Erasmus of Rotterdam carefully constructed for himself the lasting image of the ideal humanist scholar (see now Lisa Jardine, Erasmus, Man of Letters [Princeton 1993], on how he did it). He published important editions of scriptural texts (especially the Greek New Testament) and the Church fathers (especially Jerome and Augustine), as well as writing hundreds of carefully crafted epistolary acts of "Renaissance self-fashioning", the witty "Praise of Folly", his "Friendly Conversations", and the "Adagia".
Here we have the opening of the "Friendly Conversations" (Colloquia Familiaria). In a series of exemplary dialogues meant to teach good Latin and good manners, these first pages tell us how to begin a conversation, with polite greetings and friendly good wishes.
This page prepared and maintained by James J. O'Donnell (jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu.)