Erasmus at Strasburg.
Leaving Maintz, he proceeded to Strasburg, where he was surrounded and entertained by a galaxy of learned men. Another stage brought him to Schelestadt.[492] The chief men of this ancient town, having heard of his approach, sent him a present of wines, requested his company to dinner on the following day, and offered him the escort of one of their number for the remainder of his journey. Erasmus declined to be further detained, but gladly accepted the escort of John Sapidus.
After having been thus lionised at each stage of the journey, and to prevent a similar annoyance, on his arrival at Basle, Erasmus requested his new companion to conceal his name, and if possible to introduce him to a few choice friends before his arrival was known. Sapidus complied with this request. He had no difficulty in making his choice.
Arrives at Basle incognito.
Circle of learned men at Basle.
Amerbach.
His three sons.
Froben.
Beatus Rhenanus.
Lystrius.
Erasmus introduced incognito to Froben and his friends.
Round the printing establishment of Froben, the printer had gathered a little group of learned and devoted men, whose names had made Basle famous as one of the centres of reviving learning. There was a university at Basle, but it was not this which had attracted the little knot of students to the city. The patriarch of the group was Johann Amerbach. He was now an old man. More than thirty years had passed since he had first set up his printing-press at Basle, and during these years he had devoted his ample wealth and active intellect to the reproduction in type of the works of the early Church Fathers. The works of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine had already issued from his press at vast cost of labour, time, and wealth. To publish St. Jerome’s works before he died, or at least to see the work in hand, was now the aged patriarch’s ambition. Many years ago he had imported Froben, that he might secure an able successor in the printing department. His own three sons, also, he had educated in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, so as to qualify them thoroughly for the work he wished them to continue after he was gone. And the three brothers Amerbach did not belie their father’s hopes. They had inherited a double portion of his spirit.[493] Froben, too, had caught the old printer’s mantle, and worked like him, for love, and not for gain.[494] Others had gathered round so bright a nucleus. There was Beatus Rhenanus, a young scholar of great ability and wealth, whose gentle loving nature endeared him to his intimate companions. He, too, had caught the spirit of reviving learning, and thought it not beneath his dignity to undertake the duties of corrector of the press in Froben’s printing-office.[495] Gerard Lystrius, a youth brought up to the medical profession, with no mean knowledge both of Greek and Hebrew, had also thrown in his lot with them.[496]
Such was the little circle of choice friends into which Sapidus, without betraying who he was, introduced the stranger who had just arrived in Basle, who, addressing himself at once to Froben, presented letters from Erasmus, with whom he said that he was most closely intimate, and from whom he had the fullest commission to treat with reference to the printing of his works, so that Froben might regard whatever arrangement he might make with him as though it had been made with Erasmus himself. Finding still that he was undiscovered, and wishing to slide easily from under his incognito, he soon added drily that Erasmus and he were ‘so alike that to see one was to have seen the other!’ Froben then, to his great amusement, discovered who the stranger was. He was received with open arms. His bills at the inn were forthwith paid, and himself, servant, horses, and baggage transferred to the home of Froben’s father-in-law, there to enjoy the luxuries of private hospitality.
When it was known in the city that Erasmus had arrived he was besieged by doctors and deans, rectors of the University, poets-laureate, invitations to dine, and every kind of attention which the men of Basle could give to so illustrious a stranger.
But Erasmus had come back to Basle not to be lionised, but to push on with his work. He was gratified; and, indeed, he told his friends, almost put to the blush by the honours with which he had been received; but, finding their constant attentions to interfere greatly with his daily labours at Froben’s office, he was obliged to request that he might be left to himself.[497]
Erasmus at work in Froben’s printing office.
At Froben’s office he found everything prepared to his hand. The train was already laid for the publication of St. Jerome. Beatus Rhenanus and the three brothers Amerbach were ready to throw themselves heart and soul into the work. The latter undertook to share the labour of collating and transcribing portions which Erasmus had not yet completed, and so the ponderous craft got fairly under way. By the end of August, he was thoroughly immersed in types and proof-sheets, and, to use his own expression, no less busy in superintending his little enterprise than the Emperor in his war with Venice.[498]