MARIANA, JUAN, a distinguished Spanish historian and scholar, was b. at Talavera in 1537, and in 1,554 entered the then rising order of the Jesuits. His early studies, both in languages and theology, were so brilliant that he was appointed to teach in the schools. of his order, first at Rome (where the celebrated Bellarmine was one of his scholars) in. 1561, afterwards in Sicily in 1565, and finally in Paris in 1569. After a residence there of seven years his health became so much impaired that he was compelled to return to his native country, and settled at Toledo, where he resided till his death, at an extreme eld age, in 1624. His retirement, however, was not inconsistent with the most energetic and sustained literary activity. From an early period he devoted himself to a history of Spain, of which he published 20 books in 1592, and 10 additional books, carrying the narrative down to 1516, in 1605. The original of this history was Latin, the elegance and purity of which have secured for Mariana a place among the most distinguished of modern Latinists. Its great historical merit is also admitted, although with some,draw backs, even by Bayle. Mariana himself published a Spanish translation, which still remains one of the classics of the language. Among his other productions are a volume published at Cologne in 1609, consisting of seven treatises on various subjects; scholia on the Bible, which, although written at the age of 83, display a degree of vigor as of learning which raight provoke the admiration of modern biblical students; an edition of the works of Isidore of Seville, with notes and dissertations; and several similar works.
But the most celebrated of the works of Mariana is his well-known treatise, De live et Regis lastitutione, which appeared in 1599, and in which is raised the important ques tion whether it be lawful to overthrow a tyrant. Mariana decides that it is--even where the tyrant is not a usurper but a lawful king. See JESUITS. The principles or the book, in other particulars, are in the main the same as those of all modern constitu tional writers. The tyrannieide doctrines of this writer drew much odium upon the entire order of Jesuits; but it is only just to observe that while, upon the one hand, precisely the same doctrines were taught in almost the same words by several of the Protestant. contemporaries of Mariana (see Hallam's Literary' History, hi. 1.30-140); on the other, Mariana's book itself was formally condemned by the general Acquaviva, and the doc trine forbidden to be taught by membem of the order. ,