Part 23 (1/2)
[121] Lit. 'not even the peeping of an a.s.s is safe.' This Greek proverb, used of those who go to law about trifles, refers to the story of a potter whose wares were smashed by a donkey in the workshop going to look out of the window. In court the potter, asked of what he complained, replied: 'Of the peeping of an a.s.s.' See Apuleius, _Met._ IX., 42.
LIST OF ILl.u.s.tRATIONS
I. PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS. By Quentin Metsys. 1517. Rome, Galleria Corsini.
_Facing p. 14_
One half of a diptych, the pendant being a portrait of Erasmus's friend, Pierre Gilles (Petrus Aegidius), town clerk of Antwerp. The diptych was sent to Sir Thomas More in London; the portrait of Gilles is now in the collection of the Earl of Radnor at Longford Castle.
II. VIEW OF ROTTERDAM at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Contemporary engraving, hand-coloured. _Facing p. 15_
III. PORTRAIT BUST OF JOHN COLET, Dean of St. Paul's (1467-1519). By Pietro Torrigiano. St. Paul's School, Hammersmith, London. _Facing p.
30_
John Colet, a close friend of Erasmus (see pp. 30-1), founded St. Paul's School. The artist, a Florentine sculptor, was active in London for many years and is best known for his effigies on some of the royal tombs in Westminster Abbey. The attribution of this bust is due to F. Grossmann (_Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Inst.i.tutes_, XIII, July 1950), who identified it as a cast from Torrigiano's original bust on Colet's tomb (destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666) and also pointed out that Holbein's drawing of Colet in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle (No.
12199) was made from the lost monument after Colet's death.
IV. PORTRAIT OF SIR THOMAS MORE (1477-1535). Dated 1527. By Hans Holbein. New York, Frick Collection. _Facing p. 31_
See also Holbein's drawing of Thomas More with his family, Pl. XXIX.
V. Pen and ink sketches by Erasmus. 1514. Basle, University Library (MS A. IX. 56). _Facing p. 46_
These doodles of grotesque heads and other scribbles are found in Erasmus's ma.n.u.script copy of the _Scholia to the Letters of St. Jerome_, preserved in the Library of Basle University and published by Emil Major (_Handzeichnungen des Erasmus von Rotterdam_, Basle, 1933). Erasmus worked on this ma.n.u.script shortly after his arrival in Basle in August 1514. His edition of the _Letters of Jerome_ was published by Froben in 1516 (see p. 90).
VI. A Ma.n.u.script Page of Erasmus. Basle, University Library. _Facing p.
47_
See note on Pl. V.
VII. t.i.tle-page of the _Adagia_, printed by Aldus Manutius in 1508.
_Facing p. 62_
The printing of this edition was supervised by Erasmus during his visit to Venice (see pp. 64-5). On this t.i.tle-page is the emblem of the Aldine Press, which is found again on the reverse of Aldus's portrait medal (Pl. IX).
VIII. VIEW OF VENICE, 1493. Woodcut. _After p. 62_
From Schedel's _Weltchronik_, Nuremberg, 1493.
IX. PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ALDUS MANUTIUS. By an unknown Venetian medallist.
Venice, Museo Correr. _After p. 62_
On the reverse, the emblem adopted by Aldus in 1495 from an antique coin, an anchor entwined by a dolphin. The Greek inscription, [Greek: Speude bradeos] (Hasten slowly), is also of antique origin. Cf. Hill, _Corpus of Italian Medals_, 1930, No. 536.
X. A page from the printed copy of the _Praise of Folly_ with a drawing by Hans Holbein. Basle, offentliche Kunstsammlung (Print Room). _Facing p. 63_
This copy of the _Laus Stult.i.tiae_, which Holbein decorated with marginal drawings in 1515, belonged at that time to Oswald Myconius, a friend of Froben's. Apparently not all the drawings in the book are by Hans Holbein.