Philip Numan (born around 1550, died 19 February 1627) was a lawyer and humanist from the Low Countries, and a writer in prose and verse, sometimes under the pen nameHippophilus Neander.[1]
His account of the miracles attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel was published in Dutch and French, and soon translated into Spanish and English.[3]
He translated a number of Latin and Spanish works into Dutch (and in one case into French). When he was translating Diva Virgo Hallensis by Justus Lipsius, Lipsius wrote to him on 9 April 1605 that he should not translate too literally, but in his own natural style, because "each language has its own character and as it were its own genius, which cannot be conveyed in another language".[4] In preliminary verses to Richard Verstegan's Neder-duytsche epigrammen (Mechelen, Henry Jaye, 1617) Numan wrote in praise of the "genius" of Dutch as a literary language.[5][6]
Den Strijt des gemoets inden wech der deuchden. Brussels, Jan Mommaert, 1590.
Descriptio Spectaculorum et Ludorum in adventu Sereniss. Principis Ernesti Austriaci Bruxellis editorum. Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1595. This work on a Joyous Entry of Archduke Ernest of Austria to Brussels was illustrated by Johannes Bochius and Joos de Momper.[7]
Panegyricus in adventum serenissimorum principum, Alberti et Isabellae, Archiducum Austriae, Ducum Brabantiae, in civitatem Bruxellensem. Brussels, Jan Mommaert, 1599.
Histoire des Miracles advenuz n'agueres a l'intercession de la Glorieuse Vierge Marie, au lieu dit Mont-aigu, prez de Sichen, au Duché de Brabant. 2nd edition. Brussels, Rutger Velpius, 1605. Augmented edition 1613. On the Marian cult of the Basilica of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel.
Spanish translation as Historia de los Milagros que en Nuestra Señora de Monteagudo çerca de Sichen, en el Ducado de Brabante, nuestro Señor ha sido servido de obrar by Cæsar Clement. Brussels, Rutger Velpius, 1606.[8]
English translation as Miracles lately wrought by the intercession of the Glorious Virgin Mary at Mont-aigu, nere unto Sichen in Brabant, by Robert Chambers[9] (Antwerp, Arnout Coninx, 1606)
^Jeanine De Landtsheer, "From Philip Numan’s Miracles of the Virgin of Montaigu (1604) towards Justus Lipsius's Diva Sichemiensis sive Aspricolis (1605)", in Texts beyond Borders: Multilingualism and Textual Scholarship, edited by Wout Dillen, Caroline Macé and Dirk Van Hulle (Variants 9; Amsterdam and New York, 2012), pp. 62-65.
^Erik De Bom, Geleerden en politiek: De politieke ideeën van Justus Lipsius in de vroegmoderne Nederlanden (Hilversum, 2011), p. 86.