United States or Georgia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Up to the time when he became better acquainted with Greek, he used the form Herasmus. Later on he regretted that he had not also given that name the more correct and melodious form Erasmius. On a few occasions he half jocularly called himself so, and his godchild, Johannes Froben's son, always used this form.
His attention had perhaps been aroused by a flattering mention of him in a preface written in Froben's name for the pirated edition of the Adagia, August 1513, to which Erasmus was referring in the letter just quoted.
At Basle they make the elegant preface added by Budaeus the excuse for the delay over your Utopia. They have now received it and have started on the work. Then Froben's father-in-law Lachner died. But Froben's press will be sweating over our studies none the less. I have not yet had a chance of seeing Linacre's Therapeutice, through some conspiracy of the Parisians against me. Wretched Turks!
He had in June 1535 gone to Basle, to work in Froben's printing-office, as of old; the Ecclesiastes was at last going to press and still required careful supervision and the final touches during the process; the Adagia had to be reprinted, and a Latin edition of Origenes was in preparation. The old, sick man was cordially received by the many friends who still lived at Basle.
Nor was Froben's circle one whit more surprised than its royal author when its immediate reward was that formal style and title Defender of the Faith, to which a few years more were to lend so different a significance.
And whatever may have been his debt to those childish years when the little Iulus followed his father with trembling steps, his debt to Basel was immensely greater. The door-sill of Johann Froben's printing-house was the threshold of his earthly immortality. When he turned his back on the low-vaulted years of Augsburg, it was because for him also the time was ripe.
That event had uprooted the scholar from the old house zum Sessel, in the Fischmarkt, and transplanted him to the home of Froben's son, Hieronymus. The latter house, then known as zum Luft, is now No. 18, Bäumleingasse. And it was here that Erasmus passed away, his mind keeping to the last its humour and its interests in all around him.
Erasmus had now reached his highest point. He had equipped himself thoroughly for the work he desired to do. He was the acknowledged leader of a large band of scholars, who looked to him for guidance and were eagerly ready to second his efforts; and with the resources of Froben's press at his disposal, nothing seemed beyond his powers and his hopes.
While as the lifelong leader of the Catholic party in Basel, it was natural that Meyer zum Hasen should have much in common with a painter who all his life held firmly to his friendships with the most conspicuous champions of that party. Johann Froben was another of these; and from 1515 until Froben's death eleven years later Holbein had more and more to do for this printer.
Froben's partner, Johannes Amerbach, who died before Erasmus's arrival, had been engaged for years on an edition of Jerome. Several scholars, Reuchlin among others, had assisted in the undertaking when Erasmus offered himself and all his material. He became the actual editor.
Word Of The Day