JUSTUS LIPSIUS AND THE CENTO FORM George Hugo Tucker How better to preface a study devoted to the cento form and to the conscious manipulation by Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) of that ‘patch- work’-form than with a quotation—or rather, with an extract of a ‘tissue’ of quotations? Not of Lipsius’s Latin prose-cento, the six books of Politica of 1589, belonging to his period in Calvinist Leiden (1578–1591),1 nor even of their subsequent companion volume—also a cento-‘patchwork’ of sorts—the two books of Monita et exempla politica composed in 1596 and published in 1605, during Lipsius’s final period in Catholic Leuven (1592–1606), as a further examination and illustration of the subject headings of the first two books of the Politica.2 No, in the infinite recycling and recombination of textual 1 Politicorum, sive civilis doctrinae libri sex (Leiden, off. Plantiniana, Franciscus Raphelengius: 1589 [initially quarto edn., then octavo edn.]); Politica. Six Books of Politics or Political Instruction, ed., transl. & introd. J. Waszink, Bibliotheca Latinitatis Novæ (Assen: 2004); cf. Waszink J., “Instances of Classical Citations in the Politica of Justus Lipsius: their Use and Purposes”, Humanistica Lovaniensia: Journal of Neo-Latin Studies 46 (1997) 240–257; id., “Inventio in the Politica: Commonplace-books and the Shape of Political Theory”, in Enenkel K.—Heesakkers C. (eds), Lipsius in Leiden: Studies in the Life and Works of a Great Humanist on the Occasion of his 450th Anniversary (Voorthuizen: 1997) 141–162. On the Politica as a prose-cento and commonplace– book, respectively, see: Lafond J., “Le Centon et son usage dans la littérature morale et politique”, in Lafond J.—Stegmann A. (eds), L’Automne de la Renaissance 1580–1630. XXIIe colloque d’études humanistes, Tours 2–13 juillet 1979, De Pétrarque à Descartes 41 (Paris: 1981) 117–128 [re-pr. in id., Lire, vivre où mènent les mots: De Rabelais aux formes brèves de la prose, Lumière Classique 22 (Paris: 1999) 69–83]; and Moss A., “The Politica of Justus Lipsius and the Commonplace-book”, Journal of the History of Ideas 59, 3 (1998) 421–436; id., “Vision fragmentée et unitaire: les ‘Politiques’ et les recueils de lieux-communs”, in Mouchel C. (éd.), Juste Lipse (1547–1606) en son temps. Actes du colloque de Strasbourg, 1994, Colloques, congrès et conférences sur la Renaissance 6 (Paris: 1996) 471–478. 2 Iusti Lipsii Monita et exempla Politica. Libri duo. Qui Virtutes et Vitia Principum spectant (Antwerp, off. Plantiniana, Ioannes Moretus: 1605)—an incomplete companion to the Politica; see Tournoy G.—Deceulaer H., “Justus Lipsius and his UnfinishedMonita et Exempla Politica: The Royal Privilege of 1597”, in De Landtsheer J.—Delsaerdt P. (eds), Iam illustravit omnia: Justus Lipsius als lievelings auteur van het Plantijnse Huis, De Gulden Passer 84 (Antwerp: 2006) 193–200. On the Monita et exempla politica and its further planned, but un-published books, see also Papy J., “An Unpublished Dialogue by Justus Lipsius on Military Prudence and the Causes of War: The Monita et exempla politica de re militari (1605)”, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 65, 164 george hugo tucker matter that the cento form represents, where fitter first to turn than to Lipsius’s English centonist-successor Robert Burton (1577–1640), author of the ‘macaronic’ (English-Latin) prose-cento The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621–1651)?3 In so doing, we shall illustrate not only Lip- sius’s own cento-text and pronouncements about it, which served as Burton’s most obvious model, but also those of Lipsius’s contemporary, the essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592; Essais 1580, 1588, 1595), Burton’s other notable predecessor and model (mediated by the Eng- lish translation [1603] of John Florio [1553–1625]),4 to whom Lipsius sent a copy of his Politica in 1589, as is recorded in the Essais (I:26 “De l’institution des enfans”), and who was arguably no less a (‘macaronic’) weaver of quotations and textual ‘patchworks’ than either Lipsius or Burton,5 as well as a shrewd commentator upon the cento form itself,6 1 (2003) 135–148; Van Houdt T., “Justus Lipsius, Monita et Exempla Politica”, in Tournoy G.—Papy J.—De Landtsheer J. (eds), Lipsius en Leuven. Catalogus van de tentoonstelling in de Centrale Bibliotheek te Leuven, 18 september–17 oktober 1997, Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia 13 (Leuven: 1997) 236–239 (No. 73). Cf. Evans R.C.—Bryan L., “Ben Jonson, Neostoicism, and the Monita of Justus Lipsius”, The Ben Jonson Journal 1 (1994) 105–124. 3 In quoting Burton’s Anatomy, and its use of sources, we are indebted to Burton R., The Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. T.C. Faulkner—N.K. Kiessling—R.L. Blair [1632 edn., collated with 1638 & 1651 edns], introd. J.B. Bamborough, Oxford English Texts, 6 vols (Oxford: 1989–2000), and id., The Anatomy of Melancholy [ed. pr. 1621; various edns 1621–1651], ed. H. Jackson [collating 5th & 6th edns of 1638 & 1651], Everyman’s Library 886, 3 vols (London-New York: 1932). On Burton’s neo-Latin citational practice, see Mulryan J., “Neo-Latin Sources in Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy”, in McFarlane I.D. (ed.), Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Sanctandreani. Proceedings of the 5th International Congress of Neo-Latin Sudies, St Andrews 24 August to 1 September 1982, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 38 (Binghamton, NY: 1986) 459–463. On the self-conscious, writerly pose of Burton’s composite, derivative ‘Democritus’, and its ‘inspiration’ in turn of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, see Donaldson I., “‘The Fripperie of Wit’: Jonson and Plagiarism”, in Kewes P. (ed.), Plagiarism in Early Modern England (Palgrave MacMillan, 2003) 119–133 (120–121). 4 The Essayes of Michael Lord of Montaigne, transl. J. Florio [1603], The World’s Classics, 3 vols (London—New York—Toronto—Oxford: 1904–1906). 5 On Montaigne’s own art of the cento, see Tucker G.H., “Déchets, déchéance et recyclage–corps, corps du monde et corps-text–chez Joachim Du Bellay et Michel de Montaigne”, in Rubin D.L. (ed.), Strategic Rewriting, EMF Studies in Early Modern France 8 (Charlottesville, VA: 2002) 1–24; id., “Montaigne et les néo-latins: ‘Capilupus’ et l’art du centon dans les Essais”, in Magnien C. (ed.), Montaigne et les Anciens, Montaigne Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum 17, 1–2 (March, 2005) 163–174 [pace Tarrête A., “Centons”, in Desan P. (dir. & ed.), Dictionnaire de Michel de Montaigne, Dictionnaires et Références 14 (Paris: 2004) 148–150, for whom Montaigne’s use of the cento technique in his writing is at most ‘localisée et sporadique’ (150)]. 6 See Tucker G.H., “Mantua’s ‘Second Virgil’: Du Bellay, Montaigne and the Curious Fortune of Lelio Capilupi’s Centones ex Virgilio [Romæ, 1555]”, in Tournoy G.—Sacré D. (eds), Ut granum sinapis: Essays on Neo-Latin Literature in Honour of Jozef IJsewijn, .