Justus Lipsius Epistola Erudita
The paper is the presentation (as the transcription and translation of the text) of the letter written by the humanist and classical scholar, Iustus Lipsius (1547–1606), and entitled by its editor in Cracow Epistola erudita (1602). The rhetorical analyses of this text is based on the Lipsius’s treatise Epistolica institutio (The Principles of Letter-Writing). The main problem concerns the role of traditional rhetoric in the letter writing, especially if the letter is not reduced to a formal document, prepared using repeatable formulas. Early modern epistolography (Petrarca, Erasmus, Lipsius, Vives) recovers the ancient tradition of letter writing, according to which the letter is a kind of written conversation. It gives unique opportunity to meet each other in the symbolic universe of the text.

The paper is the presentation (as the transcription and translation of the text) of the letter written by the humanist and classical scholar, Iustus Lipsius (1547–1606), and entitled by its editor in Cracow Epistola erudita (1602). The rhetorical analyses of this text is based on the Lipsius’s treatise Epistolica institutio (The Principles of Letter-Writing). The main problem concerns the role of traditional rhetoric in the letter writing, especially if the letter is not reduced to a formal document, prepared using repeatable formulas. Early modern epistolography (Petrarca, Erasmus, Lipsius, Vives) recovers the ancient tradition of letter writing, according to which the letter is a kind of written conversation. It gives unique opportunity to meet each other in the symbolic universe of the text.