A famous portrait of Erasmus by Hans Holbein depicts the scholar with his hands resting on a volume identified as his ‘Herculean Labours’. Erasmus associated this adage with the effort expended and ingratitude encountered by the philologist, and made it central to his self-presentation. In this article, its origins are traced to Erasmus’s encounter with Aldus Manutius, the venetian printer-humanist who published his Adagia in 1508. The impact of Aldus on Erasmus is shown to be significant, affecting (...) his entire ideology of humanism, including its relationship to print and its religious purpose. This article challenges distinctions between the Italian and the Northern Renaissance that are unhelpful for understanding Erasmus’s development. In light of its findings, it also proposes a new interpretation of Holbein’s painting. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 37, Issue 1, pp 68 - 108 This essay proposes an exercise of detailed and contextual reading of the Erasmian adage _Festina lente_, which contains a cultural diagnosis of Aldus Manutius as a prominent historical actor within a motley Venetian cohort of printing _personae_ ranging from humanists to street peddlers. While the central sections are taken, successively, by Roman antiquarian themes, bibliophilic assessment, and the epistemic problem of _marginalia_ in a Byzantine lexicon consulted by Erasmus (...) while in Venice, the introduction and conclusion further expand the results of this localized inquiry by raising the early modern problem of expertise and following the idea of Herculean printing in Erasmus as a pedagogical and philosophical model. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.1 (2004) 100-101 [Access article in PDF] Kathy Eden. Friends Hold All Things in Common: Tradition, Intellectual Property, and the Adages of Erasmus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001. Pp. ix + 194. Cloth, $35.00. When Erasmus returned from England to the continent in 1500 almost all his money was confiscated before he embarked, although his patron, Lord Mountjoy, had assured him (...) that customs regulations applied only to English currency. Upon his arrival in Paris—poor as a church mouse and feeling rather unwell—he immediately set out writing a new gift for his patron, lest Mountjoy would assume that the humanist was angry with him. A few days later Erasmus had gathered a modest collection of 818 proverbs or adagia, a "treasury or storehouse of the accumulated wealth of classical antiquity collected for common use and thus one of his principal contributions to a cultural program for cooperation," as Kathy Eden defines them (4); not a material but an intellectual wealth, a wisdom transmitted throughout generations and civilizations in the form of proverbs.This Adagiorum Collectanea became a bestseller because it provided both humanists and careerists with numerous bon mots to embellish their (Latin) style and to enhance their arguments. During his first visit to Italy Erasmus spent a few months in the household of the famous humanist and printer Aldus Manutius in Venice. This resulted in a reissue in [End Page 100] 1508 of what was now entitled Adagiorum chiliades, since the collection had been expounded to 3260 proverbs. It opened with 'Friends hold all things in common', an ancient wisdom acknowledging the commonality between friendship and property. Eight more official editions came from the press with an ever-increasing number of adagia, up to 4151 in the final edition, published as volume two of the collected works (Basle: Froben, 1536). Erasmus kept also enlarging the entries themselves, some of them becoming small essays—for instance, the famous Festina lente (Adag. II i 1) or the equally well-known Dulce bellum inexpertis (Adag. IV i 1)—which were even republished separately.In her introduction to Friends Hold All Things in Common Kathy Eden gives a quick survey of the genesis of the Adagia referring her readers for further information to more specific studies on the topic. In keeping with the opening adage she focuses on the ancient philosophical tradition that Erasmus claims as his intellectual inheritance from the past, a tradition rooted in the legal transfer of property. The humanist inherits his understanding of both friendship and property from an ancient philosophical tradition going back to Pythagoras and Plato, as well as Aristotle and Cicero. This pagan tradition is confronted and linked with the concepts of early-Christian writers, such as Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, Basil and Augustine. Not only is there a similarity between some ideas of pagan philosophers and Christian thinkers; they can even be a source of inspiration to pious living. The publication of the Adages also reflected changing attitudes and practices concerning property: thanks to the press of Manutius in Venice (and later of Frobenius in Basle), an increasing number of people was able to appropriate the heritage of classical wisdom, which had hitherto been the intellectual property of only very few. It was precisely in Venice, around the transition from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century, that the first laws regarding intellectual property—be it copyright of the author or protection of the printer's efforts—began to make an occurrence.The author proves to be well-read in both classical, biblical and patrologic sources—I particularly appreciated her combinations and confrontations of pagan and Christian sources. Of course, she is thoroughly familiar with Erasmus's Adagia, too, with an occasional excursion towards his other pedagogical treatises, such as the Antibarbarus, the Enchiridion or the Paraclesis, an adhortation to study Christian philosophy.Friends Hold All Things in Common is a carefully edited publication with hardly any noticeable language or printing errors. As a classicist I feel slightly disappointed... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.1 (2004) 100-101 [Access article in PDF] Kathy Eden. Friends Hold All Things in Common: Tradition, Intellectual Property, and the Adages of Erasmus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001. Pp. ix + 194. Cloth, $35.00. When Erasmus returned from England to the continent in 1500 almost all his money was confiscated before he embarked, although his patron, Lord Mountjoy, had assured him (...) that customs regulations applied only to English currency. Upon his arrival in Paris—poor as a church mouse and feeling rather unwell—he immediately set out writing a new gift for his patron, lest Mountjoy would assume that the humanist was angry with him. A few days later Erasmus had gathered a modest collection of 818 proverbs or adagia, a "treasury or storehouse of the accumulated wealth of classical antiquity collected for common use and thus one of his principal contributions to a cultural program for cooperation," as Kathy Eden defines them (4); not a material but an intellectual wealth, a wisdom transmitted throughout generations and civilizations in the form of proverbs.This Adagiorum Collectanea became a bestseller because it provided both humanists and careerists with numerous bon mots to embellish their (Latin) style and to enhance their arguments. During his first visit to Italy Erasmus spent a few months in the household of the famous humanist and printer Aldus Manutius in Venice. This resulted in a reissue in [End Page 100] 1508 of what was now entitled Adagiorum chiliades, since the collection had been expounded to 3260 proverbs. It opened with 'Friends hold all things in common', an ancient wisdom acknowledging the commonality between friendship and property. Eight more official editions came from the press with an ever-increasing number of adagia, up to 4151 in the final edition, published as volume two of the collected works (Basle: Froben, 1536). Erasmus kept also enlarging the entries themselves, some of them becoming small essays—for instance, the famous Festina lente (Adag. II i 1) or the equally well-known Dulce bellum inexpertis (Adag. IV i 1)—which were even republished separately.In her introduction to Friends Hold All Things in Common Kathy Eden gives a quick survey of the genesis of the Adagia referring her readers for further information to more specific studies on the topic. In keeping with the opening adage she focuses on the ancient philosophical tradition that Erasmus claims as his intellectual inheritance from the past, a tradition rooted in the legal transfer of property. The humanist inherits his understanding of both friendship and property from an ancient philosophical tradition going back to Pythagoras and Plato, as well as Aristotle and Cicero. This pagan tradition is confronted and linked with the concepts of early-Christian writers, such as Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, Basil and Augustine. Not only is there a similarity between some ideas of pagan philosophers and Christian thinkers; they can even be a source of inspiration to pious living. The publication of the Adages also reflected changing attitudes and practices concerning property: thanks to the press of Manutius in Venice (and later of Frobenius in Basle), an increasing number of people was able to appropriate the heritage of classical wisdom, which had hitherto been the intellectual property of only very few. It was precisely in Venice, around the transition from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century, that the first laws regarding intellectual property—be it copyright of the author or protection of the printer's efforts—began to make an occurrence.The author proves to be well-read in both classical, biblical and patrologic sources—I particularly appreciated her combinations and confrontations of pagan and Christian sources. Of course, she is thoroughly familiar with Erasmus's Adagia, too, with an occasional excursion towards his other pedagogical treatises, such as the Antibarbarus, the Enchiridion or the Paraclesis, an adhortation to study Christian philosophy.Friends Hold All Things in Common is a carefully edited publication with hardly any noticeable language or printing errors. As a classicist I feel slightly disappointed... (shrink)

The Aldine edition of Galen, awaited for more than 25 years, was perhaps the most risky enterprise in the whole history of the publishing house, and it almost brought Aldus' heirs to bankruptcy. Although the editors were among the most renowned specialists of the time, the edition was harshly criticized by one former friend and collaborator of Aldus, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. Why? Was the edition so bad, were the manuscripts on which the edition was based responsible for (...) its quality? Or were there other reasons for Erasmus' complaint? This paper tries to give some hints in order to answer such questions, arguing that the role of Erasmus in the assessment of the value of the edition should take us into Aldus' house in the period of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, and into the political and religious debate of the time. (shrink)

In 1989, a literary landmark in New York City closed. Scribner’s Bookstore, 597 Fifth Avenue, stood at the epicentre of Manhattan’s retail district. The Scribner’s publishing company was then 153 years old. In the 1920s, driven by genius editor Max Perkins, Scribner’s published Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Wolfe. Scribner’s Magazine was The New Yorker of its day. The bookshop and publisher occupied a 10-storey Beaux-Arts building, designed by Ernest Flagg, which eventually won protection from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. (...) Medallions honoured printers Benjamin Franklin, William Caxton, Johann Gutenberg, and Aldus Manutius. The ‘Byzantine cathedral of books’ offered deeply informed personal service. But the paperback revolution gained momentum, bookshop chains like Barnes & Noble and Brentano’s adopted extreme discounting, and the no-discounting Scribner’s business model became unsustainable. Real estate developers swooped in. The bookshop’s ignominious end came when Italian clothier Benetton took over its space. (shrink)

Demetrios Ducas was a Cretan scholar who emigrated to Italy at the end of the 15th century and then moved to Spain in 1513. Both his editorship of Greek texts in Venice for Aldus Manutius and his activity as a professor of Greek and editor of the New Testament under the aegis of Cardinal Cisneros are well documented. However, no manuscript of his hand and no codex or printed book belonging to his library have been identified so far. (...) This paper reviews testimonies from Ducas' colleagues in Alcalá between 1513 and 1518 and some manuscripts copied at the time in the Complutensian Academy. Such manuscripts give us relevant evidence for a conjectural reconstruction of Ducas' library and open the road to a future identification of his hand. To this end manuscripts Escur. R III 5, Salm. 769, Salm. 295, Salm. 9 and Vat. Reg. gr. Pii II 16 are carefully examined. (shrink)

Analyse en duiding van "Also sprach Zarathustra"(1885) van de Duitse wijsgeer (1844-1900).

In Het kapitaal beschreef Karl Marx in uiterst schrille kleuren de voorgeschiedenis van de kapitalistische productiewijze. Het was een langdurig proces dat zich over eeuwen uitstrekte en waarbij kleine boeren op gewelddadige wijze van hun primaire productiemiddel, de grond, werden gescheiden en aldus in 'vrije' loonarbeiders veranderd. De kern van dit proces was de privatisering van de meent of commons, de traditioneel voor gemeenschappelijk gebruik bestemde grond.

Hoewel depressie veel voorkomt, tasten we wat betreft de aard en behandeling ervan nog altijd in het duister. Dit komt volgens Van den Bergh omdat de stoornis vooral wordt benaderd als hersenziekte of hersenaandoening. De nadruk wordt daarbij gelegd op onze (neuro)biologische gevoeligheid zonder dat we echt stilstaan bij de maatschappelijke factoren die op deze gevoeligheid inwerken. Nog minder, aldus de auteur, wordt ingegaan op de culturele bronnen van deze impact. Deze blinde vlek in de depressieduiding stelt Van den (...) Bergh in zijn boek centraal, en werpt zo een tegenlicht op het gangbare begrip van deze ‘stemmingsstoornis’. (shrink)

'Volgens de Duitse denker Carl Schmitt is zonder vijandbeeld geen politiek mogelijk,' schreven Coen Simon en Frank Meester aan Arnon Grunberg. Zij vroegen hem Het begrip politiek van Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) te lezen om na te gaan wat hij ons nu nog te zeggen heeft. Hoeveel natiestaat hebben wij nodig? Hoeveel vijanden? Waartoe dient politiek? En is een samenleving zonder oorlog en geweld mogelijk? Aan de hand van Schmitt en denkers als Walter Benjamin en Jacques Derrida probeert Grunberg antwoord te (...) geven op die vragen. 'Onze cultuur heeft de vegetarische slager voortgebracht en zal uiteindelijk ook de geweldloze oorlog produceren. Hoe die er precies uit zal zien is onduidelijk, maar Schmitts vermoeden dat die oorlog om de oorlog eens en voor altijd uit te roeien gruwelijk zal zijn lijkt me gerechtvaardigd,' aldus Grunberg. Maar ook stelt hij dat er geen rechtvaardigheid kan bestaan als het geweld wordt afgezworen. In Vriend & vijand legt Grunberg de vinger op zowel de zere plekken van de parlementaire democratie als de kritiek erop. Vrienden en vijanden van deze democratie mogen dit essay niet aan zich voorbij laten gaan"--Back cover. (shrink)

De alledaagse leefwereld. Dingen die we zien en horen. De hedendaagse mens wordt opgeslokt door de consumptiecultuur van de markteconomie en verkeert haast permanent in een virtuele werkelijkheid. Individualisme. De liefdesrelatie als meest basale vorm van gemeenschap is hierdoor op de helling gekomen. Welke therapeutische perspectieven kunnen we verbinden aan de gestelde diagnose? We zijn aangewezen op een mentaliteitsverandering, die wordt bepaald door het ‘morele kapitaal’ waarmee een gemeenschap kan voortbestaan. De auteur opereert binnen de traditie die Montaigne en Kierkegaard (...) introduceren en waaiert voortdurend uit door geregeld zijn rol als dienende gastheer voor die van zoekende filosoof te verruilen. Hij laat tijdslijnen door elkaar lopen. Toch is sprake van intrinsieke ordening: ideeënimprovisaties worden weerspiegeld in een afwisseling tussen levende herinneringen en abstracte argumenten. Zo krijgt de alledaagsheid een filosofische lading. Kleine verhalen en anekdotes zijn nodig om grote verhalen een persoonlijk karakter te geven. Aldus ontstaat een collage, waarin niets is gelogen, maar alles is verzonnen. Een waargebeurde, fictieve levensgeschiedenis op grond van herinneringen, een portret waarin verslag wordt gedaan van een gedreven zoektocht naar zinvolheid. De lezer is genoodzaakt zich te laten meevoeren over hoofd- en zijwegen, bemodderde bospaden, drassige velden, gevaarlijke bochten, grillige slingerpaden, solide bruggen en wankele bruggetjes. (shrink)

Kan de wetenschap alles verklaren? Brian Ridley, zelf een natuurkundige, zoekt een antwoord op deze en andere vragen in deze boeiende studie naar zowel de reikwijdte als de grenzen van de wetenschap. Volgens Ridley ligt aan het wetenschappelijke denken een wereld van 'magische ideeën' ten grondslag, en hij betoogt dan ook dat wetenschap meer overeenkomst met magie heeft dan wij vaak aannemen. In het boek wordt ook ingegaan op de vaak veronachtzaamde relatie tussen natuurwetenschap en wiskunde. De auteur koppelt dit (...) op elegante wijze aan een fascinerende bespreking van relativiteit en kwantumtheorie, aldus onderstrepend dat er binnen de wetenschap vele perspectieven mogelijk zijn. _Wetenschap_ is boeiende lectuur voor iedereen die geïnteresseerd in de huidige stand van zaken in de wetenschap en de richting waarin zij zich ontwikkelt. (shrink)

Constans, who defends the unanimous reading of the manuscripts, explains ‘tertium’ as a reference to two previous senatus consulta which Fufius did not veto . The problem with this interpretation is that Fufius is not even mentioned in the passage Constans cites; in fact, this letter marks Fufius' first appearance in the correspondence. On the basis of what is preserved it is difficult to see how Atticus could have divined such a meaning in Cicero's ‘tertium’. Scholars have preferred to emend. (...) The proposals of Graevius and Manutius have been criticized by Shackleton Bailey on the grounds that ‘concessit’ cannot mean ‘non intercessit’ in the absence of any mention of previous intercessory action on Fufius' part. However, in view of Cicero's description of the tribune in ad Att. 1.14.1, Atticus would have been no less puzzled if Fufius' failure to veto went unexplained. No earlier allusion to Fufius is necessary. Both ‘territus’ and ‘tum’ provide an explanatory context for Fufius' behaviour which makes the word play in ‘concessit’ understandable and perfectly acceptable. Shackleton Bailey's own suggestion does not suit the context of the letter, as Ph. Moreau demonstrates in some detail. In addition to the arguments adduced by Moreau, it is important to notice that Shackleton Bailey's reading fails to conform to the confident and victorious mood of the letter or to the plot of the relevant paragraph : once Cato's intrusion has focused the resentment of the Senate against Clodius' supporters and his tactics, Cicero depicts Clodhis 'position as increasingly abject. (shrink)

Dit essay van Alexander Nehamas is een waarschuwing aan hen, die de teloorgang van onze cultuur aantonen door de culturele uitingen die ons vandaag omringen te vergelijken met de meesterwerken uit het verleden. Dat is een scheve en oneerlijke vergelijking. Zo ontmoedigend is onze wereld niet, aldus de auteur. Jammerklachten over de teloorgang van de beschaving zijn al zo oud als de Griekse dichter Hesiodus en er is geen reden om aan te nemen dat de dingen in het algemeen (...) nog slechter worden dan ze al waren en nog altijd zijn. Op onderdelen gaat het met de hedendaagse cultuur zelfs helemaal niet zo slecht, aldus Nehamas. Hij vervolgt met een verdediging van de populaire cultuur en in het bijzonder de televisie, die door veel intellectuelen wordt veroordeeld zonder dat ze haar werkelijk kennen. Een scherp en gefundeerd oordeel blijft echter nodig bij onze inspanning om ‘de kunst te verfijnen en uit te dragen’; alleen kunst kan ons enige hoop en troost bieden tegenover de verschrikkingen van het verleden. (shrink)

Kan de wetenschap alles verklaren? Brian Ridley, zelf een natuurkundige, zoekt een antwoord op deze en andere vragen in deze boeiende studie naar zowel de reikwijdte als de grenzen van de wetenschap. Volgens Ridley ligt aan het wetenschappelijke denken een wereld van 'magische ideeën' ten grondslag, en hij betoogt dan ook dat wetenschap meer overeenkomst met magie heeft dan wij vaak aannemen. In het boek wordt ook ingegaan op de vaak veronachtzaamde relatie tussen natuurwetenschap en wiskunde. De auteur koppelt dit (...) op elegante wijze aan een fascinerende bespreking van relativiteit en kwantumtheorie, aldus onderstrepend dat er binnen de wetenschap vele perspectieven mogelijk zijn. Wetenschap is boeiende lectuur voor iedereen die geïnteresseerd in de huidige stand van zaken in de wetenschap en de richting waarin zij zich ontwikkelt. (shrink)

It is the almost unanimous opinion of modern scholars' that this man is M. Licinius Crassus. Manutius's explanation, that ex Nanneianis is a reference to Crassus' profiteering in the proscriptions and in particular to the property of one Nanneius, to be identified with the Nannius named as a proscription victim in Comm. Pet. 9, is accepted without hesitation.