Adages and Annotations

If you passed me at a desk in the last few weeks, there’s a good chance I made you stop and look at this 1515 copy of Erasmus’s Adagia: Folio PA8503 1515 Cage. Melanie Leung, the Folger’s Image Request and Printing Press Coordinator, introduced me to this volume that is so full of whimsy and intrigue, it has taken over my life. 

It’s fully digitized, and I invite you to spend some time browsing along with me: Accipito candide lector, Erasmi Roterodami Prouerbiorum chiliadas (aka Adagia). We are meant to experience this together, I think.  

Desiderius Erasmus was a Dutch humanist and Renaissance figure who lived from 1469 (or 1466) to 1536. His work Adagia is an annotated collection of Greek and Latin adages and proverbs. First published in 1500, it was the first anthology of classical proverbs to be printed in northern Europe. Many common English expressions we still use come from this collection, including “you have to spend money to make money” or “the blind leading the blind” or “to pelt with apples” (meaning: to bribe…okay, I’ve never heard this last one, but we should bring it back).¹ 

The Folger’s copy of the expanded 1515 edition was owned by Ambrosius Blarer, which we know because he told us. 

Blarer was a Benedictine monk who became a Protestant reformer in the 1520s. He was a polyglot and a very engaged reader. The Folger holds two books from his library, the Adagia and this 1516 publication: Omnium operum Diui Eusebii Hieronymi Stridonensis tomus primus[-nonus] … (178- 014f).

In his Adagia, Blarer took notes in German, Greek, and Latin, he underlined heavily, and, magnificently, wonderfully, he illustrated hundreds of adages with small, stunning ink drawings in the margins. Each drawing represents a specific key word from the adjacent adage.² 

I’ve organized some of my favorite illustrations into a few main categories.

Manicules

Manicules are drawings of hands with extended index fingers that point to important sections of text. Here are some typical manicules: 

However, we also find plenty of atypical manicules. 

Animals 

There are so many animal doodles, it’s difficult to narrow down to just a few examples. We could easily dedicate a subcategory to just birds, but here is a sample of the range of creatures present. 

Humans 

There are not quite as many humans or human-inspired illustrations, but here are a few that stood out to me. 

Miscellaneous 

A mix of everything else.  

I want to reiterate that this is just a small representation of so many wonderful and weird illustrations. We can only guess what they meant to Blarer. Did they come from a place of artistic expression, or an exercise in understanding and representing the adages, or even a personal navigational tool? Instead, I can only offer what they mean to me, which is evidence of a reader and a glimpse into his reading habits.  

Each drawing is carefully and cleanly executed; I did not find any crossed-out images or ink splotches. Did he practice at all on scrap paper before committing to a new drawing? Did he keep these to himself, or did he show off any he was proud of? Did his drawings help him remember the adages that inspired them? Did he ever anticipate a reader 500 years in the future with so many questions? I hope you will spend some time with this book, and I hope you will let me know – which illustration is your favorite?