24th ILAB International Antiquarian Book Fair - Vereinigung der ...

What needs to be noted is the way in which familiarity
(in the epistolae sense of cordial communality
of learned interests, and affection based on shared
study rather than personality) shades and tempers
the debate… The most telling letter included in the
Farrago collection of epistolae is Erasmus’s reply
to Luther’s above, which by the time that volume
appeared had already seen publication in Peter Mosellanus’s
Oratio de ratione disputandi volume (July
1519)… Indeed, by the time Erasmus’s Farrago volume
came out in the autumn, its author probably
already knew that the care he had taken there to
choreograph his own religious and political moderation
– particularly in relation to Luther – was
to no avail. Nevertheless, the Farrago volume was
a runaway best-seller. By February 1520 Erasmus
told Budaeus that Froben was asking for a second
edition (and Erasmus was proposing tweeking the
editing to contain the volume’s impact)» (L. Jardin,
Before Clarissa: Erasmus, ‹Letters of Obscure Men›,
and Epistolary Fictions, in: «Self-Presentation and
Social Identification. The Rhetoric and Pragmatics
of Letter Writing in Early Modern Times», T. Van
Houdt, J. Papy, G. Tournoy and C. Matheeussen,
eds, Leuven, 2002, pp. 385–404).
VD16, E-2938. Adams, E-851. I. Bezzel, Erasmusdrucke
des 16. Jahrhunderts in bayerischen Bibliotheken,
Stuttgart, 1979, no. 1017. Bibliotheca
Erasmiana. Répertoire des oeuvres d’Érasme,
Nieuwkoop, 1961, p. 99.
Libreria Alberto Govi 51