When Leon de Castro questioned the orthodoxy of Arias JMontanus for introducuig rabbinical readings and commentaries into the Plantina liet/ia or Ph'dippina Polyglot, a new edition of the Complutensis which JMon- tanus had undertaken at the command of Philip II, Mariana silenced the noisy polemic by his historical, ecclesiastical, and Biblical lore, as well as by the fair and candid tone of his discussion ; but by this step he lost all chance of preferment, which, however, he was glad to exchange for learned leisure and the gratification of his love of historical research. IMariana published next, in 1599, his imperfect work, De Ponderibus et Men- suris, a subject which his countrymen Lebrija, or Ne- brija, Diego Cov-arrubias, Pedro Ambrosio IMorales, and Arias Montanus had treated before, and which iMsen- schmidt, Freret, Paucton, etc., have pursued much fur- ther since. Observing that the sudden rise and ascend- ancy of Spain excited a general interest and curiosity abroad, while its origin and causes were either unknown or misunderstood, antl that the Spanish historians, though numerous, were at that time little read, and some of them hardly known, he came forward with a History of Spain (in twenty books, under the title Uistorice de rebus IIispunia;,Toleti, 1598, lib. xx, fob, but subsequently ex- tended to thirty books, in the complete edition of 1(305, publ. at Mayence). This is a compact and lucid exhibi- tion of an unbroken chronological narrative, from the ori- gin of the Spanish nation to the death of Ferdinand the Catholic (a period of twenty-five centuries at least), and embraces the history of all the Spanish kingdoms, which had hitherto been treated separately. A subject so ex- tensive, expressed in classical Latin, met with universal favor and acceptance. A Spanish translation soon be- came necessary, and fortunately Mariana accomplished the task himself, and carried the work through four suc- cessive Spanish editions in his lifetime. Mariana has been charged with credulity ; but traditions held sacred in times past, although rejected in the jiresent age — prodigies which formed part of history, and which Ma- riana could not dismiss with the disdainful smile of modern criticism, are spots which will never obscure the brilliancy of his digressions on some of the most im- portant events of the world — events which appear as great causes when so admirably interwoven with those peculiarly belonging to the history of Spain. The manly feelings of the historian, his noble indignation against crimes, his bold exposure of the misdeeds of princes and their abettors, deserve still higher commendation. Yet he, as well as Ferreras and Masden more recently, has spared a gross instance of queen Urraca's licentious con- duct; but, on the other hand, the defence of queen Blanca's honor is highly creditable to Jlariana. It is true also that Mariana did not always examine all the original authorities, as Kanke observes in the Kritik neuerer GescMchtsschreiber ; but to institute an inipiiry into every minor detail, to comprehend a wide field of inquiry, and yet to open new and to disdain all troiiden paths, would have required the perusal of whole libra- ries, and a single life would not have been suiticient to complete the undertaking. And if others bail been in- vited to join in the labor of the investigation, a motley compilation might have been the only result of so much research, which it is almost impossible ever to combine into one harmonious whole. Mariana's portraits of lords and favorites were found too original and faithful by the living, as in the case of the detestable Fernandez Ye- lasco, of Castile, and his worthy secretary Pedro Man- taono. The secretary, after having been a panegyrist of the new historian, tried to serve his master by his attack on iMariana, entitled .1 dcertencias a la Historia de Mari- ana. He was discovered, however, and roughly treated by Tamayo Vargas in La Defensa de Mariana. Prob- ably to this criticism may be traced many improve- ments in Mariana's second Spanish edition of his history, which appeared at ^ladrid in 1G08. It is on this edition, and the various readings selected from the editions of 1617 and 1G23, that the edition of Valencia is based,
IMARIANA
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which contains ample notes and iUustrations (1783-9G, y vols. 8vu). This edition also closes, like the original, with the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic (1515-lG). Tliere have subsequently been published at Madrid — 1. The continuation of Mariana by Minana, translated from the Latin by Komero (1804, fol.) ; 2. A complete Jlariana, continued down to the death of Charles III, 17.S.S,by Sabau y Blanco (1817-22, 20 vols. 4to); 3. An- other by the same, brought down to the year 1808 (9 vols. 8vo, with portraits).
The profound erudition of Mariana is also displayed in another publication, his Tractatus Septem (Cologne, 1609). The second of these treatises, De Editione Vul- ffuta, is an epitome of his report on the fierce controver- sy between Arias Montanus and Leon de Castro. The fourth, JJe Mutatione Munefa', provoked the indigna- tion of the duke of Lerma and his partners in the sys- tem of general pecidation and frauds which Mariana ex- posed. He foretold the calamities which threatened the ■Spanish nation; and his words, which had been disre- garded, were remembered when the opportunity was gone. As a reward for proclaiming such unwelcome truths, at the age of seventy-three he suffered a whole year of judicial trickery, humiliartons, and confinement in the convent of St. Francis at Madrid. In searching his papers another exposure was found, entitled Del Go- biei~rw de la Comparda, or on the defects of his order, in •which he also pointed out the means of correcting them. Copies of this MS. had multiplied so alarmingly that, the year after the author's death, the general of the Jesuits, Vitaleschi, issued a circular, dated Kome, July 29, 1G2-1, enjoining the collection of such papers in order to be burned. Still that measure did not prevent its being printed at Bordeaux in 1G25, and reprinted else- where in several languages. This curious circular was found in the archives of the Jesuits of Valencia at the time of their sudden expulsion from the Spanish domin- ions in 1767. After his persecution he made an epitome of the Bibliotheca of Photius, translated some homilies, revised his History of Spain, and published a supple- ment, or, rather, a summary, of concise annals of Spain from 1515 to 1612. At the age of eighty-three he pub- lished his Scholia on the Old and New Testament, avail- ing himself of the best Hebrew commentaries, and some valuable and very early MSS., ^vhich dated from the age of the ancient Gothic dominion in Spain. This work, though written at this advanced stage of life, "displays a degree of vigor and of learning which might well pro- voke the admiration of modern Biblical students." It secured for him a place among the best commentators in the Ilistoire Critique du Vieux Testament of the hy- percritical father Simon, who is usually vnifavorable to Spaniards. Bayle, in his Dictionary, supposes Mariana to be also author of a Avorlv RespitUica Christiana, but neither Alcgambe nor Nicolas Antonio, both of them Spaniards, mentions it. Stevens, the English translator of Mariana's history, misstates some particulars of the author'.s life, and very unaptly compares him with Kal- eigh. Mariana left MSS. of at least twice the extent of all his publications. He died Feb. G, 1623, in the eighty- seventli year of his age and the forty-ninth of his re- tirement to Toledo. See Mondejar. A drertcncias a Ma- riana ; Juicio y Noticia de los Historiadores de Espuna ; Andrade, ]'ida de Mariana; Acosta, Vida de Mariana; Andr. Schot., ]lispan. Illustrat.; Baronius, Annal. Eccle- siast. ; Bernard. tJerald., Pro Senatn Veneto, quoted in Colomesius, llispania Orientalis; Rene Kapin, Reflex- ions sur Vllistiiire ; Nicolas Antonio, Bihliothera JJispa- nonova ; Saavedra, Respith/ica l.ittraria ; Tamayo de Vargas, Vida del P.. Juan Mariana ; Alcgambe, 7jiW/o//;. script, societafis Jesii ; Bayle, ///.</. IJict. s. v. ; Prosper Marchand, Dictionnaire : Frelier, Theatnim V.irorwn cla- orum, i, 347; WoUmann, Gcsch. u. Politik, 1801, i, 2G5; Sismondi, lAlteratitre du Midi de V Europe, iv, 100 ; Bou- terweck, flixt. de la I.itteniture Esparpiole, 1812, vol. ii ; Ticknor, History oj' Spanish Literature, iii, 143; Hanke, Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtsschreiber (1824); Ilcrzog,