The Mutilation of De Monetae Mutatione

JuanDeMarianaSome years ago I was working on the publication of a short translation of the Jesuit scholar Juan de Mariana’s De monetae mutatione. Back when the original translation had been commissioned, one of the only readily available domestic copy of this seventeenth-century treatise was held at the Boston public library. The translator, Fr. Patrick T. Brannan, worked off of that manuscript in producing the translation.

As I worked on editing the text for further publication, I needed to consult the original to clear up a few editorial queries. But I did not have a copy of the treatise by Mariana easily at hand to do some comparison. So naturally I went over to the Post-Reformation Digital Library to see if the original was listed among the site’s contents.

I was not disappointed. There were in fact multiple copies of the collection of treatises which included De monetae. Mariana’s treatise, De monetae mutatione, was the fourth of seven treatises published together in 1609 in Cologne. Via the PRDL I quickly downloaded a version.
Continue reading