Sextus Empiricus

Laserna de Santander — Sir Thomas Phillipps (ex ms. 4135)

See J.F. Andrés de Ustarroz and D.J.Dormer, Progresos de la Historia en el Reino de Aragon y Elogios de Gerónimo Zurita (1680), reprinted in Saragossa ... Disputación provincial. Biblioteca de escritores aragoneses. Sección histórica 7(1878), p. 550 for the letter to Zurita.

After a life of service to the Spanish crown, Juan Páez de Castro (d. 1570) retired to his native Quer to study and write. His Latin translation of Sextus Empiricus probably was completed during these contemplative years. We know from a letter written to Geronimo Zurita (see Andrés de Ustarroz) that Páez de Castro had begun this translation as early as 1549.

The text is that of Sextus Empiricus' Pyrrhoniarum institutionum libri III, among the greatest works of the later Greek Stoics. Evidently Páez de Castro confused Sextus Empiricus with Sextus of Chaeronea, the teacher of Marcus Aurelius.

Of inestimable importance for Renaissance studies, this manuscript in the hand of Páez de Castro includes many revisions and notations in Greek. It was completed at least half a century before the text of Sextus Empiricus was published, and there are no other known manuscripts of this translation.