Marco Antonio Huesbe

Marco Antonio Huesbe Llanos (1939 – 20 January 2022) was a Chilean historian and academic whose research focused on early modern Europe, the history of political and legal thought, natural law, and the development of the modern state. He was a professor of modern and contemporary history at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso (PUCV) and taught the history of political and legal thought at the University of Valparaíso.

His scholarship was particularly associated with the study of the German political theorist Henning Arnisaeus and the reception of the School of Salamanca in seventeenth-century Lutheran political thought. In 2009, PUCV awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his academic career.

Biography

Huesbe studied history and geography at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, where he qualified as a secondary-school teacher and obtained a degree in philosophy and education. He subsequently continued his studies in West Germany, receiving a doctorate in philosophy from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. He completed his doctoral dissertation in 1965 on the influence of the School of Salamanca on Lutheran political thought in the seventeenth century, with particular attention to the work of Henning Arnisaeus.

During his academic training and career, Huesbe received scholarships from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the Council of Europe. He also conducted research at the Institute of European History in Mainz.

Academic career

Huesbe spent much of his academic career at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, where he became a full professor of modern and contemporary history. He served as director of the university's School of History and Geography from 1966 to 1969 and, following its institutional reorganisation, as director of the Institute of History and Geography from 1969 to 1970.

He was also a member of the university's Academic Senate and conducted research funded by FONDECYT and the university's research directorate.

Huesbe held visiting academic positions at several universities, including Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, the University of Navarra, the University of North Dakota, and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He also taught the history of political and legal thought at the Faculty of Law of the University of Valparaíso.

Outside the university, Huesbe served as president of the Chilean-German Goethe Cultural Institute in Viña del Mar from 1967 to 1990 and as president of the Hermann Conring Society for the Study of Political Thought.

In 2009, the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso awarded Huesbe the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa. The distinction was formally conferred under Rectorial Decree No. 2969/2009.

Research

Huesbe's research concentrated on European political and legal thought between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and particularly on the intellectual foundations of the modern state. His work examined concepts including sovereignty, jura majestatis, natural law, constitutional theory, and the political consequences of the Protestant Reformation.

A major component of his scholarship concerned Henning Arnisaeus, a seventeenth-century German political theorist. Huesbe began researching Arnisaeus as part of his doctoral work at Mainz in 1965 and continued studying his political and constitutional thought for several decades. In a 2015 retrospective, Huesbe described this body of research as the Arnisaeusforschung and connected Arnisaeus's work with the reception of Jean Bodin's theories of sovereignty in German political and legal thought.

His research also examined the relationship between apparently competing traditions of early modern political thought. His 2008 book Teoría, administración y participación en el Estado moderno: Bodino, Arnisaeus, Beza compared the political theories of Jean Bodin, Henning Arnisaeus, and Theodore Beza in the context of the formation of the modern state.

Huesbe also worked on the political thought of the German jurist Samuel von Pufendorf. In 2009, he published a Spanish translation of Pufendorf's The Constitution of the German Empire, accompanied by a critical study and introduction.

Selected works

• Huesbe Llanos, Marco Antonio (1965). Untersuchungen zum Einfluss der Schule von Salamanca auf das lutherische Staatsdenken im 17. Jahrhundert. Doctoral dissertation, University of Mainz.
• Huesbe Llanos, Marco Antonio (1976). "Una constitución de la época del absolutismo: la Lex Regia Danica de 1665". Revista de Estudios Histórico-Jurídicos.
• Huesbe Llanos, Marco Antonio (1996). Historia de las ideas políticas en el Estado moderno. Valparaíso: Instituto de Historia, Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.
• Huesbe Llanos, Marco Antonio (1999). La institucionalización del Estado moderno: Teoría de los jura majestatis. Valparaíso.
• Huesbe Llanos, Marco Antonio (2000). Arte y política del Barroco. Valparaíso.
• Huesbe Llanos, Marco Antonio (2003). Martín Lutero y Juan Calvino: Los fundamentos políticos de la modernidad. Valparaíso: Ediciones Universitarias de Valparaíso.
• Huesbe Llanos, Marco Antonio (2008). Teoría, administración y participación en el Estado moderno: Bodino, Arnisaeus, Beza. Valparaíso: Ediciones Universitarias de Valparaíso.
• Pufendorf, Samuel (2009). La constitución del Imperio alemán. Translation, critical study and introduction by Marco Antonio Huesbe Llanos. Valparaíso: Edeval.
• Huesbe Llanos, Marco Antonio (2015). "Los cincuenta años de la 'Arnisaeusforschung' (1965–2015) y los cuatrocientos años del tratado 'De republica' (1615–2015) de Henning Arnisaeus". Revista de Estudios Histórico-Jurídicos. 37: 543–554.