Erasmus could only see the inconsistencies in the conduct of Christ's vicar, and was evidently oblivious to the perils to which the Pontiff was exposed.

19

It is, moreover, to be borne in mind that Erasmus was living in a city which had just been forced to accept the suzerainty of Pope Julius, and which had acknowledged the fact with very bad grace. Among the many friends whom he met at Bologna, and to whom it is natural to suppose that he was furnished with letters of introduction by his Italian friends in London, was Paolo Bombace, an accomplished scholar in Greek and Latin, who was also Professor of Rhetoric and the Greek tongue in the University of Bologna. He was a vigorous partisan in the troubles which occurred between Pope Julius and the Bentivogli, assisting the latter with all the ardor of youth and making no secret of his anti-papal leanings. Fantuzzi tells us that he even took up the pick and shovel and aided in making fortified positions and trenches to serve for the defense of his native city. Mutual tastes, a love of learning, and particularly Greek learning, were the bonds that bound these two men in a friendship which ceased only with the death of Bombace at the sack of Rome by the French troops in 1527. It is most reasonable, therefore, to conclude that such friends as Bombace and others of the circle in which he moved must have tinctured Erasmus' sentiments with their own and, unversed as he was in the devious ways of Italian politics, have made him an ardent partisan of the claims of the Bolognese as against those of the Pope. So he mentally registered Julius II as a future subject for satire, but for the present kept a close guard over his tongue, pondering deeply the while.

20

One might imagine that his surroundings were at this time fairly satisfactory to him, but this is evidently not so. Although he was living at his ease in a university town, and at the expense of others, with few duties to perform and plenty of time to devote to his beloved studies, still he was discontented. He states that he never spent a more unpleasant year than this one at Bologna, and he gives the conduct of Clyfton as the reason. We have not been given Clyfton's side of the story, so, remembering Erasmus' tendency to exaggeration, we must accept his account only so far as it is borne out by the testimony of others. There is a close analogy between this episode and the episode of the tutor of Thomas Grey mentioned in a former chapter. They are both characterized by an apparently studied indefiniteness as to the producing cause, and the same fierce hatred of the offending party, for whom no expression of scorn and contempt is sufficiently satisfying. While he exclaimed upon Grey's tutor as a rascal and viper, he now reviles

19 Muzzi says that when Pope Julius was a Cardinal, and Bishop of Bologna, he incurred the enmity of Pope Alexander VI, but had set him at defiance. Bentivoglio, to ingratiate himself with Alexander, tried to make Julius a prisoner. This was one of his reasons for punishing the Bentivogli, of which Erasmus was naturally unaware.

20 "Gli cittadini ancora piu qualificati si adoperarono di persona nelle opere di difesa, onde anche Paolo prese la vanga ed il badile per cavar terra e alzar trinciere e far tutt' altro che abbisognava in quelle circostanze," etc. (Scrittori Bolognese, Tome II, p. 277.)

21

Clyfton as a monster and a pig. No doubt Boerio in London received both sides of the story from the interested parties, embellished to the utmost of which they were capable. It is possible that Clyfton's ground of complaint against Erasmus was based on the neglect of his duties towards the two sons of Boerio. As if to counteract this, Erasmus insisted that his duties were not those of a teacher or preceptor, but only of a supervisor of what related to their studies. He told Botzheim (and rather ungratefully, we cannot help thinking, under the circumstances) that he had been inveigled into consenting to accompany the two boys into Italy, but we know that this is not so, for in his letter to Linacre he looked forward with pleasure to the affair, and commented on the natural gifts, the modesty, and the tractability of the two young men. His contract was for one year, and he seems to have fulfilled it with regard to time, if not with respect to value given. But Boerio was not a man to be treated lightly or unjustly. His position at the English Court as royal physician brought him into frequent contact with the mutual friends of both, and Erasmus would naturally prefer his friendship to his enmity. It would appear, however, that Clyfton had the better success with the father, and succeeded in causing more than a coolness between Erasmus and Boerio, an estrangement which was not at all to the former's liking. If Boerio had not been the direct means of his easily obtaining his doctorate, as we have previously intimated, he certainly had done him some other great favor, for Erasmus sought to honor him as he was wont to honor others who had helped him with money, or favors which were equivalent, by dedicating to him one of his works. This was a translation of the Astrologia of Lucian, and we can estimate the value which he set on such an offering, and the high position which the recipients of such honors held in his regard, by naming the other men who had received them at his hands, viz., Archbishop Warham, Bishop Foxe, Richard Whitford, Christopher Fisher, Thomas Ruthall, Christopher Urswick, René d'Illiers, John Paludanus, and others whom the reader will recall. And so he very gracefully presents it in the following words:

First the intention of the giver must commend it . . . to you. and then it will be due to your candor and usual practice to raise it from a trifle to an ample gift, from a mediocre to an eminent and uncommon one, and such will certainly be the case if my little book shall go before the public not only with Boerio's praise, but also with his judicious criticism."2

This did not entirely melt the royal physician's coldness, but there followed an interchange of letters, and in 1513, when the young Boerios had returned from Italy to England, the father offered Erasmus the hospitality of his house and table, and thereupon Erasmus remarks that the father had changed his opinion of him completely since the young men had returned. There can be no doubt that Erasmus was anxious to stand well with Boerio, for he often expressed his regret in after 21 Eras. Ep. 194. 22 Ibid. 267.

days that this unpleasantness had arisen between them, and, writing to one of the sons twenty-five years afterwards, he says:

We owe it to that fellow whom you style the Beetle, not alone that I had to leave you sooner than I expected, but also that the joy of our friendship was mingled with much bitterness, and, in fact, had not my obligation held me to my duty, may I die if I could have been compelled to endure the monster one month for any amount of

money.

23

23 Eras. Ep. (LB) col. 1182

CHAPTER XVIII

ITALY: NEW FRIENDS; FRESH LITERARY EFFORTS; ALDUS

It was during the period of his stay in Bologna that the curious adventure happened to him of which he spoke in his letter to Lambert Grunnius. The Augustinian habit which he wore was subject to slight changes in different countries, especially as to color. At Steyn he wore the simple brown habit, but when he went to Paris he found that, in addition to this, the monks of his Order wore a white scapulary (linen) over their habit. Erasmus conformed to the French custom on this point. When he went to Bologna, the brethren of his Order in that city wore the plain habit without the white scapulary. The plague was prevalent in Bologna at that time, he tells us, and it appeared that the attendants who buried the dead of that disease used to wear a white cloth over the left shoulder as a distinguishing mark, so that passers-by could avoid them. Erasmus claims that he was mistaken for one of these morgue attendants, and was mobbed by the people, narrowly escaping with his life. The story somewhat strains our powers of belief and, as we have before stated, is frankly disbelieved by some of his biographers, particularly by Drummond and Emerton. That a people like the Bolognese who were accustomed to the daily sight of the various religious habits on their streets could mistake this one for anything else is strange, but possible, in view of the white scarf. Nay, more, in the dusk of the evening it might be even probable that Erasmus was held up and asked to give an account of himself. Being unable to do this in Italian, which he could not speak, and thus becoming an object of the suspicion with which all foreigners were regarded in every country during the Middle Ages, he may justly claim that something similar to what he describes really happened to him in Bologna. Now, when we remember how distasteful to him was everything monastic, we can easily appreciate what little love he bore the habit which he was obliged to wear. Add to this the thought that was beginning to take shape in his mind, of one day being able to throw it off forever, and we can easily see how an incident such as that mentioned above might be of service to him in accomplishing that object. So we are inclined to accept the incident, allowing for the usual Erasmian embellishments. And we are the more inclined to believe it because he immediately set about obtaining permission from Rome to dispense with the wearing of his habit, in which he was successful in the event. He would have us think that Pope Julius granted him this privilege as a personal favor, but we know all such matters were handled by special congregations or 1 See pages 21 and 29.

commissions, and that as a matter of fact the Pontiff was frequently not even consulted. The business of the Pontifical court, then as now, followed the customs prevalent in all courts, and the actual Church government was entrusted to ecclesiastics of various ranks and positions. So it was probably through his acquaintance with the Church dignitaries who had influence in Rome that he eventually obtained the coveted favor of no longer being obliged to wear the detested habit, provided that he wore a dress that was in some measure suitable to an ecclesiastic. But, from this very claim that Pope Julius did him the favor, we realize that he had not consulted the wishes of his superiors at Steyn nor the Provincial of his district. Evidently he had worked along the lines of least resistance, and the officials of his Order had to make the best of it. The abandoning of his habit was one of the changes which Prior Servatius charged him with, as we shall see when we come to that period.

Another friend whom he made at this time, while the Pope and his entourage were still in Bologna, was Scipione Fortiguerra, or as he styled himself in Greek in accordance with the custom then prevalent, Carteromachos. Here was another piece of good fortune. Erasmus had never met Poliziano, for whom he always expressed the greatest admiration, and now he might never more hope for that happiness since Poliziano had gone to his early grave thirteen years before. But in Carteromachos he met a man who had been a pupil of the great man, and who could discourse with him about the object of his admiration. Carteromachos was about his own age, and consequently in the prime of life. Like Bombace he was a Greek scholar, which inevitably attracted Erasmus to him, and in the event, Carteromachos was able to be of great service to him for many years to come. He had been associated with Aldus Manutius, the famous printer at Venice, and with him had been instrumental in founding the celebrated Neacademia, which embraced in its membership most of the leading Greek scholars of Italy. He had been appointed tutor to Galeotto della Rovere, a nephew of Pope Julius, and was consequently in attendance on his pupil during the Bolognese campaign. When the Papal Curia returned to Rome in the February of 1507, Carteromachos followed it thither. Here certainly was a friend for Erasmus at Rome, and close enough to the Pope if favors were needed. As we shall meet him again during our perusal of Erasmus' letters, we need not here follow him further, but merely indicate that it was by hearing so much from him about Aldus Manutius and his famous press that Erasmus was led to seek the acquaintance of the world's greatest printer. To have a work of his issuing from such a press would in a measure place on his writings the approval of Italian scholarship, and Erasmus was not regardless of the value of such recognition. Accordingly, he wrote to Aldus at Venice the following letter, and not without imparting to it a little of the subtle flattery of which he was a past master:

Most learned Manutius: I have often had the wish in mind that you might reap as much profit for yourself as you shed light on