Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII. IN ITALY. 1506-1509 At Turin, Erasmus received directly upon his arrival on 4 September 1506 the degree of doctor of theology. That he did not attach much value to the degree is easy to understand. He regarded it, however, as an official warrant of his competence as a writer on theological subjects
which would strengthen his position when assailed by the suspicion of his critics. He writes disdainfully about the title even to his Dutch friends, who in former days had helped him on in his studies for the express purpose of obtaining the doctor's degree. As early as 1501, to Anna of Boiselin he writes,
Go to Italy and obtain the doctor's degree? Foolish projects, both of them. but one should conform to the customs of the times. Again to Servatius and Johannes Obrecht, half-apologetically, he says, I have obtained the doctor's degree in theology, and that quite contrary to my intention, only because I was overcome by the prayers of friends.
Bologna was now the destination of his journey, but when Erasmus arrived there, a war was in progress which forced him to retire to Florence for a time. Pope Julius II, allied with the French, at the head of an army, marched on Bologna to conquer it from the Bentevogli. This purpose was soon attained, and Bologna was a safe place to return to. On 11 November 1506 Erasmus witnessed the triumphal entry of the martial pope. Of these days nothing but short, hasty letters of his
have come down to us. They speak of unrest and rumors of war. There is nothing to show that he was impressed by the beauty of the Italy of the Renaissance. The scanty correspondence dating from his stay in Italy mentions neither architecture nor sculpture nor pictures. When much later he happened to remember his visit to the Chartreuse of Pavia, it is only to give an instance of useless waste and magnificence. Books alone seemed to occupy and attract Erasmus in Italy. At Bologna Erasmus served as a mentor to the young Boerius to the end of the year for which he had bound himself.
It seemed a very long time to him. He could not stand any encroachment upon his liberty. He felt caught in the contract as in a net. The boys, it seems, were intelligent enough, if not so brilliant as Erasmus had seen them in his first joy. But with their private tutor Clifton, whom he at first extolled to the sky, he was soon at loggerheads.
At Bologna he experienced many vexations for which his new relations with Paul Bombasius could only in part indemnify him. He worked there at an enlarged edition of his Adagia, which now, by the edition of the Greek ones, increased from eight hundred to some thousands of items. From Bologna in October 1507, Erasmus addressed a letter to the famous Venetian printer Aldus Manutius, in which he requested him to publish anew the two translated dramas of Euripides, as the edition of Badias was out of
print and too defective for his taste. What made Aldous attractive in his eyes was, no doubt, besides the fame of the business, though it was languishing at the time, the printer's beautiful type, those most magnificent letters, especially those very small ones. Erasmus was one of those true book lovers who pledged their heart to a type or a size of a book, not because of any artistic preference, but because of readableness and handiness, which to them are of the very
greatest importance. What he asked of Aldus was a small book at a low price. Towards the end of the year their relations had gone so far that Erasmus gave up his projected journey to Rome for the time, to remove to Venice, there personally to superintend the publication of his works. Now there was no longer merely the question of a little book of translations, but Aldus had declared himself willing to print the enormously increased collection of the Adagia.
Beatus Renanus tells a story which, no doubt, he had heard from Erasmus himself, how Erasmus, on his arrival at Venice, had gone straight to the printing office and was kept waiting there for a long time. Aldus was correcting proofs and thought his visitor was one of those inquisitive people by whom he used to be pestered. When he turned out to be Erasmus, he welcomed him cordially and procured him board and lodging in the house of his father-in-law Andrea Asolani.
Fully eight months did Erasmus live there, in the environment which, in future, was to be his true element, the printing office. He was in a fever of hurried work, about which he would often sigh, but which, after all, was congenial to him. The augmented collection of the Adagia had not yet been made ready for the press at Bologna. With great temerity on my part, Erasmus himself testifies, we began to work at the same time, I to write, Aldous to print. Meanwhile, the literary
friends of the new academy, whom he got to know at Venice, Johannes Lascaris, Baptista Ignatius, Marcus Mussurus, and the young Jerome Aleander, with whom at Asolani's he shared room and bed, brought him new Greek authors, unprinted as yet, furnishing fresh material for augmenting the Adagia. These were no inconsiderable additions, Plato in the original, Plutarch's Lives and Moralia, Pindar, Pausanias, and others. Even people whom he did not know, and who took an interest in his
work, brought new material to him. Amid the noise of the press-room, Erasmus, to the surprise of his publisher, sat and wrote, usually from memory, so busily occupied that, as he picturesquely expressed it, he had no time to scratch his ears. He was lord and master of the printing office. A special corrector had been assigned to him. He made his textual changes in the last impression. Aldous also read the proofs.
Why? asked Erasmus. Because I am studying at the same time, was the reply. Meanwhile Erasmus suffered from the first attack of his tormenting nephrolithic melody. He ascribed it to the food he got at Asolani's, and later took refuge by painting that boarding-house and its landlord in very spiteful colors in the colloquies. When, in September 1508, the edition of the Adagia was ready, Aldus wanted Erasmus to remain in order to write more for him. Till December he continued to work at Venice on editions of Plautus, Terence, and Seneca's tragedies.
Visions of joint labor to publish all that classic antiquity, still held in the way of hidden treasures, together with Hebrew and Chaldean stores, floated before his mind. Erasmus belonged to the generation which had grown up together with the youthful art of printing. To the world of those days it was still like a newly acquired organ. People felt rich, powerful, happy in the possession of this almost divine implement. The figure of Erasmus and his
oeuvre were only rendered possible by the art of printing. He was its glorious triumph, and equally, in a sense, its victim. What would Erasmus have been without the printing press? To broadcast the ancient documents, to purify and restore them, was his life's passion. The certainty that the printed book places exactly the same text in the hands of thousands of readers was to him a consolation that former generations had lacked. Erasmus is one of the first who, after his name
as an author was established, worked directly and continually for the press. It was his strength, but also his weakness. It enabled him to exercise an immediate influence on the reading public of Europe, such as had emanated from none before him, to become a focus of culture in the full sense of the word, an intellectual central station, a touchstone of the spirit of the time. imagine for a moment what it would have meant if a still greater mind than his say cardinal nicholas of cuza that universal spirit who had helped in nursing the art of printing in its earliest infancy
could have availed himself of the art as it was placed at the disposal of erasmus the dangerous aspect of this situation was that printing enabled erasmus having once become a centre and an authority to address the world at large immediately about all that occurred to him much of his later mental labor is after all really but repetition ruminating digression unnecessary vindication from assaults to which his greatness alone would have been a sufficient answer futilities which he might have better left alone much of this work written directly for the press is journalism at bottom and we do erasmus an injustice by applying to it the tests of lasting excellence the consciousness that we can reach the whole world at once with our writings is a stimulant which unwittingly influences our mode of expression a luxury that only the highest spirits can bear with impunity the link between erasmus and book printing was latin without his incomparable latinity his position as an author would have been impossible
the art of printing undoubtedly furthered the use of latin it was the latin publications which in those days promised success and a large sale for a publisher and established his reputation for they were broadcast all over the world the leading publishers were themselves scholars filled with enthusiasm for humanism cultured and well-to-do people acted as proof-readers to printers such as peter gillis the friend of erasmus and more the town clerk of antwerp who corrected proof-sheets for dirk mertens the great printing offices were in a local sense too the foci of intellectual intercourse the fact that england had lagged behind thus far in the evolution of the art of printing contributed not a little no doubt to prevent erasmus from settling there where so many ties held and so many advantages allured him to find a permanent place of residence was indeed and apart from this fact very hard for him towards the end of fifteen o eight he accepted the post of tutor in rhetorics to the young alexander stuart a natural son of james the fourth of scotland
and already in spite of his youth archbishop of st andrews now a student at padua the danger of war soon drove them from upper italy to siena here erasmus obtained leave to visit rome he arrived there early in 1509 no longer an unknown canon from the northern regions but a celebrated and honored author all the charms of the eternal city lay open to him and he must have felt keenly gratified by the consideration and courtesy with which cardinals and prelates such as giovanni de medici afterwards leo x domenico grimani riario and others treated him it seems that he was even offered some post in the curia but he had to return to his youthful archbishop with whom he thereupon visited rome again incognito and afterwards travelled in the neighbourhood of naples he inspected the cave of the sibylla of cume but what it meant to him we do not know
this entire period following his departure from padua and all that follows till the spring of fifteen eleven in certain respects the most important part of his life remains unrecorded in a single letter that has come down to us here and there he has occasionally and at a much later date touched upon some impressions of rome but the whole remains vague and dim it is the incubation period of the praise of folly that is thus obscured from view on twenty one april fifteen o nine king henry the seventh of england died his successor was the young prince whom erasmus had saluted at eltham in fourteen ninety nine to whom he had dedicated his poem in praise of great britain and who during his stay at bologna had distinguished him by a latin letter as creditable to erasmus as to the fifteen-year-old royal latinist if ever the chance of obtaining a patron seemed favourable it was now when this promising lover of letters ascended the throne as henry the
lord mountjoy erasmus's most faithful mycenas thought so too and pointed out the fact to him in a letter of twenty seven may fifteen o nine it was a pleasure to see he wrote how vigorous how upright and just how zealous in the cause of literature and men of letters was the conduct of the youthful prince mountjoy or ammonius who probably drew up the flowery document for him was exultant a laughing sky and tears of joy are the themes of the letter evidently however erasmus himself had on his side already sounded mountjoy as to his chances as soon as the tidings of henry the seventh's death became known at rome not without lamentations about cares and weakened health The Archbishop of Canterbury, Mountjoy, was able to apprise Erasmus, is not only continually
engrossed in your adagia and praises you to the skies, but he also promises you a benefice on your return, and sends you five pounds for travelling expenses, which sum was doubled by Mountjoy. We do not know whether Erasmus really hesitated before he reached his decision. cardinal grimani he asserts tried to hold him back but in vain for in july 1509 he left rome and italy never to return
as he crossed the alps for the second time not on the french side now but across the splugen through switzerland his genius touched him again as had happened in those high regions three years before on the road to italy but this time it was not in the guise of the latin muse who then drew from him such artful and pathetic poetical meditations about his past life and pious vows for the future it was something much more subtle and grand the praise of folly chapter eight
