All the happenings
in the world it is not
nothing but one
uninterrupted scene of Madness,
where all the actors are equally stupid and naughty.
Orators and theologians, philosophers and poets, merchants and lawyers, young and old, kings and courtiers, aristocrats and common people: no one escapes the embrace of Folly, the cheerful goddess of madness and foolishness, who here acquires a voice, bones and flesh to praise herself and convince that she is the one who rules the world more than all the gods.
In one of the most important texts of the Renaissance and the subsequent Reformation, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam – or simply Erasmus – sets up a masterful, harsh for the time yet deeply humanistic satire based on the works of Lucian.
THE CREATOR
THE Erasmus was a Dutch humanist, theologian, educator, essayist, satirist, priest, scholar, philosopher, and one of the greatest European thinkers, with a decisive contribution to both the Renaissance movement in Northern Europe and the literary and religious Reformation of the 16th century. He wrote in Latin in an effortless, exuberant, often caustic style, translated and commented on the New Testament, and traveled extensively in England, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, where he studied, taught, and associated with many personalities of the time. In the 1530s, ten to twenty percent of the books purchased throughout Europe were by Erasmus. His personal motto was Concedo Nulli ("I grant to no one").
