CENTRUM I PERYFERIE – DYNAMIKA RELACJI. DIALOG JUSTUSA LIPSJUSZA "DE CONSTANTIA" I JEGO MARGINALIA
Center and Periphery – The Dynamics of Relation: Justus Lipsius’s 'De Constantia' and Its Marginalia

Summary/Abstract: The article examines the role and status of marginalia as a significant component of the textual architecture of a written work by making use of the philosophical dialogue 'De Constantia' by Justus Lipsius, one of the foremost European humanists of the early modern period, as its point of departure. With reference to selected examples, it demonstrates their intro- and intertextual functions, their heuristic nature, and their capacity both to guide the reader, by delineating pathways for interpretive experience, as well as to manage the ideological content embedded within the dialogue itself. The study also addresses the readiness of marginalia to defend problematic or controversial content of the dialogue against criticism and censorship, and the sui generis afterlife of this “peripheral” text in subsequent editions of the same work. In doing so, it highlights the dynamic and transformative potential of marginal notes, which reveal themselves not only as embodiments of the author’s creative agency, but also, to some extent, as reflections of Lipsius’s own fate and personality during the period of profound political and religious upheaval in the Netherlands and across Europe in the latter half of the sixteenth century.

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