ABSTRACT
More than any other humanist of the early sixteenth century, Desiderius Erasmus redefined the intellectual landscape of western Europe. His effectiveness in doing so was largely a result of his self-conscious use of the printing press – especially in Venice and later in Basle – to promote himself and his ideas via intense relationships with printers like Aldus Manutius and Johann Froben. But his influence was primarily a consequence of the astonishing range of his widely respected scholarship. He assembled renowned collections of his letters as guides to the consummate Latin style. He wrote pedagogical texts in dialogue form, like the Colloquies, and others, like the Adages, that drew on the classical Latin heritage to educate even beginning students in correct Latin. Later in life he wrote works like the Hyperaspistes, in which he debated Martin Luther on the problem of the freedom of will. He also composed erudite, playful satires like The Praise of Folly that displayed his command of the canon of ancient culture even as they poked fun at the pretensions of the Church. Finally, a master not only of Latin and Greek but also of Hebrew, Erasmus proved to be an assiduous, perhaps brilliant, biblical scholar. In the prefaces to his critical editions of the New Testament, moreover, he expressed his desire that the Bible be translated so that everyone could read it for him/herself: “Christ wants his gospel to be spread as widely as possible. He died for all; he wants to be known by all. It would serve that end if his books were turned into all the languages of all the nations.” 1 Erasmus’s learning was elite, but his intended audience was no less than all of Christendom.
