Juan Pablo Mártir Rizo
Juan Pablo Mártir Rizo[1] (1593 – 1642) was a Spanish Roman Catholic priest, political teorist, historian and poet.
Biography
Juan Pablo Mártir Rizo was born in Madrid. Mártir Rizo was ayo of Melchor Hurtado de Mendoza. In 1636 he entered the Congregation of priests in Madrid. He translated from a Latin version of Aristotle's Poetics, a version that has only recently been published. This inspired his classicism in matters of aesthetics and that is why he confronted Lope de Vega and his theater, writing anonymously with Pedro de Torres Rámila the Spongia (1617), a libel intended to discredit him. He was a friend of Francisco de Quevedo, a neo-stoic like him; in fact, he translated a biography of Seneca the Younger from French. Likewise, he supported Quevedo when the latter confronted the supporters of making Saint Teresa of Jesus patron saint of Spain and defended that a male patron saint like Saint Jacob was better suited.
He signed his works with the surname "Martyr", as the grandson of the famous historian and humanist Peter Martyr d'Anghiera and wishing to imprint the lineage of the famous intellectual in the service of the Catholic Monarchs on his acclaimed humanism, but already in his own time his surname was confused with that of "Martín", a practice not uncommon even today. As a political writer, he wrote the treatise North of Princes (1626), which is one of the many European works intended to refute political Machiavellianism, opposing it to Tacitism.
Essentially a historian, or rather a biographer, he felt the curiosity of a humanist for the exemplary figures of antiquity in the manner of Suetonius and Plutarch, writing or translating biographies such as those of Romulus, Maecenas, Seneca and Sejanus; his translations were made from French, a language he mastered. He also attempted to translate and left incomplete the History of Henry IV of France written by his great model, Pierre Matthieu; he also wrote the history of the Duke of Biron and that of Felipa of Catania or Catanea, a washerwoman of Naples referred to by Giovanni Boccaccio in his De casibus virorum illustrium, lib. IX, but which Mártir translated from Pierre Matthieu's Histoire des prosperitez malheureuses d'une femme Cathenoise (1617), with an interesting prologue by Quevedo; the theme was so suggestive that it also inspired other Spanish playwrights of the 17th century.
The examples that Mártir wielded in these characters were prototypes of individual behavior; moral examples that had a projection in the political plane very much to the taste of his time. He is also the author of a history of Cuenca, which caused him quite a few problems (Francisco Morovelli de la Puebla[2] and the cities of Córdoba and Seville sued him for including these cities among those that rose up against King Charles I in the Revolt of the Comuneros) and of a History of the Wars of Flanders, in which — as José Antonio Maravall stated in his essential study on the author[3] — he joins so many writers who "defended Spain against foreign slander", such as his friend Francisco de Quevedo or Diego de Saavedra Fajardo.[4] His poetry has not yet been collected or edited.[5]
See also
Works
- Historia de la vida de Lucio Anneo Séneca (1625; 1944)
- Norte de príncipes (1626; 1945; 1989)
- Historia de la vida de Mecenas (1626)
- Historia de la muy noble y leal ciudad de Cuenca (1629; 1974)
- Defensa de la verdad que escrivio D. Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, Cavallero professo de la Orden de Santiago, a favor del Patronado del mismo Apostol unico Patron de España, contra los errores que imprimio don Francisco Morovelli de Puebla, natural de Sevilla, contradiciendo este unico Patronato [que la escribió en Madrid su patria, a 10 de julio de 1628] (1628; 1932)
- Historia trágica de la vida y muerte del duque de Biron (1629; 1635)
- El Rómulo (1633; 1989)
Translations
- Pierre Matthieu, Vida del dichoso desdichado (Elio Seyano) (1625)
- Pierre Matthieu, Historia de la prosperidad infeliz de Felipa de Catanea (1625)
- Pierre Matthieu, Historia de las guerras de Flandes, contra la de Geronimo de Franqui Conestaggio (1627)
- Poética de Aristóteles traducida de latín. Ilustrada y comentada por Juan Pablo Mártir Rizo (1965)
Notes
- ↑ Often mistakenly called Martín Rizo.
- ↑ Francisco Morovelli de la Puebla, defender of the Teresian patronage, had already attacked the santiaguista Quevedo and Mártir had defended him; Morovelli, who had it sworn, responded with an Apology of the city of Seville, head of all Spain, which shows and spreads the constant loyalty that has always kept their kings: Against what Juan Pablo Martyr, in the history of the city of Cuenca, which he has brought to light this year of 1629, falsely says that Seville and Cordova were among those who rose up by community against Charles I, Seville, 1629.
- ↑ Maravall, José Antonio (1999). "Juan Pablo Mártir Rizo: Estudio Preliminar a Una Edición de Sus Obras." In: Estudios de Historia del Pensamiento Español, Serie Tercera: El Siglo del Barroco. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, pp. 387–436.
- ↑ Santos López, Modesto (2011). "Juan Pablo Mártir Rizo." Diccionario Biográfico Español. Real Academia de la Historia.
- ↑ One article highlights the discovery of another work by Martir previously unknown and offers a paleographic edition of it: Anna Maria Mignone, "Un inedito del Seicento della Civica Biblioteca Aprosiana di Ventimiglia: la Consolatoria al senor Juan Maria Cavana in the death of his father di Juan Pablo Martir Rizo", Quaderno dell'Aprosiana. Miscellanea di Studi, Old Series, Vol. I (1984), pp. 41–62.
