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Son of a countryman from the village of Kuessnacht, set apart for study on account of his natural gifts, he came to Basel, where he remained till the ripe age of manhood, and found himself clothed with academical honors. Then he was chosen people's priest at Seengen, and unanimously by the Knights of St. John at Kuessnacht for their commander, in 1519.
Persecutions against the Protestants at this time raged so hotly that Calvin was no longer safe in France, and he betook himself to Basel, whence he issued, in the year 1536, the first edition of his "Christianæ Religionis Institutio," with the famous preface addressed to Francis I. The concentrated vigor and intensity of feeling of this address, rising into indignant remonstrance, and at times into pathetic and powerful influence, make it one of the most memorable documents in connection with the Reformation.
Our sojourn at Cannstadt exhausted the money we got for our journeys from Augsburg and Ulm, and we were compelled, much against our will, to accept an offer of service with one Master Franz, a silk merchant of Basel, who was about to journey homeward. His caravan would pass through the Black Forest; perhaps the most dangerous country in Europe for travellers.
Yet a month and Sigismund's envoys were seated on the official benches at the Basel diet, ranking with the delegates from the cantons and the emissaries from France.
For, since France maintained a good understanding with both the contending parties, both found it conducive to their interests to send deputations to the Council of Bourges: Pope Eugenius, with a view to obtain its support for the rival council which he had opened at Ferrara; the Fathers of Basel, in order to make known their decrees, which, as agreeing with the received doctrine of Gallican theologians, would, it was hoped, meet with a cordial welcome throughout France.
A member of a famous Basel family of physicians, Felix Plater, has left us in his autobiography details of the dissections he witnessed at Montpellier between November 14, 1552, and January 10, 1557, only eleven in number. How difficult it was at that time to get subjects is shown by the risks they ran in "body-snatching" expeditions, of which he records three.
By this latter date Ulrich von Hutten had fled to Basel, only to find that his violent "heresies" had completely estranged Erasmus, and closed Froben's door, as well as all other Roman Catholic doors, against him for ever. He lodged, therefore, at the Blume until the Basel Council requested him to leave the town, a little before his death, in 1523.
Occasionally, too, he drew for other Basel printers; but not often. The eighty-two sketches on the margins of that priceless copy of the Praise of Folly, which Basel preserves in her Museum, had been suited to their company. Admirable, though unequal, as are their merits, they are sketches, whose chief beauty is their happy spontaneity.
And in every scene what freedom, action, verve! From the first to the last all passes with the swift step of Calamity, yet all with noble dignity. The Basel Museum possesses also a set of ten washed drawings in Indian ink, scenes of the Passion designed for glass-painting, which must be conned and conned again before one can "know" Holbein at all in his deepest moods.
So those who had defended Reuchlin were now ready to support Luther, to whom they wrote encouraging letters. Luther's works were published by Erasmus' printer at Basel, and sent to Italy, France, England, and Spain. But Erasmus, the mighty sovereign of the men of letters, refused to take sides in the controversy. He asserted that he had not read more than a dozen pages of Luther's writings.
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