ABSTRACT
The edition of Desiderius Erasmus’ letters by Percy Stafford Allen is one of the crown jewels of early modern scholarship. The most count of the surviving letters totals 3,098 of which 1,958 letters were written by Erasmus and 1,140 were sent to him by others. Most interestingly, there is a falling-off in the correspondence that began with Erasmus’ stay in Italy in the second half of 1506. Although there were prior years for which twenty or more letters written by Erasmus survive, for the near five years between his departure from Paris in August 1506 and his departure from England for Paris on April 10, 1511, only nineteen letters survive in all. The Basel letter of 1526 indicates that Erasmus made some acquaintances at the library. Who these persons may have been—they are referred to simply as “caeteri”—is a matter for speculation.
