Sacred Proverbs in the Shadow of Erasmus

Abstract This article traces the complicated textual history of the Libellus proverbiorum , a small collection of classical proverbs compiled by the Anglo-Italian scholar Polydore Vergil between 1498 and 1550. Vergil’s Proverbs has long lived in the shadow of Erasmus’ more famous Adages , a problem which led Vergil to attack Erasmus in print in 1521. This article, however, argues for the importance of treating the Proverbs on its own terms, as well as thinking about its broader place in the ‘Erasmian republic of letters’. It offers a more comprehensive survey of the Proverbs in print and demonstrates how Vergil attempted to manage its text and reputation while living in England. It challenges the notion that Vergil and Erasmus can easily be described as ‘friends’, proposing instead that the Proverbs remained a vehicle for the two men’s rivalry, scholarly self-fashioning and the articulation of distinct visions of Christian humanism.