Sacrificio di sé e idea di stato in Balthazar de Ayala

The paper aims to explore the theme of self-sacrifice in Balthzar de Ayala, a Brabant judge of the second half of the 16th century in the service of the Spanish Crown. Ayala is on the whole a marginal figure in recent historiography and, moreover, only one work is ascribed to him: De iure et officiis bellicis et disciplina militari. Nevertheless, Ayala is a well-known figure in the juridical (and theological) culture of the so-called “long iron century,” and Hugo Grotius mentions him in the Prolegomena of his De iure belli ac pacis. With this essay, therefore, which wishes to deepen Ayala’s political conception as well as his doctrine on just war, I intend to add a piece to the knowledge of the themes and problems of the history of law(/theology) in the Early Modern Age.