Statue of a Scholar
ERASMUS, Desiderius.
Desid. Erasmi Roterodami Colloquia nunc emendatiora. Amsterdam, Jodocus Janssonius, 1644.
12mo, pp. [20], 743, [1 (blank)], with an engraved plate of the statue of Erasmus in Rotterdam; woodcut ornament to title, woodcut initials and tailpieces; lacking the frontispiece as often, sporadic light foxing, the odd spot, a few side-notes cropped; bound in near-contemporary calf, covers and spine gilt with double fillets, edges stained red; rather worn and shaken; early notes to inside front board and front flyleaf.
Later edition of Erasmus’ highly influential Latin dialogues, with a charming engraving of Hendrick de Keyser’s statue of him erected in Rotterdam in 1622.
Composed in the 1490s and after for his students and first published in 1518, the Colloquia form a series of elegant dialogues on subjects as various as shipwrecks, war, beggars’ tricks, superstitions, ‘sordid wealth’, and prostitution. Their easy style and humour made them a staple of schoolboy and light reading, though their treatment of religion brought censorship both Catholic and Protestant.
STCN 088013456; USTC 1013871.