Part 5 (1/2)

Here, in the stillness of the Alpine landscape, there arose so more of Erasmus's deepest aspirations than in the lament to Servatius

But in this case, too, it is a stray eleave direction and fullness to his life and with irresistible pressure urged him on to ever new studies

FOOTNOTES:

[8] A 189, Philip le Beau, who had unexpectedly coed Mountjoy to do court-service

CHAPTER VIII

IN ITALY

1506-9

Erasna and Pope Julius II--Eras--Alexander Stewart--To Rome: 1509--News of Henry VIII's accession--Erasmus leaves Italy

At Turin Erasmus received, directly upon his arrival, on 4 Septey That he did not attach arded it, however, as an official warrant of his coical 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 hi the doctor's degree As early as 1501, to Anna of Borselen he writes, 'Go to Italy and obtain the doctor's degree? Foolish projects, both of theain 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 overcona was now the destination of his journey But when Erasress which forced him to retire to Florence for a time Pope Julius II, allied with the French, at the head of an arli This purpose was soon attained, and Bologna was a safe place to return to On 11 November 1506, Erasmus witnessed the triu but short, hasty letters of his have come down to us They speak of unrest and ru 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 reive an instance of useless waste and nificence Books alone seena, Eras Boerios to the end of the year for which he had bound hi time to him He could not stand any encroachht in the contract as in a net The boys, it seeh, if not so brilliant as Erasmus had seen them in his first joy; but with their private tutor Clyfton, whoerheads At Bologna he experienced many vexations for which his new relations with Paul Bombasius could only in part indeia_, which now, by the addition of the Greek ones, increased froht hundred to some thousands of iteia_, printed by Aldus Manutius in 1508]

[Illustration: VIII VIEW OF VENICE, 1493]

[Illustration: IX PORTRAIT MEDAL OF ALDUS MANUTIUS On the reverse the Aldine ee fro by Holbein of Erasna, 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 Badius was out of print and too defective for his taste What made Aldus attractive in his eyes was, no doubt, besides the fa at the tinificent letters, especially those very small ones' Erase 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 thereatest 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 Erasave 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 hi to print the enoria_

Beatus Rhenanus tells a story which, no doubt, he had heard froone straight to the printing-office and was kept waiting there for a long tiht his visitor was one of those inquisitive people by whom he used to be pestered When he turned out to be Erasing 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 ele-office He was in a fever of hurried work, about which he would often sigh, but which, after all, was congenial to hiia_ had not yet been reat tean to work at the same time, I to write, Aldus to print' Meanwhile the literary friends of the New Acadeot to know at Venice, Johannes Lascaris, Baptista Egnatius, Marcus Musurus and the young Jerome Aleander, hoht hi fresh ia_

These were no inconsiderable additions: Plato in the original, Plutarch's _Lives_ and _Moralia_, Pindar, Pausanias, and others Even people whoht 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 ti-office A special corrector had been assigned to hies in the last impression Aldus also read the proofs 'Why?' asked Eras at the same time,' was the reply

Meanwhile Eras nephrolithic ot at Asolani's and later took revenge by painting that boarding-house and its landlord in very spiteful colours in the _Colloquies_

When in Septeia_ 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 labour to publish all that classic antiquity still held in the way of hidden treasures, together with Hebrew and Chaldean stores, floated before his rown 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 'alure of Erasmus and his _[oe]uvre_ were only rendered possible by the art of printing He was its glorious triumph and, equally, in a sense, its victi-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 hienerations 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 hi 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 tiine for a reater mind than his, say Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, 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 Eraserous aspect of this situation was that printing enabled Eras once becoe immediately about all that occurred to him Much of his later mental labour is, after all, really but repetition, ruression, unnecessary vindication froreatness alone would have been a sufficient answer, futilities which he ht have better left alone Much of this ritten directly for the press is journalis to it the tests of lasting excellence The consciousness that we can reach the whole world at once with our writings is a stily influences our hest spirits can bear with i was Latin Without his incomparable Latinity his position as an author would have been i undoubtedly furthered the use of Latin

It was the Latin publications which in those days proe 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 Gilles, the friend of Erasmus and More, the town clerk of Antwerp, who corrected proof-sheets for Dirck Maertensz 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 Eras there, where so es allured him