Erasmus, 1520

ERASMUS, Desiderius (1466-1536). Antibarbarorum. Basel: Johann Froben, May 1520 [and:] Epigrammata. Basel: Johann Froben, March 1518.

First Froben edition of Erasmus's youthful defense of humanist education and the study of pagan antiquity. Written in the 1480s and one of Erasmus’s earliest compositions, the manuscript was lost for a time after being left in the care of a succession of friends-of-friends. Erasmus did not manage to recover it until decades later; the first edition was printed in Cologne in 1518 before appearing two years later from the press of Erasmus’s collaborator Johann Froben. This sharply written dialogue was Erasmus’s first entry into the ongoing debate between the humanists and the old-guard scholastic schoolmasters over educational philosophy and the relationship between life and literature. It celebrates a love of the wisdom of Classical antiquity, attacking those “barbarians” who would close their minds to learning. This copy includes Froben’s 1518 printing of Erasmus’s Epigrams, which was originally part of his edition of Thomas More’s Utopia. First work: Valentina Sebastiani, Johann Froben, Printer of Basel 170; Bibliotheca Erasmiana p. 9; Adams E-463; VD 16 E 1997; second work: Adams M-1756 (last part only); Johann Froben, Printer of Basel 83 (last part only).

Two works in one, quarto (194 x 138mm). First work: title in woodcut border by Hans Holbein (a little short), A2 and B1 with woodcut borders, Froben's device on last page; second work: title in woodcut border, architectural initials, device on final page (title of first work slightly short, faint staining). 17th-century sprinckled calf, spine gilt, speckled edges (front board starting, spine dried and separating with losses to panels, old restorations). Provenance: some pencil annotations – Maurice Jules Abel Lefranc, 1863-1952 (pasted-in auction description).