MARIANA, Juan. - Jesuit, theologian, and humanist, born at Talavera (diocese of Toledo) in 1536, died at Toledo on 16 Feb. 1624. He taught exegesis in Rome from 1561; theology in Sicily from 1564 and in Paris from 1569. In 1574, for reasons of health, he moved to Toledo and devoted himself to writing his works.
His masterpiece is considered to be the history of Spain, first written in Latin: De rebus Hispaniae (Toledo 1592, the first 20 books; Magnona 1605, the complete work in 30 books), later revised and translated into Spanish by him: Historia general de España (2 vols., Toledo 1601). Other works: De ponderibus et mensuris (ibid. 1609); Tractatus septem (Cologne 1609); Scholia in Vetus et Novum Testamentum (Madrid 1613).
But two works made his name more widely known: De rege et regis institutione libri tres (Toledo 1599), in which he discusses the legitimacy of tyrannicide (I. I, ch. 6) and goes further than many medieval theologians (who held that it was meritorious for someone to kill a usurper in order to free his country, if there were no higher authority capable of pronouncing