Rudolph Agricola. Letters (MR 216).

Eds. Adrie van der Laan and Fokke Akkerman. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002. x + 436 pp. index. illus. gloss. bibl. $38. ISBN: 0-86698-252-2.

This is a complete critical edition of the letters of German humanist Rudolph Agricola (Roelof Huesman, 1444-85), a pioneer in bringing "Italianized" humanism north, author of the posthumously influential De inventione dialectica and numerous minor writings, and scholar of both Greek and Hebrew. From a presumably somewhat larger corpus only fifty-one epistles survive, scattered across thirty-two different sources. For this volume, then, the editors have done enormous philological spadework, and they present their results in a clear, careful manner.

Agricola's letters themselves are as elegant and charming as one might expect from such an important humanist. Throughout, the reader encounters a distinct personality, presented in a precise, graceful, and allusive style. Agricola is more formal than the Italians, but hardly pompous or stiff; if the Italians consider "a letter as half of a conversation by creating a colloquial style.... Agricola ... always seems to strive for parallelism and antithesis" (22). The letters read remarkably well, both in the brief personal notes and the long meditations on humanism and scholarship. Letter 38, to Jacob Barbireau (7 June 1484), also known as De formando studio, could have value in modern classrooms, not only as a demonstration of Latin style but as an example of the didactic personal essay. Here as elsewhere, Agricola explains ideas clearly and succinctly, instructing thoroughly without seeming pedantic. This exactness and simplicity of diction Agricola calls "my well-known Attic sparseness, which I always aim at and ... which you [Adolph Occo] have always said ... should not be pronounced with the entire mouth, but between two teeth only" (137). Readers who enjoy early modern letters, not to mention those professionally concerned with Agricola and Neo-Latin philology, will find this volume worthwhile.

The translations, while generally smooth and competent, "were added solely to facilitate a correct use and interpretation of the letters. No effort has been made to render Agricola's stylistic virtuosity into English" (30). This seems rather a pity, as it restricts the audience unnecessarily and makes Agricola's cool elegance and charm far less attractive than it deserves to be. Nonetheless the rather colorless translations do serve the stated purpose, and a good deal of the letters' charm comes through.

Considering the editors' philological stance, the volume's apparatus is unsurprisingly extensive. The Latin texts, with notes on sources and variants, face their English renderings. A generally helpful introduction gives biographical, contextual, and technical information. The longest section here, surely the most interesting to the editors, discusses Agricola's language and style; here philological criticism gets freer rein than elsewhere, and the writing becomes a bit more expansive. Unfortunately lacking is a review of the historiography, which would facilitate the letters' use by non-specialists. The back of the book contains some hundred-odd pages of more discursive notes, plus indices of names, words and syntax, sources, and letters, as well as a glossary, bibliography, list of variants, and breakdown of clausulae. In short, the structure of the volume excellently serves its function as a source for intensive critical scholarship.

Overall, this edition provides a valuable resource. Agricola's letters could serve admirably as teaching tools for late Latin, and the editorial work as a salutary example of care and respect for sources. The translations are respectable, if overcareful for this reader's taste; the editors catch Agricola's precision but not his elegance, making the English prose quite leaden. Given the book's size and arcane content, the price is remarkably low, which should encourage relatively wide distribution. Admittedly, not everyone admires the epistolary style of Latin humanism, but this edition of Agricola's letters will effectively serve those who do.

CHRISTOPHER I. LEHRICH

Boston University