Lipsius in Rome. Clement VIII, Philip III and the Deployment of Tacitism in Spanish Diplomacy

Abstract

In the midst of the Counter-Reformation the Court of Rome offers the opportunity to verify the types of the Reason of State practiced in the catholic countries of southern Europe. The aim is to demonstrate the deployment of tacitism in Spanish diplomacy in Italy, which Philip III approved in order to ensure the quietud and neutralise movements contrary to the interests of the Monarchy. The historiography that has studied the pontificate of Clement VIII doesn’t go so far as to consider the type of prudence that ruled his temporal government, that is why it has been necessary to address it. Much of the discourse is based on Politicorum sive Civilis Doctrinae libri sex of J. Lipsius. The surprising delay observed in the Spanish edition (from the time it was officially approved until its publication) is studied from archival information, and also the coincidence with the Italian edition published in Rome in 1604, which is analyzed together with copies authorized and manipulated.