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Justus Lipsius, otherwise known as Joost Lips, was born in 1547, in the Flemish town of Overijse. As the son of a wealthy catholic family, he received a humanist education of excellent quality. As a young adult, he moved to Rome, where he worked as the secretary of cardinal Granvelle. While staying there, he immersed himself in the study of the classics. Back in the Low Countries, he worked as a teacher at the university of Leuven and started to annotate the work of Tacitus. A few years later, the famous Antwerpian printer Christoffel Plantijn would publish his commentaries. 

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The Roman author and senator Publius Cornelius Tacitus lived in the first century CE. and can be seen as one of the most important historians of his age. He wrote many works regarding the history of the Roman Empire, of which the Annales is the most well-known. In the Annales, he describes the period of Tiberius’ reign, from 14 CE until the death of emperor Nero in 68 CE. During the renaissance, the classics increasingly sparked attention among academics. 

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So did Tacitus, whose works were an interesting source for those who wanted to delve into the history of the Roman Empire. In 1574, the editio princeps of Lipsius' commentary on Tacitus' Annales was published. Lipsius had been working on this project since 1571, and in 1573 he used it to spark the interest of the famous Antwerp printer Plantijn He wanted to publish it quickly, before Frankfurt's spring fair was due to start. However, political tensions in Lipsius' hometown of Jena prevented him from continuing to work on his book: in March he fled to Cologne. Upon arrival, he sent his manuscript to Plantijn, after which it was quickly published. The manuscript contained several letters and essays by and about Tacitus, and about a hundred pages of notae by Lipsius, in which he considers and explains the texts. 

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Lipsius’ circumstances were troublesome. In his letters to Plantijn, which are still preserved in the Plantijn-Moretus museum archives, we read that he was in poor health. Moreover, he mentionsthat southern Dutch political tensions were tense when he returned to his town of Overijse in 1575. Despite these obstacles, he worked on correcting his first published version, after which a second edition could be marketed in 1581. Meanwhile, Lipsius left again for the northern Netherlands, where he made a career as a lecturer at the new University of Leiden. 

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In 1583, Plantijn temporarily moved his activities to Leiden, fleeing the political conflicts of Antwerp. Here he was welcomed by Lipsius, with whom he had established a good connection in the meantime, and who appointed him as the university printer in Leiden. This would be the location for the next prints. Plantine's son-in-law and successor Johannes Moretus would print the fourth and fifth editions in Leiden. 

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Lipsius faced competition in 1600. The Italian humanist Curtius Pichena also published his own collection of annotations on Tacitus that year. He appeared to have drawn much inspiration from Lipsius' publications – according to Lipsius in his letter from 1600 to Balthasar Moretus. Pichena's publication motivated him to publish the latest version of his commentaries.  

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The second edition

As mentioned before, the second edition by Lipsius was created under dire circumstances for the author. Away from his hometown and oftentimes ill, he had trouble finishing his annotations for the second edition. However, Plantijn grew more and more impatient, wanting to present the revised annotations on the market in Frankfurt. They came to an agreement: Lipsius would send Plantijn his renewed annotations and commentaries for only the Annales – the Historiae would have to wait for another half a year. In his note to the reader, Lipsius apologizes for taking so much time. He emphasizes the complex nature of the text, and the difficulty of the process, which he did not want to finish in a hurry. Lipsius does not disappoint: the second edition of the Annales was worth the wait, with double as many annotations as in the first edition. This edition also contains extensive commentaries after the Annales, and many poems dedicated to the people who played a part in the creation of the book. A peculiar feature of the edition saved in the KNIR-library, is the absence of a genealogical tree of the Julian-Claudian house, which is usually present in the second edition. This genealogical tree was included for his friend Janus Lernutius. He is not mentioned in the rest of the book. Perhaps the tree has been cut out from the version kept at the KNIR.

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Furthermore, the copykept at the KNIR contains some other interesting elements. A star-shaped watermark is present on the first page. This watermark is not used in many books from the Low Countries, according to the Bernstein Database. It is however found in a book from the Italian architect and author Iacomo Barozzio da Vignola, printed in Rome. Perhaps the paper used for the book is of Italian origin. The book does not contain many images, except for page 79, where a treatise is given on keys. Decorated initials were printed with wood engravings. The book cover is newer than the text block: a small hole in the lower part of the pages gives away that the binding is not original, since the hole does not occur in the cover. 

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The works of Lipsius would be read and revised for many years to come. And they would not solely stay in the Low Countries: editions of commentaries on Tacitus’ Annales are nowadays present in libraries in Vienna and Rome. By writing about Lipsius’ commentaries, the words of Tacitus stay alive in the minds of contemporary academics. Lipsius has, in his own words, held a torch for others to further examine Tacitus’ works.

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Written by Katelijn Voois.

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Description of the copy at the KNIR

Author: Justus Lipsius

Title: Iusti Lipsi Ad annales Corn. Taciti liber commentarius, sive notae

Printer’s mark: Ex Officina Christophori Plantiniana, 1581

Colation: 8° : *-1* A-Z8 a-i8 

Signature: Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut te Rome, Pregiato octavo Pb Taci Lipsius Annales

 

References

Jeanine de Landtsheer, P.M. Swan, Karen Mak, and Nancy Senior, ‘Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius: Their Editing and Printing History.’ In: The Unfolding of Words: Commentary in the Age of Erasmus, ed. by Judith Rice Henderson, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), pp. 188-233.

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José Ruysschaert, Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite : une méthode de critique textuelle au XVIe siècle (Louvain: Bibliothèque de l’Université “Bureaux du Recueil,” 1949).

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Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero trans. And intro. by J. C. Yardley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).