ABSTRACT
Erasmus's mixture of laughing classical and Christian erudition expressed in zealous, elegant Latin foxed many of the first readers of the Praise of Folly. Hans Holbein's Moria first sketch shows Folly preaching to fools. She, and they, are in caps and bells. His last sketch shows Folly coming down from the pulpit; again, she and her congregation are all in caps and bells. Holbein saw Erasmus's fools in the light of Sebastian Brant's; that was largely a private matter until his marginal sketches burst into print before a receptive world. But the same tendency can be seen working at the level of printers and publishers. As Erasmus treats ecstasy in the Moria, Folly draws dangerously close to the inspired Socratic fool who, in his enthusiasm, speaks things which he cannot remember once he has come back to himself.
