going to Genoa; a royal courier was to escort them as far as Bologna[1]. The party left Dover in the spring of 1506, and were tossed about for four days in the Channel. After a rest at Paris, they set out on horseback for Turin. Erasmus has vividly described the squalid German inns, which he contrasts with those of France. Another discomfort of the journey was that the tutor and the courier quarrelled a good deal. At Turin—his companions having left him—he stayed several weeks, and received from the University the degree of Doctor in Theology.
The stay of Erasmus in Italy lasted three years—from the summer of 1506 to that of 1509. It is well to remember what was the general state of things in Italy at that time,—for the impressions which Erasmus received there had a strong and lasting effect upon his mind. In literature the humanistic revival had now passed its zenith, and was declining into that frivolous pedantry which Erasmus afterwards satirised in the "Ciceronian." Architecture, sculpture and painting were indeed active; Bramante, Michael Angelo and Raphael were at work. But the fact which chiefly arrested the attention of Erasmus was that Italian soil was the common ground on which the princes of Europe were prosecuting their intricate ambitions, and that the Pope had unsheathed the sword in pursuit of temporal advantage. Julius II. was already an elderly man, but full of military ardour. Venice
- ↑ Sic (A. W. V.).
