Rudolph Agricola. Letters.

Eds. Adrie van der Laan and Fokke Akkerman. (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 216; Bibliotheca Latinitatis Novae, 4.) Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2002. x + 435 pp. index. illus, gloss, bibl. 64.50 [euro]. ISBN: 90-232-3808-7.

Rudolph Agricola (1444-85) was the only member of the first generation of German and Dutch humanists who was still remembered and honored by northern humanists of the early sixteenth century. His extended residence in Italy (1468?-79), his mastery of Greek and Hebrew, and his classicized Latin style combined to make him a durable influence on later humanists. He also had personal contacts that guaranteed that he would be remembered. Alexander Hegius, the headmaster of the famous chapter-school at Deventer, was his disciple. While working as secretary to the city council of Groningen (1480-84), he was a member of the influential circle of humanists who met at the Cistercian monastery at Aduard. Shortly before his premature death, his friend Johann von Dalberg, bishop of Worms and chancellor of the Palatinate, brought him to the electoral court and the university at Heidelberg. His career links together a generation of local and regional celebrities--schoolmasters, university teachers, wealthy clergymen, and town and princely officials--whose activities emerge only occasionally from the records of the late fifteenth century but who were precursors of the leading German humanists of the next generation, such as Wimpheling, Reuchlin, Peutinger, Pirckheimer, and, above all, Erasmus.

Agricola wrote only one major book, De inventione dialectica, which had great influence after its publication in 1515. He also left a few other works--some orations, a life of Petrarch, a few translations from Greek, and commentaries on Seneca, Boethius, and Cicero. This literary production is now supplemented by his letters, most of which have been unavailable in print. Compared to the hundreds or thousands of letters left by Petrarch, Salutati, Filelfo, and Erasmus, the surviving correspondence of Agricola is small, just fifty-one of his own letters and four letters addressed to him. Yet these letters shed light on the intellectual life of German and Dutch humanism in the thinly-documented later fifteenth century. The editors provide a critical Latin text based on all available manuscripts and early printed books, paralleled by a clear English translation. The introduction, extensive notes, and appendices enhance the value of the text itself. The introductory essay identifies humanistic, patristic, but mainly classical sources--not only for direct quotations but also for those indirect allusions through which humanist insiders liked to demonstrate their classical erudition to other insiders. The notes present specific examples of classical and postclassical Latin words and usages, demonstrating that by and large, Agricola succeeded in creating a style that adhered closely to classical Latin. Perhaps most valuable of all, historians of early German humanism will find in the notes careful identification of persons mentioned in the correspondence, so that it is possible to glimpse the workings and affinities of the emergent humanist community in decades that are not otherwise well-documented.

The editors provide a helpful introductory essay. It gives a concise summary of Agricola's career, briefly outlines the lives of his most important correspondents, and demonstrates his success in fulfilling the humanists' goal of purging Latin of medieval neologisms and usages. It also assesses his use of classical quotations and allusions, carefully describes the manuscript and printed sources, and ends with a detailed bibliographical description of each source used. There are several helpful appendices: a list of abbreviations; an extensive bibliography of modern scholarship; indices of proper names, of Latin and Greek words and syntax, and variant Latin spellings; and an index of classical, patristic, and humanistic sources. Another appendix assesses (with negative results) the evidence for deliberate use of prose rhythm (clausus) in Agricola's letters. There is also a list of minor textual variants, and a concluding chronological list of all fifty-five letters.

In sum, the editors have produced an excellent edition of an important source for the history of early German and Dutch humanism. Their book offers a glimpse--the best we are likely ever to have--into those obscure decades when Germanic humanism was laying the foundations of the dominant position it held on the eve of the Reformation.

CHARLES G. NAUERT

University of Missouri, Columbia