Famiano Strada (1572 - 1649) was an Italian Jesuit historian, particularly of the early part of the Eighty Years' War, from the abdication of Charles V in 1556 to the capture of Rheinsberg in 1590. He was born in Rome, entering the Jesuit order as a young man and teaching rhetoric in the Roman College early in the seventeenth century. In 1617 he was tasked by Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parm to write a history of the war in the Netherlands, access which afforded Strada a range of sources including the letters of royalty, ambassadors, and even spies; Strada would throughout his work characterize these as 'state secrets.' The publication of his history consumed Strada's life: the first volume of the work, describing the period between 1559 and 1597, would be published in Rome in 1632; the second covering 1579 to 1589 saw print in 1647. A third volume appears to have been planned, but its publication was prevented by Spanish authorities, who perhaps considered more contemporary revelations to be detrimental to Spanish policy. The earlier volumes would themselves appear in many editions, some translated into English, Italian, French and Spanish.



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