters;

-part V (1592), edited in 1991 by Jeanine De Landtsheer;

-part VI (1593), edited in 1994 by Jeanine De Landtsheer;

-part VII (1594), edited in 1997 by Jeanine De Landtsheer;

-part VIII (1595), edited in 2004 by Jeanine De Landtsheer;

-part XIII (1600), edited in 2000 by Jan Papy;

-part XIV (1601), edited in 2006 by Jeanine De Landtsheer.

Other parts are well on their way to see printed form as well. Four have been or will be the subject of a PhD thesis. Part [IV], covering the year 1591, has been the subject of a doctoral thesis in 1974/5 by S.Sué. PhDs have been defended at the university of Leuven on part [IX], covering 1596, by Hugo Peeters (2007), and part [XVI], covering 1603, by Filip Vanhaecke (2004). In 2009, Tom Deneire will present his work on part [XI], covering the year 1598.

In all likelihood, ILE will count not nineteen, but twenty volumes. Part XIX will conclude the series, and promises to include all newly found letters pertaining to older parts, a general index, and a general concordance table. Part XX will offer a separate treatment of fictional letters.

Standard quotation is ILE, followed by roman letters, followed by a comma and three 2-digit numbers for year, month, and day respectively for the dates. Example: ILE V, 92 02 01, or a letter in ILE, part V, dated 1 February 1592, in which Richard Stanihurst gives Lipsius the full story of a trip to Spain. Whenever a newly found letter is accounted for in the inventory from 1968, has yet to be published in the series, but has been referenced in print, the roman numeral stands between square brackets.

Recently, an unknown letter by Richard Stanihurst to Lipsius, written on 29 October 1583 resurfaced at the Maurits Sabbe library within the University of Leuven system. An exciting discovery for Jeanine De Landtsheer, ILE’s prime editor, who was preparing the exhibition about Lipsius held there in 2006. She published the letter in the 2006 yearbook of De Gulden Passer, scholarly publication of the Vereniging van Antwerpse Bibliofielen (bibliophile society at Antwerp) (De Gulden Passer, ISSN: 0777 5067), which was entirely devoted to Lipsius. We discuss its contents in another post.

The Scaliger and the Lipsius projects overlap, as both scholars were professors at Leiden, albeit at different times. They established epistolary contact by the intermediary of Antwerp printer Christophe Plantin. We also briefly mention the Clusius project, instigated at Leiden in 2004 for the publication of letters by Carolus Clusius (1526-1609) and a mapping of his network, which included Scaliger and Lipsius.

For Scaliger at Leiden, see Paul Hoftijzer, Adelaar in de wolken. De Leidse jaren van Josephus Justus Scaliger 1593-1609. Scaliger Instituut/Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden, 2005 (Kleine publicaties van de Leidse universteitsbibliotheek, ISSN 0921 9293, no. 69). Contributions by R. Bruegelmans, W.P. Gerritsen, H.J. De Jonge, Chris Heesakkers, Dirk Van Miert, Jeanine De Landtsheer, and Kasper van Ommen. This publication has Jeanine De Landtsheer’s article “Justus Lipsius en Josephus Justus Scaliger” (p.59-92).

For Lipsius at Leiden, see Jeanine De Landtsheer, Lieveling van de Latijnse taal. Justus Lipsius te Leiden herdacht bij zijn vierhonderdste sterfdag. Scaliger Instituut/Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden, 2006 (Kleine publicaties van de Leidse universteitsbibliotheek, ISSN 0921 9293, no. 72). Contributions by Hans W. Blom, Chris Heesakkers, Robert-Jan van den Hoorn, Nicolette Mout, and Kasper Van Ommen.

Lipsius’s arrival at Leiden in 1578, similar to that of Scaliger, was somewhat of a ‘Joyous Entry’ for the recently inaugurated university. Lipsius abandoned his professorial chair somewhat furtively in 1591. Ties between Leiden and Leuven –Lipsius’s final destination- were not too greatly shaken, as Chris Heesakkers, who documented Lipsius’s circle of friends at Leiden, concludes.

In 2006, the 400^th anniversary of Lipsius’s death was marked by two exhibitions, one at Leiden, with the catalogue Lieveling van de Latijnse taal, and one at Leuven, entitled Justus Lipsius (1547-1606). Een geleerde en zijn Europese netwerk. It was also marked by the yearbook of De Gulden Passer (Antwerp). The recurrence of scholars writing contributions for all three manifests a similar spirit of friendship.