Erasmus of Rotterdam

Erasmus of Rotterdam was one of the most outstanding scholars of the sixteenth century, who was not only influential in his own time but also on such later thinkers as Rousseau, Herder and Pestalozzi. He travelled widely - including three visits to England, where he met Thomas More. Erasmus's life and times are examined in this study. But this book does much more than give a portrait of Erasmus the man and an account of his activities as a humanist and of his attitude to the Church. It sketches the intellectual and religious trends of a period when manuscripts of antique authors were discovered almost daily and edited by the labours of humanists in many lands, when the Greek and Hebrew languages began to be seriously studied, when the printing press had begun its revolutionary progress, and when finally Luther laid the foundations of the Reformed Church. The present edition contains also an interesting selection from the vast correspondence of Erasmus, translated from the Latin, and is illustrated with portraits of the scholar and his friends and with contemporary views of Rotterdam, Basle and Venice.
Some of the works reproduced are by such artists as Durer and Holbein, but there are also a few sketches by Erasmus's own hand.