30.03 Watch the video / Erasmus Wednesday meetings No.3 Franz Bierlaire – Erasmus’s Colloquies
#3 Erasmus’s Colloquies with a guest expert: Franz Bierlaire
In the context of the 500th anniversary of Erasmus’s coming to Anderlecht we propose a series of monthly meetings (on site or livestreamed) to discover Erasmus’s thinking in the company of guest experts. We shall explore the major texts of the Humanist thinker and tireless traveller who help forge European culture.
Caption: Félix Cogen, Last stay of Erasmus in Basel. Circa 1907. Oil on canvas. Erasmus House Museum, MEH 33.
No 3 Erasmus’s Colloquies, the still-to-be-followed book of a writer who had arrived
Wednesday 30.03.2022
Guest | Professor Franz Bierlaire
Although less famous today than his Moriae enconium (Praise of Folly), the now 500-year-old Colloquia familiaria had the widest dissemination and most resounding impact throughout the 16th century. Erasmus kept this work on his loom, like a serial, for close to thirty-five years, adding new episodes to it periodically, until the number of pages was multiplied tenfold to become a compilation of some sixty “familiar conversations” amongst people of all ages, all professions, and both genders about the main issues of the time. Current events, both major and minor, effectively fuel these “examples of remarks exchanged in the course of an encounter”, which are both models of conversation in good Latin and useful lessons on life, as is confirmed by the very subtitle of this work: “to polish one’s style and regulate one’s life”.
Franz Bierlaire is an honorary professor of Liège University, where he taught the history of humanism and modern history, amongst other subjects. His writings focus on Erasmus and Erasmism, the history of the scholarly book, and the history of education in the Renaissance. He is one of the world’s greatest connoisseurs of the Colloquia familiara. His publications on the subject include Érasme et ses ‘Colloques’ : le livre d’une vie, prefaced by Léon-E. Halkin (Geneva: Librairie Droz, Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 159, 1977) and the very recent Érasme au fil du temps, prefaced by Pierre Jodogne (Brussels: Éditions de l’Académie royale de Belgique, 2021).
Watch the livestreamed lecture
You can also watch and listen to this lecture live on our Youtube channel 👇
Publication In de schaduw van het hof. Erasmus te gast in Brussel en Anderlecht
Kathleen Leys, In de schaduw van het hof. Erasmus te gast in Brussel en Anderlecht, Brussel, Erasmushuis, 2021, coll. Colloquia in museo Erasmi, nr. 51, 64 pp., 5€
Cet ouvrage se penche sur les liens qu’entretenait Érasme avec Anderlecht et Bruxelles. Il permet de saisir la réalité d’un penseur et théologien à la fin du XVe, début du XVIe siècle dans nos contrées. Une édition en français est également prévue.
Plus d’info sur la publication
Disponible à la librairie du musée au prix de 5 €.
