historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

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Chapter 8. The science of politics. The Institutiones politicae
ciple of imitatio that played an important role in the philological-historical
tradition that was so dominant at Leiden University in the first half of the
seventeenth century. The goal of the next two chapters, then, is to free Boxhorn
from the mould other people have wrongly put him in and to give him
his proper place in the history of seventeenth-century Dutch political thought.
Background to the Institutiones politicae
Boxhorn’s main political work, and the one which earned him a place among
the politica writers of the seventeenth century, was his Institutiones politicae. The
earliest edition of the Institutiones politicae appeared in the Holy Roman Empire
in 1656, some three years after Boxhorn’s death. 4 In the next fifty years at least
seven more editions were published: four in the Dutch Republic and three in
the Holy Roman Empire. 5 There are some considerable differences between
the editions. For example, the 1657 Leiden edition only consists of short and
abstract theses, while the 1659 Leipzig edition, the 1668 Amsterdam edition,
and the 1702 Utrecht edition include Boxhorn’s explanation of these theses.
Another difference is that the two Dutch editions of 1668 and 1702 share some
extra features in comparison to the 1657 Leiden edition. First, they contain two
extra chapters which have been added to book one. 6 Second, certain chapters
in the 1668 and 1702 editions count more theses than the same chapters in the
1657 edition. 7 In addition, the 1668 and 1702 editions also contain the commentaries
of George Hornius, professor of history at Leiden University between
1654 and 1670, in which Hornius gives his explanations of Boxhorn’s theses.
4 Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Institutionum politicarum libri duo (Justus Hagemans; Hildesheim/Goslar,
1656).
5 Idem, Institutionum politicarum libri duo: Editio altera, Priori longe emendatior (Nicolaus Herculis and
Abraham à Geervliet; Leiden, 1657); idem, Institutionum Politicarum Libri Duo: Accessit Explanatio ab eodem
auctore profecta, nunc ab interitu vindicata (Johann Wittigau; Leipzig, 1659); idem, “Institutiones politicae”,
in idem, Varii Tractatus Politici, pp. 1-128; idem, Institutionum Politicarum Libri Duo: Accessit Explanatio ab
eodem auctore profecta, nunc ab interitu vindicata: Editio secunda, cui accessit Index rerum (Johann Wittigau;
Leipzig, 1665); idem, Institutiones politicae cum commentariis ejusdem et observationibus G. Horni (Caspar
Commelinus; Amsterdam, 1668); idem, Institutionum Politicarum Libri Tres: In Captiva sua Et Quaestiones
Distincti, quibus Reipublicae Constitutio &c. diversae formae, rectaque ejusdem Administratio, succincte & nervosè
demonstratur (Reich; Koenigsberg, 1678); idem, Institutiones politicae cum commentariis ejusdem et observationibus
G. Horni (Johan Visch; Utrecht, 1702). Unless stated otherwise, in this thesis all references to,
and quotations from, the Institutiones politicae refer to, and are quoted from, the 1668 Amsterdam edition.
6 These are chapters fourteen and fifteen, respectively ‘on civil wars’ (De bellis civilibus) and ‘on
secrets’ (De arcanis). Thus, book I of the 1657 Leiden edition contains fourteen chapters in total, while in
the later two Dutch editions of 1668 and 1702 book I contains 16 chapters. This difference has not been
noticed by Harm Wansink. See Wansink, Politieke wetenschappen aan de Leidse universiteit, p. 168.
7 The most noticeable example of this expansion can be found in book II, chapter 4, dealing with
tyranny; compared to the 1657 Leiden edition, the number of theses in the 1668 and 1702 editions is
almost dubbled.