| Summary: | Written for Philip III at the end of his father's reign, Philip II, in line with the Historia de rebus Hispanæ (1592), the De rege et regis institutione (1599) of the Jesuit John of Mariana is a treatise on education that exalts the linguistic, cultural and political benefits, for the whole community, of an early familiarization of the crown prince with the vassals of all his kingdoms and principalities. Reciprocal enrichment is a factor of social connection, but the effort to get acquainted with the great vassals exposes the young prince to the serious risk of adulation, a risk against which he must be very intimately warned. Therefore, no favoritism should allow a flatterer to divert the future monarch from common interests. Faced with the perpetual risk of the emergence of a valido, reinforced by excessive intimacy, Juan de Mariana urges the young prince, in a Latin text presented as the result of benevolent exchanges with the most honest advisors and old sages of the monarchy, to incorporate those recommendations convergent with the experience of universal and Hispanic history.
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