The purse on Erasmus’s lap may be included in order to illustrate his generosity. Erasmus and Gillis made a point of informing More that they had split the cost of this gift because they wanted it to be a present from them both.
Compare this suggestion of the purse as an attribute suggesting generosity to Jardine's (1996) suggestion that its meant to place Erasmus in the merchant class.
(Of course it could be doing both.)
The books on the shelf behind the scholar have inscriptions relating to his recently published works: Novum Testament[um] and Hieronymus refer to Erasmus’s editions of the New Testament and St Jerome; Lovkianos refers to Erasmus’s and More’s collaboration in translating Lucian’s Dialogues; and Hor, which originally read Mor and must have been altered during an early restoration, spells the first letters of the Englishman’s name and refers to the ‘Praise of Folly’ (Encomium Moriae), a satirical essay written whilst Erasmus stayed with More in Bucklersbury in London in 1509. The words on the paper are a paraphrase of St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, the handwriting is a close imitation of Erasmus’s own hand, and the reed pen was Erasmus’s favourite writing tool.
https://www.rct.uk/collection/405759/desiderius-erasmus-1466-1536
One ought to notice the shears hanging on a nail or hook on the bookshelf in the background. Presumably these would have been a primary tool for Erasmus' ars excerpendi practice.
Cross reference Lisa Jardine (1996) who calls out the purse on Erasmus' chest which identifies him as part of the merchant class.
Also cross reference Hans Holbein's portraits of Erasmus.
for - Christine Wamsler - Lund University - homepage - from - youtube - Mindfulness World Community - Awareness, Care and Sustainability for Our Earth - https://hyp.is/GCUJ1APHEfCcr_vvv3lAFw/www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTUc_0GroGM
to - paper - An Interdisciplinary Model to Foster Existential Resilience and Transformation
to - paper - Engaging high-income earners in climate action : Policy insights from survey experiments
to - paper - Revolutionising sustainability leadership and education : addressing the human dimension to support flourishing, culture and system transformation
to - The System Within : Addressing the inner dimensions of sustainability and systems change
research areas - sustainable cities - collaborative governance - city-citizen collaboration - citizen participation - sustainability and wellbeing - sustainability transformation - inner development goals - inner transformation - inner transition - existential sustainability
He gives due honor to Frank & George7 I should like to keep it a few days to read your life. When this monument has been erected to Dr. D you should set about erecting your own in the shape of a really handsome Edition of the Origin that a gentleman could read8 EAD
Footnote 8:
The last edition of Origin published during CD’s lifetime was the 1876 reprint of Origin 6th ed., and had some corrections and additions to the text (Freeman 1977). This edition was produced in a cheaper form than previous ones, with small type and a relatively small page; a ‘gentleman’s’ edition usually had larger type and page size, with wider margins.
Ref: Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11918,” accessed on 30 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11918.xml
ᔥ[[Richard Carter]] in Mastodon at Sep 23, 2024, 08:20 AM (accessed:: 2024-09-30 01:34:36)
When he recorded his observations, he adhered to the Erasmian principle of distilling things down to their essence and entering them in notebooks, as if he were storing rare wine to be served for dégustation in future conversations.
This is quite similar to the advice by Sonke Ehrens and Nikolas Luhmann.
Chapter 39 of Zoonomia, “On Generation,” presents Erasmus’ ideas on competition, extinction, and how “different fibrils or molecules are detached from…the parent…to form” the child. The Temple of Nature goes even farther, declaring “all vegetables and animals now existing were originally derived from the smallest microscopic ones, formed by spontaneous vitality” in ancient oceans.
Interesting to contemplate the evolution of the idea of evolution through the Darwin family.
Charles would obviously have read his grandfather's book, but it also bears noting that he also had access to his grandfather's commonplace book (and likely his other papers).
Darwin's Grandfather<br /> by [[Dan Allosso]]
Erasmus Darwin’s popularity in America was so great that over a hundred children in Massachusetts between 1800 and 1850 were apparently named after him. I was so surprised to discover a half dozen of them in the remote hill-town of Ashfield where I had gone to find Dr. Charles Knowlton that I did a whole project trying to track them down.
As they flit like so many little bees between Greek and Latin authors of every species, here noting down something to imitate, here culling some notable saying to put into practice in their behavior, there getting by heart some witty anecdote to relate among their friends, you would swear you were watching the Muses at graceful play in the lovely pastures of Mount Helicon, gathering flowers and marjoram to make well-woven garlands. —The Adages of Erasmus
Montaigne once teased the writer Erasmus, who was known for his dedication to reading scholarly works, by asking with heavy sarcasm “Do you think he is searching in his books for a way to become better, happier, or wiser?” In Montaigne’s mind, if he wasn’t, it was all a waste.
https://www.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/the-scope-and-nature-of-darwins-commonplace-book/
Erasmus Darwin's commonplace book
It is one of the version(s?) published by John Bell based on John Locke's method and is a quarto volume bound in vellum with about 300 sheets of fine paper.
Blank pages 1 to 160 were numbered and filled by Darwin in his own hand with 136 entries. The book was started in 1776 and continued until 1787. Presumably Darwin had a previous commonplace book, but it has not been found and this version doesn't have any experiments prior to 1776, though there are indications that some material has been transferred from another source.
The book contains material on medical records, scientific matters, mechanical and industrial improvements, and inventions.
The provenance of Erasmus Darwin's seems to have it pass through is widow Elizabeth who added some family history to it. It passed through to her son and other descendants who added entries primarily of family related topics. Leonard Darwin (1850-1943), the last surviving son of Charles Darwin gave it to Down House, Kent from whence it was loaned to Erasmus Darwin House in 1999.
Toward the end of the 18th century English publisher John Bell published notebooks entitled Bell’s Common-Place Book, Formed generally upon the Principles Recommended and Practised by Mr Locke.” These included eight pages of instructions on Locke’s indexing method, a system which not only made it easier to find passages, but also served the higher purpose of “facilitat[ing] reflexive thought.”
At the end of the 18th century, John Bell (1745–1831), an English publisher published notebooks with the title Bell’s Common-Place Book, Formed generally upon the Principles Recommended and Practised by Mr Locke. The notebooks commonly included 550 pages, of which eight pages included instructions on John Locke's indexing method.
Link to: - Didn't Erasmus Darwin use one of these?!
In part in order to heighten his praise of Aldus as the ideal printer, Erasmus noted by contrast that most printers, given the absence of regulations, “fill the world with pamphlets and books [that are] . . . foolish, ignorant, malig-nant, libellous, mad, impious and subversive; and such is the flood that even
things that might have done some good lose all their goodness.”198 The overabundance of bad books drowned out even any good bits that might be present among them.
And we now say these same sorts of things about the internet and social media.
Popularized in a previous period of information overload, theIndustrial Revolution of the eighteenth and early nineteenthcenturies, the commonplace book was more than a diary or journalof personal reflections
Commonplace books were popularized in the late 1400s/early 1500s in handbooks by Desiderius Erasmus, Philip Melanchthon, Rudolphus Agricola, and others along with the rise and accessibility of printed books.
Would have been nice to have some more background and history on their development and evolution. Mentions of florilegia, vade mecum, others perhaps? Other cultures?
She frequently cites authors second-hand(“as quoted by”, “see,” etc.) rather than primary texts, and in some instancesthis practice results in the kinds of errors for which earlier compilations werecriticized. The most egregious of these occurs when Blair cites Ann Moss on
Guarino da Verona when making the unlikely claim that note taking begin in earnest with Francesco Sacchini in the seventeenth century rather than a hundred years earlier with Erasmus and Vives.
I almost feel like I've arrived as I noticed this error in the text myself.
Interesting that he calls her out for making a compilation error, something which is very meta with respect to this particular text.
Although humanists like Guarino da Verona(1370–1460), Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536), and Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540)explained the principles of the commonplace book that collected phrases worthyof imitation under topical headings, they did not offer detailed practical advice
in print.33
- Moss (1996), 54–55. For Guarino’s methods, see the treatise by his son Battista in Guarino (2002); Erasmus discusses commonplacing in De copia and De ratione studii (Basel, 1512), in Erasmus (1978), 605–6, 636–38, 672; Vives does so in De tradendis disciplinis (1531), in Vives (1971), 108, 133
Double check what Erasmus has to say as it would seem that Earle Havens contradicts this in Commonplace Books (Yale University Press, 2001). Perhaps its a difference of degree? I seem to recall that he indicated that Erasmus helped to popularize commonplacing practice.
Humanist concerns about printing motivated one early appearance of the theme, in Erasmus’s famous digressive commentary on the adage festina lente (make haste slowly), first published in 1525: “Is there anywhere on earth exempt from these swarms of new books? Even if, taken out one at a time, they offered something worth knowing, the very mass of them would be a serious impedi-ment to learning from satiety if nothing else, which can do far more damage where good things are concerned or simply from the fact that men’s minds are easily glutted and hungry for something new, and so these distractions call them away from the reading of ancient authors.” Erasmus complained here about a flood of new books because these were of lesser value than ancient texts and dis-tracted readers from true learning. Erasmus blamed the flood of bad new books on printing.
I'm reminded here of a similar conversation I had circa 1996 with cinematographer Caleb Deschanel who lamented with me about the increase in the number of new low quality movies available on VHS and DVD and how we both spent time watching a lot of crap instead of focusing on the auteurs and better quality cineaste experiences that were available in remastered formats and collections like the Criterion Collection.
Simultaneously, there was a revival of the old art of excerpting and the use of commonplace books. Yet, the latter were perceived no longer as memory aids but as true secondary memo-ries. Scholars, in turn, became increasingly aware that to address the informa-tion overload produced by printing, the best solution was to train a card index instead of their own individual consciousness.
Another reason for the downfall of older Western memory traditions is the increased emphasis and focus on the use of commonplaces and commonplace books in the late 1400s onward.
Cross reference the popularity of manuals by Erasmus, Agricola, and Melanchthon.
pedagogues in the humanist tradition, from Erasmus to Drexel,were routinely hostile to the arts of memory.
On Erasmus’s preference for “study, order and care” over places and images, see Erasmus,De ratione studii(1512), quoted in Yates,The Art of Memory,p. 127
What other pedagogues were hostile to memory?
This is another point in the decline of memory traditions from the 1500s onward.
What effect did cheaper books and paper have on this decline?
Keep in mind that Erasmus had written a treatise on commonplacing which was also a point in the history of note taking though Blair doesn't acknowledge his contributions in her list here. Also Agricola and Melanchthon
He concludes his memory section by defendingvisual mnemonics against authorities like Erasmus who doubt its efficacy.
Why might Erasmus have doubted its efficacy? Did he use it? Attempt to? Did he have some sort of cognitive defect that may have made it difficult/impossible for him in particular?
MMScotofGlasgow
@MMScotofGlasgow, Hopefully it's not too late...
Francis Yates discusses Petrus Ramus as an educational reformer in Chapter 10 and onward in The Art of Memory. There she outlines Ramus' crusade against images (based in part on the admonition from 4 Deuteronomy about graven images) and on their prurient use (sex, violence, etc.) which were meant to make things more memorable. Ramism caught on in the late 1500's and essentially removed memory by the root from the subject of rhetoric of which it had been an integral part. Ramus felt that structure and rote memorization would suffice in its stead. As a result the method of loci decreased in prominence in schools and disappeared from the scene based on educational reform which was primarily pushed by Huguenot/Protestants. I've not read anywhere that the practice was ever banned, it just fell out of fashion due to these reforms.
I'm sure it didn't help that printed books became ever cheaper during/after this time and so the prior need to memorize for those reasons wasn't helped either.
I'm sure another confounding factor was Erasmus' Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style (1512) which dramatically popularized the keeping and use of commonplace books by the learned and literate. These became a regular place in which people collected and kept their thoughts and ideas rather than memorizing them as they may have done in the past.
“In his influential De Copia (1512),” writes Professor Richard Yeo, “Erasmus advised that an abundant stock of quotations and maxims from classical texts be entered under various loci (places) to assist free-flowing oratory.” Arranged under ‘Heads’ and recorded as ‘common-places’ (loci communes), these commonplace books could be consulted for speeches and written compositions designed for various situations — in the law court, at ceremonial occasions, or in the dedication of a book to a patron. Typical headings included the classical topics of honour, virtue, beauty, friendship, and Christian ones such as God, Creation, faith, hope, or the names of the virtues and vices.
I had heard of some discoveries having been made by an English philosopher
It is unclear who this English philosopher might have been, though it might be a reference to Erasmus Darwin, who Percy Shelley cites in the novel's introduction.
Dr. Darwin
Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), the evolutionist and poet who lived in Birmingham, England, is clearly on Percy Shelley's mind when he introduces Mary's text in the 1818 edition. Critics of the novel have not often followed this lead in thinking about it as an early work in the British evolutionary imagination. Erasmus Darwin had made "not of impossible occurrence" that one presently visible species could mutate into another. Victor contemplates this possibility—as an alarming one—when he speculates in Volume 3, Chapter 3, that the Creature's demand that he create a "mate" could result in a new evolutionary development, "a race of devils."
simply to repeat,
'Simple' repetition is one way to look at it, but Muckelbauer's Future of Invention provides an entirely different take on the value of repetition, of reproducing. Though both Quintilian and Erasmus return to similar ground again and again, they and the layout of the land are not precisely as they were before.
"forms
Shadows and objects