Erasmus And His Books

When Erasmus, at Cambridge in 1512, began to mark up his copy of the Vulgate Bible with a few alternative Latin translations and a biting comment here and there in Latin, he could not have guessed that his work would grow over the next twenty-three years into the twenty volumes currently being produced as annotated translations in The Collected Works of Erasmus. His Paraphrases vastly expanded the text of the New Testament books, and brought dynamic and controversial interpretations to the traditional reading of the Latin texts. A new translation based on the Greek text, the first ever to be published by a printing firm, became the basis for ever-expanding notes that explained the Greek, measured the contemporary church against the truth revealed by the Greek, taunted critics and opponents, and revealed the mind of a humanist at work on the Scriptures. The sheer vastness of the work that finally accumulated is almost beyond the reach of a single individual. Through excerpts chosen over the entire extent of Erasmus’ New Testament work, this book hopes to reduce that immensity to manageable size, and bring the rich, virtually unlimited treasure of the Erasmian mind on the Scriptures within the comfortable reach of every interested individual.

What became of Erasmus’ books? The most famous scholar of his day died in peaceful prosperity and in the company of celebrated and responsible friends. His zeal for useful books was insatiable. Indeed, he had taken care to insure that after his death they would pass to an appreciative noble owner, yet after his death their fate was unknown. Erasmus and His Books provides the most comprehensive evidence available about the books of Erasmus of Rotterdam – the books he owned and his attitude towards them, when and how he acquired them, how he housed, used, and cared for them, and how, from time to time, he disposed of them. Part 1 details the formation, growth, scope, and arrangement of Erasmus’ library and opens the door to a new understanding of the more intimate side of his daily life as a scholar at home with his books, friends, publishers, and booksellers. Part 2 presents a carefully annotated catalogue, the Versandliste, of the more than 400 books in Erasmus’ possession at one point. Drawing upon his command of bibliographical data and his extensive knowledge of Erasmus’ correspondence and related records Egbertus van Gulik proposes as precise an identification of each of the titles as the evidence will allow. Van Gulik’s insightful discoveries tell us what can be known of books in Erasmus’ working library and how he used them and will be of interest to students of the northern Renaissance, the history of the book, and the history of learning.

Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence is a comprehensive introduction to Erasmus's life, works, and thoughts. It integrates the best scholarship of the past twenty years and will appeal to undergraduates in all areas of cultural history as well as Erasmus specialists.

"This study focuses on Erasmus' two-dimensional grasp of Stoicism evident in his edition of De officiis (1501) and the huge implications he saw for religion. The author argues that "The Philosophy of Christ' for which Erasmus is famous is a Christian version of Stoicism."--

This annotated selection of 116 proverbs, which includes all the longer essays, is based on the translation in the Collected Works of Erasmus."--BOOK JACKET.

The first English-language popular biography of widely influential northern Renaissance scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam in twenty years. Erasmus of Rotterdam came from an obscure background but, through remarkable perseverance, skill, and independent vision, became a powerful and controversial intellectual figure in Europe in the early sixteenth century. He was known for his vigorous opposition to war, intolerance, and hypocrisy, and at the same time for irony and subtlety that could confuse his friends as well as his opponents. His ideas about language, society, scholarship, and religion influenced the rise of the Reformation and had a huge impact on the humanities, and that influence continues today. This book shows how an independent textual scholar was able, by the power of the printing press and his wits, to attain both fame and notoriety. Drawing on the immense wealth of recent scholarship devoted to Erasmus, Erasmus of Rotterdam is the first English-language popular biography of this crucial thinker in twenty years.

Few historical figures have been more important in modeling the ideal of impartial critical scholarship than Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1536). Yet his critical scholarship, though beholden to no one, was not dispassionate. James Tracy shows how Erasmus the scholar sought through his writings to promote the moral and religious renewal of Christian society. Tracy finds the genesis of the humanist's notion of a "Christian republic" of pious and learned individuals in his "Burgundian," or Low Countries, roots. Erasmus's vision of reform, Tracy argues, sprung from a humanist tradition focusing on the importance of teaching (doctrina), a tradition from which Erasmus departed in his optimism about human nature and his deep suspicion of the powers that be. Amid the storms of Reformation controversy, he pruned back the "dissimulation" by which he had thought to convey different meanings to different readers, yet in the end he could not control the way his words were read. If Erasmus's scholarly ideal carries an enduring fascination, so too does his dilemma as a man of circumspection who would also be a reformer. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1966.

Johan Huizinga had a special sympathy for the complex, withdrawn personality of Erasmus and for his advocacy of intellectual and spiritual balance in a quarrelsome age. This biography is a classic work on the sixteenth-century scholar/humanist. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.