As part of the sixteenth century's intellectual "triumvirate," which included Joseph Scaliger and Isaac Casaubon, Justus Lipsius formulated a humanist scholarship aimed ultimately at practical application in both public and personal affairs.

Justus Lipsius distinguished himself as a student of the classics, first at the Jesuit college at Cologne and then at the university in Leuven (Louvain). In 1569, soon after completing his studies, he published a precocious volume of Varia Lectiones, a collection of philological observations on classical texts. This initial work had...