XXI
[An account of an explosion of gunpowder which took place in Basel in
Sept. 1526. The correspondent to whom the letter is addressed was
Principal of Busleiden's Collegium trilingue at Louvain.]
1. AFRICA] An allusion to the proverb, 'Semper Africa novi aliquid apportat.' Erasmus' Africa here is the city of Basel, where religious innovations were already beginning.
21. GIGANTUM MOLES] When they tried to scale the heights of heaven by piling Mt. Pelion on Mt. Ossa.
22. Salmoneus was a presumptuous Thessalian who invented thunder and lightning of his own, and was killed by Jupiter as a punishment.
Ixion was the king of the Lapithae who was bound upon an ever-revolving wheel as punishment for having affronted Juno.
26. FLORENTIAE] When the bellicose Pope Julius II was attacking Bologna in the autumn of 1506, Erasmus took refuge at Florence.
28. TONABAT] Impersonal.
58. PULVERIS BOMBARDICI] 'gunpowder.'
62, 3. RIMAS … SPECULATORIAS] 'loopholes.'