Jesuit, born Talavera, Toledo, Spain, 1536; died Toledo, 1624. He taught theology at Rome and Paris, but from 1574 was engaged in literary work in Spain. His voluminous "History of Spain" is his masterpiece, but his "De rege et regis institutione," dedicated to Philip III of Spain, and "worthy of all respect from kings themselves as from their educators," writes the Protestant Dr Leutbecher, has caused him to be one of the most maligned Jesuits, owing to a misconstrued observation in favor of the assassination of Henry III and the justification under very exceptional circumstances of the deposition and killing of tyrants. The book was at once officially condemned by the Jesuits and its correction ordered, and the members of the Society were forbidden to preach such a doctrine. No objection was raised in Spain but in France ten years later the work was ordered to be burnt by the Parliament. Mariana was again in difficulties owing to his desire to make changes in the Jesuit constitutions. He wrote several valuable commentaries and spent almost his last fifteen years a prisoner for courageously opposing the depreciation of Spanish currency in his "De monetae mutatione."
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