Dialogvs, Ivlivs Exclvsvs e Coelis

Abstract

In 1506, after years of expectation and disappointment, Erasmus finally put into effect his plan to visit Italy. His sojourn in the ancient centre of culture and religion was of great significance for his development both as humanist and reformer, and is therefore an important event in the history of Christian humanism in Northern Europe ¹). There he perfected his command of Greek, read through ancient manuscripts unobtainable in the North, and mingled freely with the most distinguished scholars of the Italian Renaissance. There, too, he had his first opportunity to view the papacy at close range. Rome in the first years of the sixteenth century might prove very enlightening to a spiritually-minded Christian, gifted, as was Erasmus, with the piercing vision of the born satirist. For three years he regarded the turbulent Italian scene from one point of vantage after another, but always with an interested eye on the papal comedy. The first fruit of these years of thoughtful observation was the Moriae Encomium, the second, less famous but scarcely less significant, the dialogue Iulius exclusus e coelis.