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Leighton Library has 1529 edition of “Antibarbarorum D. Erasmi roterodami, liber unus, quem iuuenis quidem adhuc lusit" by Desiderius Erasmus
Added at 07:15 on 12 July 2025
The Leighton Library has a 1529 edition of “Antibarbarorum D. Erasmi roterodami, liber unus, quem iuuenis quidem adhuc lusit" by Dutch philosopher widely considered to have been greatest scholar of northern Renaissance, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam who died #OnThisDay 1536.
It is said that, by the 1530s, writings of Erasmus accounted for up to 20 percent of all book sales in Europe.
This book is a spirited defence of classical learning and humanist education, written in the 1490s and revised for publication in 1520. Though Erasmus began the work as a young monk, he returned to it decades later, reshaping it in light of mounting opposition to humanism and his own theological reform effort. Erasmus wrote the Antibarbarorum in response to critics who viewed classical literature, especially authors like Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid, as incompatible with Christian piety. The work champions the idea that “all sound learning is secular learning”, arguing that classical texts enrich moral and theological understanding rather than undermine it.
It still resonates today as Erasmus’s youthful exuberance when he started writing it, with his mature reflection decades later when he revisited it, combine in this work to form a manifesto for intellectual freedom. It’s a reminder that the pursuit of truth and beauty, whether through Plato or Paul, need not be mutually exclusive.
