ABSTRACT
In his successful pamphlet on the moral education of boys ( De civilitate morum puerilium , 1530), Erasmus of Rotterdam discusses the desirable posture of the body. This develops into a dictum of self-fashioning through morality and custom. This chapter discusses the concept of ideal behaviour as a form of self-cultivation and a civilizing duty, contrasting it with the refined court culture of the time. Furthermore, it demonstrates how Erasmus links moral formation to bodily discipline and attire, defining civilitas as the process by which humans transcend nature to become truly human: non nascuntur, sed finguntur .
