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Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1538)
Erasmus was born on October 27th, 1466 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He was the illegitimate son of a physician's daughter by a man who afterwards turned monk. He was called Gerrit Gerritszoond (Dutch for Gerard Gerardson) but he himself adopted the name Desiderius Erasmus by which he is known. He attended the school of the "Brothers of the Common Life" at Deventer. On his parents death his guardians insisted on his entering a monastery and in the Augustinian college of Stein near Gouda, he spent six years there. After taking Priest's orders Erasmus went to Paris and studied at the college Montaigu. He resided in Paris until 1498, gaining a livelihood by teaching
Renaissance Spirit
Erasmus was the most famous and influential humanist of the Northern Renaissance, a man of great talent and industriousness who rose from obscure beginnings to become the leading intellectual figure of the early sixteenth century, courted by rulers and prelates who wanted to enhance their own reputations by association with the greatest scholar of the age. He was his generations finest latin stylist, in a society that revered good Latin, even more impressive for his much rarer mastery of Greek that few contemporaries could equal. He was a leading writer on education, author of five influential treatises on humanist educational theory and even a greater number of widely used and often reprinted textbooks taught in humanistic schools throughout Europe, especially north of the Alps.
Erasmus was born on October 27th, 1466 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He was the illegitimate son of a physician's daughter by a man who afterwards turned monk. He was called Gerrit Gerritszoond (Dutch for Gerard Gerardson) but he himself adopted the name Desiderius Erasmus by which he is known. He attended the school of the "Brothers of the Common Life" at Deventer. On his parents death his guardians insisted on his entering a monastery and in the Augustinian college of Stein near Gouda, he spent six years there. After taking Priest's orders Erasmus went to Paris and studied at the college Montaigu. He resided in Paris until 1498, gaining a livelihood by teaching
Renaissance Spirit
Erasmus was the most famous and influential humanist of the Northern Renaissance, a man of great talent and industriousness who rose from obscure beginnings to become the leading intellectual figure of the early sixteenth century, courted by rulers and prelates who wanted to enhance their own reputations by association with the greatest scholar of the age. He was his generations finest latin stylist, in a society that revered good Latin, even more impressive for his much rarer mastery of Greek that few contemporaries could equal. He was a leading writer on education, author of five influential treatises on humanist educational theory and even a greater number of widely used and often reprinted textbooks taught in humanistic schools throughout Europe, especially north of the Alps.