This treatise is a sequel to Vives' On the Education of the Christian Woman, published in Brill's series, Selected Works of J.L. Vives. It studies the institution of marriage from a male vantage point, with interesting observations on female psychology, anticipating his later work, De anima. Vives insists more here on the weakness and instability of the woman than in the previous treatise, relying on the biological tenets of Aristotle and Galen. Much attention is given to the choice of a wife and to the husband's role as tutor of his spouse and disciplinarian. The marriage debt...

This is a critical, annotated, bilingual edition, with introduction and cumulative indices, of the last three of Vives' five speeches on the abdication of Sulla, the Roman Republican dictator. These five declamations form an unprecedented dramatic ensemble, grounded in thorough familiarity with the ancient sources, but amplified occasionally by elements of historical fiction. The third oration is Sulla's formal abdication, defending his sometimes savage record. In the fourth, Sulla's enemy Lepidus the new consul promises to undo Sulla's program; in the fifth, at Sulla's death, Lepidus...

A literary dialogue between a Christian and a Muslim, maintaining the superiority of Christianity: this volume presents a critical Latin text and the first ever English translation, annotated, of this important but hitherto largely overlooked document among sources in Christian - Muslim relations. Some of Vives's criticisms of Muhammad and Islam are based on scripture or reason; many others rely on lampoon of Arab or Islamic folk tales. Still, he censures Muslim followers only narrowly, far less for moral failings or hatred of Christians than for gullibility in accepting Islam. Book Four...

Juan Luis Vives’ 1533 treatise on rhetoric, De ratione dicendi, is a highly original but largely neglected Renaissance Latin text. David Walker’s critical edition, with introduction, facing translation and notes, is the first to appear in English. The conception of rhetoric which Vives elaborates in the De ratione dicendi differs significantly from that which is found in other rhetorical treatises written during the humanist Renaissance. Rhetoric as Vives conceives it is part of the discipline of self-knowledge, and involves a distinct way of thinking about the way kinds of rhetorical...

The De Europae dissidiis et republica (On Conflicts in Europe and on the Commonwealth) is a collection published by Vives in 1526 that has been called his “summa politica.” It contains five letters, to Henry VIII and three prelates including Cardinal Wolsey; a Lucian-style underworld satire on European wars and the Turkish threat; and Latinizations of two political speeches by Isocrates. It counsels the pursuit of peace following Christian principles, but it also explores the possibility of an aggressive war against the Turks as the means of unifying and saving European Christendom. It...