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THE DEVENTER LETTER-BOOK APPENDIX VIII THE DEVENTER LETTER-BOOK Tux Athenaeum Library at Deventer contains one of the letterbooks (MS. 91) in which copies of Erasmus’ correspondence were made by his servant-pupils. Its genuineness is indisputably established by corrections made by Erasmus himself, which occur throughout the volume, the first being on f. 1, the last on f. 211. In the spring of 1705, when Leclerc’s great edition of Erasmus’ complete works was in progress’, the volume came into the hands of his enterprising publisher, Peter Vander Aa, and such of its contents as were not already printed were incorporated in an appendix to the volumes of letters, which were then too far advanced to admit of reconstruction. After being used for Leclere’s edition, for which purpose it was actually put into the printers’ hands, the letter-book came into the possession of the Academia Gelro-Zutphanica at Harderwyk; and, on the demise of that institution in 1816-7, it passed with other literary treasure into the Deventer Library, where it now reposes. The manuscript does not appear ever to have been bound together and, as it now stands, consists of 228 separate folios, and a small title-page, unnumbered, on which is inscribed in a late xviit hand ? within an elaborate border, very finely drawn, ‘ Collectio exquisitissima epistolarum Desid. Erasmi Roterodami et ad eum scriptarum, in qua diversae Autographae, nempe No. 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 237, 239. MSS? This is followed by 224 folios numbered consecutively at the foot of the page by some late hand. Then come two autograph letters to Erasmus, one from Alciati (LB. App. 356), the other from the Archduke Ferdinand (LB. 705) written by James Spiegel, which are numbered 237-238 by the same late hand. Then a half-sheet unnumbered, containing LB. 781 in a xviic hand ; and the last sheet is blank except for the number 206 which is part of an older numeration. The late numeration may with probability be assigned to John de la Faye, who edited the manuscript for Leclerc’s edition. It cannot be earlier than Leclere’s edition, for the letters on f. 238 and the half-sheet were evidently in Leclerc’s hands before he received the letter-book, since he was able to incorporate them in the body of the letters. And that this was complete before the Appendix letters were dealt with is shown by the fact that the letter on f. 237, though later in date than the two just mentioned, is placed in the Appendix. In any case the numeration is probably not much later than Leclere’s time. The book contains altogether 366° letters and pieces of verse, of which 55‘ were printed by Erasmus himself in different collections 1 See a note appended by Leclerc to his Vie d'Érasme in the Bibliothèque Choisie, Amsterdam, 1705, vol. vi. p. 238. It appears from the Avertissement, f°. A?, v°, that vol. vi. of the Bibliothèque was published about April 1705. 2 Mr. F, Madan assigns it to the years 1680-1700. 3 Six letters are copied twice, making 372 in all * Fifty-one of these are printed in the body of Leclere’s edition, four in his appendix. LB. 334 occurs in the Deventer book, f. 223; but since it is
