The great Dutch scholar and theologian Erasmus was a student at the beginning of the sixteenth century in the Collège de Montaigu, where the first Irish college in Paris was to be established some seventy years later. On the death of Erasmus, his collected works were published in this major edition by Beatus Rhenanus, one of the foremost textual editors of his age. Long active in Basel, Rhenanus had by the time this volume was printed retired to Sélestat, the city of his birth and to which he was to leave his magnificent library. Rhenanus’ collection now forms the basis of the newly restored Bibliothèque humaniste of Sélestat. This page displays one of the most famous of Erasmus’ Adagia (or Adages): festina lente, or ‘make haste slowly’.
Erasmus, Desiderius. Omnia opera Des. Erasmi Roterodami: qvaecvnqve ipse avtor pro svis agnovit, novem tomis distincta, quorum elenchum sequentes catalogi perspicue exhibebunt. Ex qvibvs hic primvs ea continet, quae spectant ad institutionem literarum / Cum praefatione Beati Rhenani Selestadiensis, uitam autoris describente, ad imp. caes. Carolum v. P.F. Aug. Addito indice copiosissimo. Basileae: Froben, MDCXL. [Older Printed Books Collection]