Sinz_-_The_Elaboration_of_Vive's_Treatises[1].pdf

The Elaboration of Vives's Treatises on the ArtsAuthor(s): William SinzReviewed work(s):Source: Studies in the Renaissance, Vol. 10 (1963), pp. 68-90Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Renaissance Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2857049 .Accessed: 29/01/2012 13:44

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The Elaboration of Vives's Treatises on the Arts

gg ' UD OVICUS VIVE S published Ss De disciplinis m %@ \U2X I53I, m the fortieth year of Ss Me. The work is a e

WILLIAM SINZ 69

Erasmus's part in setting Vives his great task can be inferred from their intimacy at the time Vives first thought of devoting himself to a new establishment of education: a relation that made Vives a lifelong Erasmist, and which he loyally invokes by addressing Erasmus as 'mi praeceptor'. The association began in ISI6, according to a deposition Erasmus wrote in I520, the Apologia qua respondet duabus invectivis Eduardi Lei, where the young Vives figures in a circumstantial account of negotiations over Lee's standing as a New Testament scholar; first, as an intimate to a degree (admodum) who hastened public knowledge of Erasmus's revised edition of the New Testament; second, as a witness to a conversation with Briard of Ath; and lastly, as an intimate who had access to Erasmus's papers.l Vives himself calls Erasmus his friend in his first work, written and probably published early in I5I4.2 But the relation had firmness and cordiality for only a short period around I520; Erasmus's later references to Vives are remarkably dry, while the earliest, in a letter to More that the young man was to have taken with him to England, treats him plainly as an ingenuous bore.3

1 Erasmi Opuscula, a supplement to the Opera omnia, ed. Wallace K. Ferguson (The Hague, I933), p. 240: 'Primus omnium qui mihi admodum familiares erant, deprehendit laborem meum iuuenis haudquaquam vulgariter doctus Ioannes Ludouicus Viues.' (This refers to Erasmus's stay in Brussels from October ISI6 toJanuary I5I7.) Ibid., p. 248, as to Vives's witnessing the conversation with Briard, which took place around April ISI8. Ibid., p. 264: 'Fieri potest vt Vives aut Alardus . . . schedam aliquam Lei apud me viderint. Nam hos aliquoties non exclusi cubiculo, idque priusquam irem Basileam, editurus denuo Nouum Testamentum.' (Erasmus left for Basle in May ISI8. Neither Lee nor Alard of Amsterdam won the respect of Erasmus, who, ill a letter to Peter and Christopher Mexia of 24 Dec. I533, still remembers that Vives had been accused of conniving with Lee in I jI8.)

2 Ovatio Yirginis dei parentis, ad fin. (Johannis Lodovici Yivis Yalentini Opera omnia, ed. Gregorius Majansius, Valencia, I782-I788, VII, I30): 'Utinam nostrae tempestatis Princi- pes, eos prseceptores admitterent, qui Christi et Deiparse triumphos imitandos cuique esse monerent! Habet quidem suum Adrianum noster Princeps: utinam frater ejus Fernandus Erasmum Roterodamum amicum meum probatissimum et eruditissimum virum nancis- ceretur.' (This Ovatio was published, with title variants, as part of the dialogue Triumphus Christi Iesu in two undated editions, assigned to ISI4 and ISIg. The dedicatory letter that precedes the dialogue is dated 'Parrhisiis Mense Aprili. AN D.M.XIIII'.)

3 Opus epistotarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, ed. P. S. and H. M. Allen (Oxford, I906 ff.), n, 496-497: 'Qui has perfert probus est iuuenis; ei promisit nescio quid Sistinus. Is ea fiducia petit Angliam, ignarus ex simplici promisso non nasci actionem: sed tamen extimula hominem vt magis ei faueat. Si Viues crebro fuit apud te, facile coniectabis quid ego passus sim Bruxellae, cui cotidie cum tot salutatoribus Hispanis fuerit res, praeter Italos et Germanos.' (Letter to More, from Antwerp, 8 Mar. ISI7. Olle copy has 'Lud. Vives' in the margin, and the mention of Brussels, where Erasmus knew Vives, rein- forces the identification.)

VIVES'S TREATISES ON THE ARTS 70 But there are ample records of a closer association in the years be-

tween ISIg, when Erasmus is active in furthering vives's career and praising and appraising his books (particularly in correspondence with More and Bude), and I522, when Vives finished his part in Erasmus's Augustine, an edition with commentary of the Civitvs Dei. The young man is praised first and foremost as an orator, whose declamations seem to fill a gap in the recovery of axltiquity, but his promise as a reformer of studies is also clearly understood.

It is in this latter role that Vives published his In fseudo-dialecticos, a manifesto in the form of a letter to a friend in Paris whose author pro- poses using normal Latin to teach logic, and takes occasion to write some broad satire against scholastic verbalism, especially the terminism then in use in Paris. The date appended to the letter is I3 February TSI9; on that same day Erasmus askedJuan de la Parra about a preceptorship for vives.4 However coincidental that may be, Erasmus showed his interest in the manifesto itself in two letters to Vives, who had written from Paris that his scholastic friends had taken the strictures in a very good spirit. And it is in connection with this work (and only in this connection) that Erasmus writes to Vives as to a collaborator m a common cause. In the first of the two letters, in May I520, he sets his own reverses in restoring theology against Vives's easy progress irl reforming logic, and summons him to joirl the fight for better studies like a new Camillus.5 In the second letter, about a month later, Vives is congratu- lated on having furthered the reform of theology and is mstructed in how to relate the formal trivial disciplirles to the substantive sciences? the letter is full of the language of military operations, and culminates in a profession of having remained in Louvain only because it is his duty to fight in the same ranks he has asked Vives tO iom: 'non licet harena cedere.6

4 Allen7 m, 4gl 4g3. 5 Allen, IV, 263-264, Erasmus to ATives, Louvain, May (?) IS20: CQuid te felicius, erudi-

tissime Viues? qui gratiam intas ctiam maledicendo, quutn nos et benedicendo nobis odium et inuidiam conciliemus. Conatl sumus verae pietatis ac religionis aperire fontes . . ., et sic in me debacchantur monachi quidam, quasi sacrilegium admiserim; quum tu

tam gratos et commodos experiaris sophistas, iritabile, vt vulgus existimat, hominum genus. Proinde postea quam res tibi tam feliciter cessit, perge qua coepistif studiis ad meliora reuocandis inuigilaref . . . [Acadcmicos Louvanienses] obruent tandem indies magis ac magis inualescentia rectiora studia, praescrtim si tu te in hoc bello Camillutn sluendam praebeas.'

6 Allen, IV, z883, Erasmus to Vives, Louvain7June t$20: 'Nac te prospero quodam sydere natum csse oportuit, cui tam felicitcr successerit quod perfuga velitatus sis in veteres

WILLIAM SINZ 71

'Perge qua coepisti, studiis ad meliora revocandis invigilare' are Eras- mus's words to young Vives in May I520, with the accolade of a phrase from CiceroSs first Catilinarian. It is lilcely that such ad^tice was elabo- rated in conversation in I5I9-I520, and concerned a reform of the trivium, since Vives had written on logic already and was a successful practitioner of rhetoric. This is moreover consistent with More's atti- tude at that time. He had not met Vives, lout had read In pseudo-dialec ticos, and recognized his own antischolasticism there. He sees in Vives a universal scholar especially gifted as an expositor, Erasmus in his answer concurs in this opinion, and adds that no one could better put the sophists to rout.7

Vives had in fact already half committed himself to some such task before these exhortations were written, in the letter against the pseudo- dialecticians itsel At ie point in his argument where he attacks the supposedly scholastic view of normal language helonging properly (as subject, so as vehicle) to grammar alone, he promises, given health, to show 'by deed' how all the arts can he communicated in normal speech and without jargon.8 The statement is very large, since it implies that commilitones tuos sophistas . . . Profecto gratulor publico successui studiorum; sed priuatim etiam gratulor Academiae Parisiensi ob pristinam consuetudinem illic annis aliquot non insuauiter actam. Quid autem posthac non sperandum, posteaquam Sorbona spretis leptologiis solidam ac veram theologiam amplectitur? Gaudeo reuocari Musas antehac prorsus exules a publicis gymnasiis. Quas tamen sic recipi velim vt barbariem ac friuolas tricas tantum discutiant, non etiam obruant disciplinas cognitu necessarias . . . His literis tum demum suus est honos quum aliis disciplinis grauioribus veluti condimentum ad- miscentur . . . Louanii quibus tumultibus obstitere proceres ne quis quamlibet honestam disciplinam profiteretur vel gratis ! . . . Ipse huius tumultus non tantum testis sed et pars aliqua fuisti . . . Et tamen haud scio an vsquam gentium magis inualescant literae poli- tiores quam hic; vt plane mihi videre videar illud Horatianum, "Duris vt ilex" . . . Sed nescio quibus pedicis hic alligor, atque ab his potissimum retineor quorum odiis expelli poteram. Non licet harena cedere, nec vllus est pugnarum finis.'

7 Allen, IV, 268 and 267, More to Erasmus, Canterbury, 26 May I 520: '. . . me profecto quae scripsit in Pseudodialecticos peculiari quadam voluptate perfundunt: non ideo tantum (quanquam ideo quoque) quod illas ineptas argutias lepidis cauillis eludit, validis argumentis oppugnat, ineuitabili ratione a fundamentis eruit atque subuertit, sed et prae- terea quod ibi video quaedam iisdem fere tractata rationibus, quas et ipse mecum olim, quum nihil adhuc Viuis legissemX collegeramO . . . quem vnum ferme reperias vsquam, qui tam virente aetate . . . tam absolutum ciclopedias orbem absoluerit? . . . Multo vero maximum est sic bonas artes imbibisse discendo, vt in alios easdem possis rursus docendo transfundere; at quis illo docet apertius, dulcius, eiicacius?' Ibid., pp. 269-270, Erasmus to More, Louvain, June I 520: 'De Ludouici Viuis ingenio gaudeo meum calculum cum tuo consentire . . . Non alius magis idoneus qui profliget sophistarum phalanges; in quorum castris diu meruerit.'

8 In pseudo-dialecticos in med. (Opera omnia, m, 56): 'Si quid paullo cultius scriptum est,

72 VIVES'S TREATISES ON THE ARTS Vives will write competently on law, medicine, and theology. But Erasmus, at this time, thought well of his theological acumen, and we will see that Bude did so too. And Vives's hiographer Mayans y Siscar (Majansius), quoting the passage, takes the whole promise as fulfilled hy the De disciplinis.9

Such sanguine promises, to the extent that they were meant to loe taken literally, could only have loeen made more Sinding loy the reception ofthe In pseudo-dialecticos at the University of Paris. Vives's report, which we have seen prompted Erasmus to write that the Sorhonne had rejected minute verhalism, shows that the attack on terminism had heen generally welcome, and he was ahle to lecture without incident during his Paris visit of May I520.10 But this favorahle disposition was not entirely new; in the manifesto itselfll Vives writes that his teachers of logic, the scholastics Dullaert andLax, had ahandoned terminism and supported Vives's argument against it: he must indeed have heen in some measure their follower in this, for Dullaert died on IO September IS I3, when Vives was only twenty-one.

II

During the next few years, in spite of such resolution and encourage- ment, Vives did not consistently come forward as a reformer of studies. He was practical-minded, and certainly saw how few opportunities there were in that direction, with the new colleges in Paris, Louvain, and Alcala just heing founded. He was presently turned aside hy the opportunity of editing the Civitas Dei. There were in addition some reverses in his professional handling of the disciplme of rhetoric, as public and private lecturer in Louvain. He is also in some doubt, immediately and characteristically, as to his vocation.

quodcunque sit ejus argumentum, illud (tam inscii et stupidi sunt) non philosophiam, non theologiam, non jus, non medicinam, sed grammaticam vocant . . . qut enim, in- quiunt, fieri potest ut terso illo atque eleganti stylo . . . philosophia, theologia, czeterseque artes perhibeantur? Quo quid potest insanius dici ! quem errorem ego, si decem [posthac ] annos valetudine non prorsus adversa Dei beneficio vixero, e mentibus illorum non argumentis, sed ipsa re delebo.'

9 Opera omnia, I, 36: 'Quod facto comprobavit editis septem libris De Corruptis Arti46us, quinque De Tradendis Disciptinis, et octo De Artibus.'

0 Allen, IV, 270-272. 11 In yseudo-diatecticos, ad fin. (Opera omnia, m, 63 ): Dullardum ego et Gasparem Laxem

prseceptores olim meos, quos honoris gratia nomino, querentes ssepe summo cum dolore audivi, se tam multos annos rei tam futili, atque inani impendisse.'

WILLIAM SINZ 73 Vives's correspondence with Guillaume Bude shows how irresolute

he was in I5IeI52I about committing himself to a major task. All the meetings and most of the letters between the two fall in tSS periodsl2 and they show Vives insistently seeking advice from the older man as to a direction for his career; his consultations are lost, but Bude's answers, although rather bland and prone to turn aside to adduce his own writing, refer punctually to the problems proposed, so that we have a record of Vives's uncertainties. Bude gives sound professional advice (as to avoiding eristics and tentative work destined to become tributary to others' projects), and thinks Vives will do well m philology or theology, but he does not directly examine the main disjunction, which is between many small contributions to learIiing, and one monumental work, deftive for some science. He may have felt he knew Vives too little, after a few briefmeetings, to go any farther. His letter of 22 April I520 iS the most circumstantial. A translation of its summary of Vives's consultation may be useful here: Your problem is that oftaking up a task and setiing yourselfa goal above the common run, with a view to demonstrating your talents, which have been so well improved by the finest and noblest letters. You are chiefly in doubt as to what branch of letters would best fall in with such a purpose. For if you should take up one of the common and minutely pedantic pursuits, you would certainly master it with ease, but you say it would add noiing to your credit. But if you should choose something of greater substance, you think that would not only bring you endless trouble, but would not result in the fame you have set yourself as a goal, because of the mass of error it would be your thankless task to correct; for the works of the modern philosophers and theologians are, you say, so perverse that it is easier to start afresh than to set them in order and make them speak fair. Such more or less I gather is the problem you have before you.l3 Bude then gives general advice about continuing with the rlew learnsng and assisting Erasmus; but this was not in question: Vives had just written, in the single surviving letter from him to Bude from this time, that he had sworn allegiance to eloquence.l4 He consulted Bude again early

12 Cf. Georg Eulitz, Der Verkehr zwischen Vives und Budaeus (Chemnitz, I897). 13 Eulitz, op. cit., p. I4, in a translation of the Greek portion of this letter, makes this

and other passages refer to text-criticism: 'Denn die Schriften der neueren Philosophen und Theologen sind so verderbt, dass es weniger Schwierigkeit verursacht, eine voll- standige Neuausgabe zu besorgen, als den uberlieferten Text mundgerecht zu machen. Diese Angelegenheit machte dir viel zu schaXen.' I cannot agree that this is the meaning. (I have not seen Tusanus's notes ad loc.)

14 Cf. Philologicarum epistolarum centuria una diversorum a renatis literis doctissimorum virorum . . . omnia nunc primum edita ex bibliotheca Melchioris Haiminsfeldii Goldasti (Frank-

74 VIVES'S TREATISES ON THE ARTS in I52I on much the same matter as before, perhaps more obliquely, but with no better luck, unless he thought it lucky that Bude should promise to himselfwithdraw from the field (ofcontroversial sulzjects).l5

Vives had an immediate opportunity to expound and implement a reform of rhetoric in his teackng at Louvain. He seems neverl6 to have taught logic, and we shall see that he composed his texttooks in logic just before publishing them in lDe disciplinis. He never attempted any extensive revision of the usual ways of teaching Latin grammar, although his occasional papers on that subjectl7 select the more compen- dious methods, and his scholastic dialogues,l8 designed to teach a big vocabulary in familiar contexts, were actually part of the successive curricula of primary schools for four centuries, and are his most pervica- cious work. A work that might have had some relation to De disciplinis, a treatise showing that accepted normative grammar was not supported by more than a part of the ancient evidence, was never written.l9 The rhetorical sections of De disciplinis, on the other hand, were adumlzrated and tested in Vives's early teaching and writing, but with rather uneven results.

Various reports indicate that Vives lectured in Lousain, between IS I9 and I522, on the Georgics, Cicero's Laws and De senectute, Pliny's Natural History, Pomponius Mela, Suetonius's Julius Caesar, the Con- vivia of Pllilelphus, the fourth book of the treatise ad Herennium, and

fort, I6I0), p. 222, Vives to Bude, 7 Mar. I520: 'Quocirca in maerore non sum, quod mihi de funere eloquentiae dixeris, cui me iampridem dedi devovique totum (quam placida illa et approbante, tuum tuique similium esto iudicium): sed devovi tamen.'

15 Gulielmi Budaei parisiensis . . . Lucubrationes variae . . . quibus adiunximus Epistolarum efusdem Latinarum ac Graecarum libros VI . . . (Basle, I557), p. 327, Bude to Vives, IoJan. I52I: 'Quod quereris de iniqua scriptitantium conditione, quibus quasi iure quodam moribus huius aetatis recepto, incessere malevolentissima fere simultas et nocentissima solet: id tu et recte aestimasse et verbis videris appositis expressisse. Atqui ego eum morem ot institutum veluti quandam carnificinam animorum tam acerbam esse iudico, eam ut ob rem maxime scribendi intentionem ad ea argumenta detorquere instituerim quae longis- sime ab ista amarae velitationis vicissitudine abducere stylum videbantur.'

16 Vives's posthumous Dialectices libri quattuor (Paris, Prigentius Calvarinus, I550: the unique copy is in the Bibliotheque Nationale) is an elemcntary logic, only datable as after I 5 I2. It may well belong to Vives's earliest teaching experience, for it contains a full explanation of the terms Barbara, Celarent, etc., which Vives later thought otiose.

17 De ratione studii puerilis (I 523). 18 Linguae latinae exercitatio (I 5 3 8 ) . 19 Majansius, Opera omnia, I, I80-I82, collects the passages relevant to this project, as

for another projected work, a de ratione linguarum, which was to have been a historical work showing the changing norms of languages.

WILLIAM SINZ 75

certam works of his own.20 For most of these we have his prelections; that to the lectures on ad Herennium contains information about the content of Vives's rhetoric at this time: he concludes his prelection with the reminder that the study of ad Herennium is to be an excursus within another course, already begun, dealing with a master-art, the ars afec- tuum.2l This would place in I52I-I522, the probable date of these prelections, the beginning of Vives's efforts to construct a practical psychology separate from rhetoric, a line that will be taken successfully in the most celebrated of his treatises on the arts, the De anima er vita. He will also assume a separatist position as to logic and rhetoric, these ex- cisions will be, throughout, characteristic for his thought.

This novel course in psychology and psychagogy was interrupted by indifEerence and default in payments on the part of the auditors. On this one occasion Vives's well-attested powers of speaking and teach- ing22 failed. He records the incident himself in a dialogue dealing with the follies of the learned professions (Sapientis inquisitio, I522): when a professor of rhetoric comes up for unfriendly examination, he is said to be lecturing 'on the fourth lDook of the Rhetoric to Herennius and on the art of the emotions', and Vives, who is one of the interlocutors, adds:

20 E.g. the report of Nicolas Daryngton, adduced by P. S. Allen, contained in a letter from Louvain, I 52I: 'My studies are carried on alone; except that I go to hear a Spaniard named Vives lecturing on Mela; and he has also expounded to us Suetonius' life ofJulius Caesar' (summarized byJ. S. Brewer, Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, 1509-1530, London, I862 ff., m, no. 2052).

In his preface to the printed version of his course on the Somnium Scipionis, delivered in Paris in I520, Vives adds Quintilian and Livy to the authors he had expounded in Lou- vain.

Majansius, Opera omnia, I, I23, quotes Aubert le Mire, writing soon after I600, as re- porting that Vives lectured on expository style in Louvain: 'Adolescens LutetiPe operam Philosophiae dedit; inde Lovanium profectus Latinae et Graecae linguse serio incubuit; ubi et libros De Arte docendi (dicendi) publice prcelegit, et postea edidit.' The last book of Vives's De ratione dicendi (I532) is on the ratio docendi. I am not yet able to adjust this report to the contemporary evidence. Majansius corrects, in le Mire's text, docendi to dicendi, in order to complete the reference to the publication of I532, which is in three books. Le Mire's work, the Elogia illustrium Belgii scriptorum (Antwerp, I602), iS said to contain many unsupported statements.

21 In quartum Rhetoricorum ad Herennium praelectio, in fine (Opera omnia, rt, 89): quartum Rhetoricorum ad Herennium celeri lectione interpretabimur, quem ubi primum Emierimus, eam quam in principio professi sumus, praestantissimam omnium judicio affectum artem trademus.'

22 Cf. notes 7 and 20 above, first paragraph. A letter of Martin Dorp attests Vives's success as quodlibeticus in Louvain in Dec. I 522. Cf. Henry de Vocht, Monumenta EIu- manistica Lovaniensia TexS and Studies about Louvain Hutnanists . . . (Louvain, 934, Humanistica Lovaniensia 4) pp. 3 88-3 89.

76 VIVES'S TREATISES ON THE ARTS I once, as a matter of fact, took up that very same r81e, and promised that I would give them in short order the art of arousing any and all emotions, an art I thought I had learned wonderfully well. But, Lord of mercy, how mistaken I was! I said I would teach them how to get favor and good-will for themselves, while from them I could never manage to get anything of the sort, for when I asked to be paid for my trouble they all ran away as if I had slashed them with daggers.23 Vives seems to have substituted for the course that failed a lighter set of readings from Philelphus's Convivia, for the prelection to such a course has been preserved, and refers to an interruption of more theoretical lectures in terms close to those used in the Sapientis inquisitio.24 If these terms be thought close enough to identify this occasion with the other, then the incident must have taken place early in the I52I-I522 term, for the prelection to the Convivia refers to Leo x, who died on 2 Decem- ber I52I, as still living.25

The turning to Philelphus, as well as the failure to persuade an audi- ence to accept innovations in teaching rhetoric, illustrates Vives's current adoption of the role of philologian and exegete, for the Convivia are an encyclopedic work in the tradition of Gellius and Macrobius. These are signs but not portents, since Vives had been at work since the begintiing of I52I on his commentary on the Civitas Dei, for which he had been chosen, he says in his preface, because he made some claim to historical and philosophical learnlng rather than theological.26 (Erasmus

23 Opera omnia, rv, 26-27: 'Qui quartum Rhetoricorum ad Herennium, et affectuum artem tradit . . . ipsam vero ejus provinciam ego quandoque, ut scitis, assumseram, pro- fitebarque me daturum illis brevi artem omnium aXectuum movendorum, quam opina- bar me perbelle habere; esed, Deus bone, quam eram falsus? ajebam me illos docturum, uti sibi gratiam et benevolentiam compararent, quam ab illis nequivi unquam adipisci, meorum enim laborum cum mercedem postularem, ac si telo illos czcidissem omnes fugerunt.'

24 Cf. Praelectio in Convivia Francisci Philelphi, in Opera omnia, ts, 83: 'Nescii non estis, optimi viri, quam sit unumquemque sibi ipsi satisfacere facile, omnibus vero diffilcillimum . . . Est enim (inquit in Phsedro Socrates) contentiosis incredibilis demonstratio. eAt quid tam multa de humano sensu? Nempe ut intelligatis priore interpretatione, quum non arbitrarer mercedem, quam pollicebantur auditores, meo labori, ac arti illi, quam profite- bar, respondere, duxisse me satius lectionis filum rumpere, quam exiguitate mercedis per- territum, nihil quod illis placeret, nihil quod illis foret oblectamento, in medium aXerre, quapropter multis forsitan non satisfeci, mihi ipse satisfeci, cordatis quidem viris, ut spero; equis enim non videt przstare nequaquam interpretari, quam quse dicat professor, nulla spe fretus, ea proferat longe frigidissima, neminem studeat movere, ne se ipsum quidem, quod in primis necesse est?'

25 The prelection on the Convivia was so dated by Bonilla y San Martin. Cf. his Luis Vives y la filosof fa del renacimiento (Madrid, I929), m, 63.

26 Cf.... Aurelii Augustini opus absolutissimum de Civitate Dei, magnis sudoribus emenda- tum . . . per virum clarissimum . . . Ioan. Lodovicum Vivem . . . (Basle, I522), sig. aa2r, prae-

WILLIAM SINZ 77

had, then, modified his first view of Vives's aptitudes, which had led him, with Bude, to think that Vives would directly collaborate in the work of Erasmian evangelical Christianity.) The commentary on the Civitas Dei itself is an encyclopedic work, with an index that reads as if it might go with Macro6ius or Servius. It served as the basis of Vives's reputation for learning for the time being and supplanted his direct teaching in the memory of at least one pupil, John Twyne, who sat under Vives both in Louvain and at Oxford.27

The commentary was received coldly by Erasmus, for reasons easy to understand and that involved both doctrinal content and editorial form. Vives, for his part, found the work of research and collation uncongenial and oppressive,28 and did not pursue this career. He is thus once again in search of an intellectual commitment, at a moment when he was also forced to seek new employment ad aes merendum, for his great patron,William de Croy, had met an accidental death in the first days of IS2I, at the age of twenty-two,29 and Vives, who was not authorized to lecture publicly at Louvain except by special permission, and held no degree,30 had no other regular source of income except tutoring.

fatio: '[Erasmus] cumque aliis, quod eorum esset et amplior eruditio, et ingenium felicius, et diligentia dexterior, graviora mandasset et maiora, mihi libros attribuit de civitate dei duos et viginti; quod opus bona ex parte tum rerum gestarum fabularumque narra- tionibus, tum disputationibus philosophicis occuparetur; quibus rebus magnam aetatis partem videbamur impendisse, magno quidem conatu et voto, utinam pari successu. Theologica tametsi multa inerant, tamen non ita forsan ut aliis libris crebra, quamquam ab hac etiam sacrosancta disciplina numquam alieni fuimus, quantum per aetatem nostram, et aliarum artium quae nos mirifice ceperunt studia, licuit.'

27 C. John Tvne, De rebus Albionicis (London, I590). This posthumous work contains reminiscences of Twyne's teacher, Vives, whom he followed from Louvain to Ox- ford. But apart from those two statements, all of the views and personalia of Vives are derived from his commentary on Augustine, including details of Twyne's own assistance with Vives's research. The two principal references to Vives are explicitly derived from the commentary. Foster Watson mistakenly saw independent testimony as to Vives's life and views in Twyne's book, and misread one passage to conclude that Vives had made a statement about Merlin. Cf. Foster Watson, Luis Fives el gran Falenciano (Oxford, I922), pp. 45-48, and his Las relacions deJoan Lluts Vives amb els anglesos i amb l'Angleterra (Bar- celona, I9I8), pp. 39-52.

28 Cf. Vives's preface to Aurelii Augustini opus . . . de Civitate Dei, aa4r '. . . venique ad praefationes scribendas adeo fessus, et labore tanto tamque vario fractus, ut literas omnes librosque nescio quemadmodum animus aversaretur, velut crudus stomachus ac redun- dans cibos omnes: liberari tandem ea molestia misere cupiens, et universis atque unicis votis exoptans.'

29 Cf. Allen, m, 68 for a biographical notice. 30 Cf. Litterae virorum eruditorum ad Franciscum Craneveldium 1522-1528, ed. Henry

78 VIVES'S TREATISES ON THE ARTS

He still had before him his old project of reforming the exposition of the arts, almost untried, at least in print. In the diatribe against the pseudo-dialecticians there appears a reformed curriculum that Vives thought it possible to implement within twenty years; the time had not run out, and the project must have been still present to his mind natural philosophy to shape character and furnish the mind, history to bring forth prudence, oratory to teach the principles of everyday life, eco- nomics and political science to provide for the conduct of private and public afFairs.3l In addition, his recent historical studies had furthered his understanding of the arts by way of knowing their history.32 When he ultimately does return to the work of reformation, it will be, in fact, from a historical base and with the pragmatic aims he set down in I5I9.

III

The commentary on the Civitas Dei was finished inJuly I522. From this time on33 Vives's letters show a great deal of painful uncertainty about his future, almost a fixed habit, for which he finds cause in a

de Vocht (Louvain, I928, Humanistica Lovaniensia I), pp. 4-5, for a note summarizing Alives's diSlculties at Louvain, e.g. 'The difficulty which had been made . . . probably originated in the fact that he had neither matriculated nor graduated'; but 'Towards the end of the second decade of the XVIth century the majority of the professors felt rather suspicious about Erasmus's friends.' The letter of Vives published in part with this note (c. Mar. I520) shows that the faculty at Louvain found one of Vives's proposed courses absurd.

31 In pseudo-diatecticos, ad fin. (Opera omnia, III, 60): '. . . cum ad conventum prudenti- orum hominum ex scholastico tecto educuntur, ita stupent, ac si essent in silvis educati . . . hinc quoque fit, ut negotiis gerendis, legationibus obeundis, administrandis rebus, aut publicis aut privatis, tractandis populorum animis ineptissimi sint . . .; neque enim iis se se artibus tradunt, quibus hGec omnia percipiuntur, quseque et animum, et vitam humanam instituunt, cujusmodi est Philosophia moralis, quce mores mentemque ornat; HistoriaS quGe mater est rerum cognitionis et usus, id est prudentise; Oratoria, quse vitam sensum- que communem et docet et moderatur; Politica facultas, et Oeconomica, quibus civita- tum rerumque familiarum status et regimen constat.'

32 Cf. e.g. Vives's Prcelectio in Convivia Philelphi (Opera onjnia, , 85): 'Quanta in eo (dii boni) antiquitatis notitia, quanta et inventorum et disciplinarum conservata Historiay unde opus hoc: de quarundam ortu et increncento disciplinarum, non inepte plures inscribi putarunt.'

33 For biographical data used in the remainder of this paper, cf. Henry de Vocht, 'Vives and his visits to England', in Monumenta Humanistica Lovaniensia, and Foster Wat- son, Las relacions deJoan Lluts Vives amb els anglesos i amb l'Angleterra (Barcelona, I9I8). For Vives's uncertainty at this time see also J. Paquier, Lettresfamilieres deJe'rome Aletandre (Paris, I909), pp. I04-IO5, Alives to Aleander, I7 Dec. I522: 'In rebus meis . . . omnis sunt, ut solent, incerta.'

WILLIAM SINZ 79

series of misfortunes that begins with a troubling of his relations with Froben the printer, taedigm scholae, and disappointment over the first reception of the commentary. He finally left Flanders altogether, ostensibly for Spain, where at least one prospect had opened out with the formal oNer, on 5 September I 522, of the chair of Latin philology at Alcala; but he was so well received in England, where he arrived in May I523 (whether in transit or with some expectations) that he remained, to enjoy his one period of ease and celebrity, made possible by royal favor and filled with activities of many kinds. The crisis that led to the divorce of Henry and his Catholic queen relegated the Catholic Vives to an obscurity that he accepted for the rest of his life, perhaps as a better judge of himself, perhaps, having married in I524, as a man of more domestic occupation than before; but certainly in good measure because he had begun work on the great task he had been seeking. Vives began writing his De disciplinis in I525, by July I530 he had shown it to a printer and was delivering lectures in Louvain with a view to arousing interest in its publication. These lectures were possibly his last public appearance.

In his time of depression, in I522-I523, Vives continued as an Eras- mian, not neglecting the political implications of that profession. His letter to Adrian VI of I2 October I522 (supported privately by a letter to Aleander, then Vatican librarian) had the purpose of seconding the Erasmian politics of defender of the peace: that is, of advocating a European concert of nations. Erasmus, who was himselfadvising Adri- an at this time, and may have thought this intervention a little OlCiOUS, maintained complete silence as to all of Vives's political writing; but another evidence of Vives's partisanship, if he heard of it at all, could only have pleased him. A last-minute invitation to deliver the Quod- liloet oration in Louvain in Decemloer I 522 was used loy Vives to good effect to come forward once more as a reformer of studies. He spoke [writes Dorp of this occasion] very well and very successfully of the liberal arts, elegantly defined their separate provinces confused for so long through the ignorance of this age and drove at the sophists under full sail. There was such a crowd as has not been seen assembled in Louvain, I inlagine, within the memory of man. The protectors of the old ignorance writhed....34

84 Cf. de Vocht, Monumenta, pp. 388-389, Dorp to Lethemaat, Louvain, 29 Dec. I52X: 'Nuper eruditissimus vir Ludouicus Viues in responsione Quodlibetica (sic vocant), prudentissime ac summo cum plausu auditorum, de honestis disciplinis disseruit, earum limites olim per seculi tenebras confusos belle discreuit, jn sophisticen plenis velis jnuec- tus.


Vives did not attempt to eapitalize on this success. A letter written just as he was leaving for England, in May I523, declines to circulate the oration, since it was a hasty improvisation and added little to two other pieces.35 (These may provisionally be identified as In pseudo- dialecticos and Sapientis inquisitio, rather than any of the declamations, then seven in number and all eoneerned with dramatic situations of an imagined speaker, not Vives himself.) On leaving Flanders he was, then, still aetive as an intelleetual therapist,36 and already had begun to claim a voiee in the eouneils of Europe. Both these roles were sustained in the aetive deeade that followed. The politieal rdle was amply supported by his position in England.

Between I523 and I527 he enjoyed stipends from both Henry and Catherine, and Wolsey gave him the readership in humanities and rhet- orie at Corpus Christi, to succeed Lupset. In addition he held licences to import wine and woad and export wheat in I524 and I525. His leisure was, furthermore, extensive. He was in England probably only twice for fuH terms, in I523-I524 and I524-I525; KS one other extend- ed visit, m I527-I528, was taken up with the divoree erisis. He may well have lectured only during the first of these visits: in other years there was an outbreak of plague and the university was elosed, or he was unwell, had duties at eourt, or had leave to be in Bruges to be married. But the teaching itself is regarded by Vives as an interruption of his true work, which he says depends on scholarly leisure.37 When this leisure did become available he used it promptly and ostensibly to write an imposing series of works on aflEairs of state, which in the event was acknowledged by an imperial pension, but is more interesting as one of the first continuing attempts to influence public policy by means of the press:

23: De consultatione, dedicated to Charles v's ambassador to England, Louis de Praet.

23: translations of Isocrates, Areopagitica and Nicocles, sive auxiliaris, with dedication

to Wolsey.

35 Cf. p. I4I, Litterae . . . ad Franciscum Craneveldium, Vives to Craneveld.

36 Cf. Vives's letter to Aleander, cit. note 33 above: 'Tu velim pro amore nostro mutuo

patrocineris istic impudentiae meae. Scis quid hic de Vive medico simus collocuti.'-I

take this as referring to a fancy of Vives of himself as healing breaches, e.g. between

Erasmus and Bude, then applied to remedying political ills.

37 Cf. the letter dedicatory to Wolsey accomparlying the translations of Isocrates, ad

ilait. (Opera omnia, v, 2-3): '. . . chartulas istas . . . accipies tamquam arrhabonem ['a

pledge'] daturi aliquando justum opus, et meum; rlam hoc tempore districto tot labori- bus, curisque, et potissimum publica Oxonin professione quam

mihi imposuisti, nec

meum aliquid licuit parere, nec concinnare alienum quod esset longum.'

WILLIAM SINZ 81

>4: epistle to John Langland, Bishop of Lincoln, on the peace. : epistle to Henry vm de Francisco Gallorum rege capto. : epistle to Henry vm de pace inter Caesarem et Franciscum Gallorum rege deque

optimo regni statu. 26: De subventione pauperum, dedicated to the Senate of Bruges.

IS26: dialogue de Europae dissidiis et bello Turcico. I526: publication ofthe dialogue, the letters to Henry, the translations from Isocrates,

and the letter to Adrian (de tumultibus Europae) under the general title De Europae dissidiis et Republica.

: a lcwst answer to Luther, supplementing Henrv's Assertio seprem sacramentorum. I529: De concordia er discordia in humano genere, dedicated to Charles r, with De paci-

fcatione, dedicated to Alfonso Manrique, archbishop of Toledo. Vives lost the protection of Wolsey early in IS28, when he was arrested and questioned in connection with the royal divorce, and he finally lost his position at court late in the same year, when he refused to act as the queen's counsel. He consequently must have given up at that time the hopes he may have had of becoming in his own person a counselor of state. Nevertheless, since Vives regarded the faith as the principle of European political concord, it can be said that he continued his political writings in his apologetics, notably in the posthumous De veritateJSdei Christianae, of which Craneveld, in his dedication of the work to Paul III, said that it was intended 'to give aid and counsel against these most ulcerated times' in religion as in state.38

Concurrently with his political writings, which were supported by his connections with the English court, Vives began again to write on learning and the disciplmes. The new works, unlike his first attempts to deal with the arts, are occasional, meant to meet the practical needs of particular persons, and are related to life at court rather than Oxford. It is possible therefore to begin a list of them with the De consultatione, a manual for counselors (the well-known original of parts of Jonson's Timber), and also a rhetoric, rewritten for De Praet. Three works are associated with the education of Henry's daughter Mary: the compre- hensive De institutionefeminae christianae (I523), the Satellitium animi, a guide to conduct (I5a4), and an outline of elementary grammar (I523) . This last work was continued in a similar short scheme for the Latin

38'Existimabat vir eruditissimus, et verae pietatis amantissimus, Ioannes Lodovicus Vives . . . sui quoque muneris esse, ut exulceratissimis istis temporibus, quibus tantae movebantur de rebus ad religionem pertinentibus quaestiones, tantacque de rebus maxi- mis tragoediae, ipse quoque pro sua virili quantum posset opis adSerret, ac in commune consuleret.'

82 VIVES'S TREATISES ON

THE ARTS

studies of Charles Mountjoy. An Introductio ad sapientiam (I524) is ad-

dressed to all beginners in ethics. This production was continued in later

years with De conscribendis epistolis (I536), dedicated to an imperial sec-

retary, and lJy the scholastic dialogues, Encercitatio linguae latinae, among

them some written for the early instruction of Philip II. De disciplinis

lDelongs in this series, and retains the practical character of the other

works, while dispensing with their framework of particular occasions.

The textlDooks attached to De disciplinis were however not found to lJe

very useful, whereas these other works, lJeing elementary rather than

simplified or rationalized, were all notalJly successful in everyday use.

De disciplinis is part of the new learning, lJut not associated with any

particular educational enterprise. It is possilDle, however, that its con-

ception lJelongs to a time when Vives hoped to influence directly the

estalDlishment of the new colleges in England. This at least is the spirit

of a letter he wrote to Wolsey from Oxford on IS March I525, a part

of which has been printed: . . . that there is daily increase in

all our young men's eagerness for the true and solid

disciplines. When I urge them on, though already running of

their own accord, I

often use a certain consideration as a goad: that of your most reverend

Lordship....

Albertus Magnus has already begun to be ejected from this place, since I have

given

out questions that permit more cheerful as well as more fruitful debate. Then

again,

in dialectics39 and the rest of philosophy I have relieved them of many corrupt

opinions, that were the consequence of deformed judgments. Not a little are they

in

the deSt of your most illustrious Lordship, to whom I owe elrerything.

Oxford, IS

March I524.40 It may well lDe that Vives was spurred

to attempt a radical revision of

some of the arts lJy this access to the man who was forming Cardinal

College, a clear and present opportunity unlike anything revealed in the

earlier consultation with Bude on the same matter. When his access

to

39 Cf. note I6 above. It would appear that Vives was more concerned

with the teaching

of logic in his own person than our evidence leads us to suppose. Perhaps

the Dialectices

libri quattuor was intended to continue the doubtless elementary instruction

of Vives's

first term at Oxford, and was then abandoned when the teaching did

not continue.

40 Old style, that is, for I 525. Cf. J. S. Brewer, Letters and papers, foreign

and domestic, of

the reign of Henry VIII, Iv, pt. I (London and Oxford, I870), p. 520; 'Lud.

Vives to Wol-

sey. He shows that at Oxford "iuventutem omnem indies ad solidas et veras

disciplinas

fieri animatiorem. Ego quum sua sponte currentes exhortor, hoc soleo

uti stimulo, Rma.

D. T. etc. Hinc iam coeptus est Albertus eiici, datis a me quaestionibus

de quibus non

iucundius modo disputetur, sed fructuosius. Tum in dialectica

et reliqua philosophia

multas illis ademi pravas opiniones ex iudiciis corruptis. Nihil non debent

D. T. Illmae.,

cui ego debeo omnia." Oxford, I 5 March I 524.'

WILLIAM SINZ 83

Wolsey was cut off, he then pursued the work without hope of immediate reward, even in some privacy, expressly refraining from com- municating it to Erasmus, and informing two friends only after long

. . .

clrcumlocutlons.

The first reference to a new work comes only three months after the letter to Wolsey about teaching the arts at Oxford, and thereafter Vives continues to dwell on the imprudence and daring of the new project, and on its vast and multiple subject matter, without for some time describing it more closely. Not all of these references are generally attached to De disciplinis, they will be presented here together, with a view to making them reinforce each other and lead consecutively to Vives's attempts to publish and publicize the finished work.

The first reference to the mysterious new work is of 20 June I 525, in a letter to Vives's close friend Francis Craneveld. Henry de Vocht, on printlng the bulk of Craneveld's correspondence for the first time, in I928, referred this passage (and the next to be quoted) to the De subventione Sauperum, but since Vives later deprecated tllis work as 'meum libellum'4l and is here writing of a daringly ambitious project that moreover comprises several works, and since on I0 December I525, less than a month before finishing the De subventione pauperum, Vives still fears he may not be equal to his new task, I consider reference to the smaller work improbable in any of the passages to be adduced. The first mention, then, of the great new work begins with clainiing great- ness for its subject matter, in the same words that Bude reports from the early consultation as to a life work: I have begun some works of such great pitch (tanfo argumento vro0evecos ov Trws Tvxovrws) that I dare not say what they are, lest you think I have gone mad. For even I am ashamed of myself for having promised myself such a great thing of myself.42 When Craneveld no doubt asked for more details, Vives answered, on 2 September I525, with only a slight relaxation ofthe prudent secrecy, only half playful, that he had chosen for his new work: As to the new works I have begunJ I will only say what Silius does of Homer: 'he embraced in song lands, sea, stars, and Hades', but I could wish you had been with me 'e'er even I beheld all this'; you would have revived me when I fainted and helped me in my labors. But if I can achieve nothing else, at least I shall hand on my efNorts

41 Cf. Litterae . . . ad Franciscum Craneveldium, p. 495, Vives to Craneveld, I3 Apr. I526. 42 Cf. op. cit., p. 435; 'Ego opera qusedam institutuj tanto argumento, ut referre non

ausim, ne me insanire arbitreris; nam meipsum mej pudet, quj tantum sim mihj de me pollicitus.'

84 VIVES'S TREATISES ON THE ARTS to abler and happier men, like torches m a race. That is, I shall either further many men's studies or, next best, stir them up, for 'of all those who either furnished our life with arts, or who made others justly mindful of their merits: of all these the brows are girt with white bands.' If I could only render up my spirit to the Pather in the midst of this task!43 In this same letter Vives speaks of other tasks that he feared he would perform badly because they were required in a short time: 'brevi finien- da'. This I take to refer to De subventionepauperum, the projected answer to Luther, and the dialogue on the need for a war with the Turk.

These letters went to Craneveld in Malines from Bruges, where Vives resided between May I 525 and February I 526. The cities are only about sixty miles apart, and, since both men traveled occasionally, they expected to see each other without much delay. In all his cryptic references Vives was merely perhaps adding zest to an anticipated conversation. But they did not meet until the year-end holidays, and the build-up continued in three more letters. The first of these, of II September I525, replies to some remark about the new work's sounding fantastic by saying that it is fantastic, and could certainly claim, among all its high pretensions, to excuse Vives for having recently left Malines without waiting for Craneveld to return; and there is another reference to the smaller tasks that claim his attention: I am aiaid that you will actually Emd the fantasies you say you are going to conjure up, in the fantasies that I have in fact engendered. But let this be in Christ's hands, nay: in His care only; He knows I bring a pure and pious purpose to the task; may He dispose all else to our advantage, since He alone knows what is finally of advantage to us. You would not be surprised that I skipped my bail if you saw the titles, which are like those of the Greek books Pliny mentions. And there were other things too that forbade me to prolong my absence !44

43 Cf. op. cit., pp. 443-444: 'Hept tc3v Upwycov tc3v rapa ,uov ap%ojuRvcov; Dicam illud tantum, quod est de Homero apud Silium [B.P. xm, 788, 790]:

Carmine complexus terras, mare, sydera, maneis; Atque haec ipsa prius quam cernerem . . .

vellem adesses: subleuares fessum, & laborantem adiuuares. Sed nos si aliud praestare non poterimus, saltem conatus nostras dexterioribus illis ac foelicioribus trademus, velut in cursu lampada, hoc est, vel adiuuabimus multorum studia, vel quod est proximum, ex- citabimus [Aeneid VI, 663-665];

Inuentas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes, Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo; Omnibus his niuea cinguntur tempora vitta.

O utinam in his curis leceat spiritum Patri reddere!' 44 Cf. Op. cit., pp. 44>450: 'Vereor ne quse tu dicis tibi ficturum somnia, ex somniis

meis sumas veris ac zz7fft0tS. Sed haec rapa wrcM %pffrcf imo penes Eum Solum; Ipse scit me purum ac pium institutum ad opus af3Rerre; reliqua disponat Ipse ex vsu nostro, qui

WILLIAM SINZ 85

On 25 October Vives promises to talk over the outline ofthe new work: I should like to explain to you orally the titles and matters of the books, my best of friends; I dare not entrust them to a letter, lest I become a laughing-stock in case it should fall into strangers' hands. In any case, I will nol give birth sooner than the elephant, provided always I do not miscarry. I do not mean the nine-year gestation that the commonalty believes in, but one of two years, according to the learned accounts.45

He is less sanguine than when he undertook the commentary on Augus- tine, but again underestimates the time by more than half. The next reference is of IO December I525, and comes after Craneveld had evidently complained that Rouffault knew more about the new work than he, who would then seem a less favored friend. (Jerome Rouffault, then in Bruges, was a favorite pupil, and had seen some of 77ives's short works through the press.) After an intervening paragraph on family matters, there is further reference to his early departure from Malines, and to the joys and fears of writing the great work: As to your saying that you have imally smelled out what I have been hiding so tenaciously from so great a friend: that is certainly a part of the work, but a small one among many. Believe me, if you had been here I should have revealed everything to you, no less than to RouflRault, though he is indeed a young man who is my very great friend.... Simple pressure of time was what brought me home; you know that must be the first consideration of those of us who have begun something great, either really so or so at least in proportion to their strength, for such is the proper measure in human afEairs. So it is that every day I go to bed with the feeling that the day has been exceeding short, and I progress with the work like a Callipedes: that is, I am always sailing among reefs, which once past, I will thenceforth have a more open course.46

vnus nouit quid demum vsui sit nobis. Vadimonium desertum vtique nihil demireris, si inscriptiones videas, vt illas Grcecorum apud Plinium. [Hist. Nat. praef. 24, a passage criti- cizing high-sounding and all-inclusive titles like AsL,uxv.] Sed erant & alia, quce me a longiore itinere retrahebant !'

45 Cf. op. cit., p. 457: 'Inscriptiones & librorum argumenta explicarem tibi coram omnia, +CArarx br)Wabr) avApl- epistolce credere non ausim, tva jux3 Karaz&7R0co, si in alienas manus incidat. Nec tamen citius pariam quam elephantus, ni forte abortiar: non quidem partu illo elephantj novennalj in vulgus credito, sed biennij, quemadmodum eruditj tradunt.'

46 Cf. op. cit., pp. 467-468: 'Quod dicis te olfecisse tandem, quod tanto amico tam diligenter occultarem, est quidem ea pars operis, aXXdc 7roWoasdv ,u6ptov. Equidem otx {jSrSrov ot ravSra dv Ar^A&at,rcFv, et rapAv erv%es' 7 Srcf 'PovC>d^A8cf, tametsi iuueni amicissimo. . . . Domum nihil aliud me quam cura temporis reduxit; cuius primam debere esse rationem non ignoras iis, qui exorsi sunt aliquid magnum, si non re vera, saltem proport- ione virium suarum; quippe his decet homines sua omnia metiri. Ita quottidie cubitum concedo, vt videatur dies fuisse breuissimus, & progredior in opere callipedis more:

VIVES'S TREATISES ON THE ARTS 86 The friends evidently discussed this literary project during the holi-

days, for the mysterious references disappear from their correspondence. Instead, Vives's next letter, of I7 February I526, contalns a long diatribe on the state of scholars in a hostile world, beginning with a phrase that connects the paragraph with something that must have gone before, and that gives for the first time the title of the new work. 'sed de disciplinis'. The reflections that follow show that he was then think- ing of matters that were to make up the first part of the work, the De causis corruptarum artium; he is concerned in particular with denuncia- tions of heresy, dissension, interest, and obscurantism. These are the reefs he had spoken of before. 'Atque utinam scopuli essent sirenaci cor- ruptelae istae artium': no, far from giving any delight to anyone, they are merely sterile? and tribulation of spirit.47

There are two other references to work in progress in letters to Craneveld, one a general wish for more time to writc, and the other a specific reference to 'this struggle of mine to forge something I think will bc useful, a mighty effort'*48 But vives?s Spanish fricnd Jolm de Vergara had by this time also heard of the new project, and an exchange of letters between them presen7es further details about the progress of the work in X S27 Vergara's letter of I2 April contatns a request to know more of a work 'on the arts and teachtng' that Vives had said he was writing49 Vives answers on I4 August that he cannot explain the scope videlicot nauigo plerumque inter scopulos; quos si semcl evadam, liberior deinceps erit cursus.' (Callipedes, an actor, proverbial for running wit:hout getting anywhere; cf. Suctonius, TiberlXs, 38.)

47 Cf. Op. cit., p. 478: sSed de disciplinis: qualc est hoc saeculum, mi Graneueldj, in quo iniuriam se credat acciperc, qui errori eximitur? . . . Transeo quod, quemadmodum ferunt, olim Mydac quicquid attigisset, solitum esse in aurum conuextj, sic nonmlllj hoc temporc omne ignotum vocant htreticum . . . Ex omni hominum memoria, nullam fuisse ztatem cmstimo, in qua magis inuisum fuerit adiuuare studia, quam hac, in qua sectis & dissensionibus fracta & concisa sunt omnia! Vna rcstat spcs, quod opinionum commenta delet dies, naturce iudicia vera 8c solida confirmat. Atquc vtinam scopuli essent sircnzj corruptcllz istz artium. esset saltem obtentus voluptatis, qua capti homines minus mirum csset illic detinerj, ac consenescerc. Nunc vero prztcrquam quod sint noxiz, sunt etiam amarissimx, vt nec alliciant specie, nec remorentur delectationc, aut fructu. Nec vafricia est in caussa, sed in alijs qurstus, in aliis ambitio, in plerisque omnibus ignoratio meliorum, tum malle didicisse, quam discere, & tgerrime ferre vider; nihil esse actum studio tot annorum.'

48 Cf. Op. cit., p. 4g5; ibid., p. 5757 Vivcs to Craneveld, t5 Tan. I527: CMolcn hos meum cudendi aliquid quod credam vtile futurum, magnz molis et proinde tardius pro- cedit, nec celeritcr prodibit.'

49 Cf. Bonilla y San Martin, 'Clarorum Hispaniensiuln epistolac ineditac', Revue H[is- paniqxe vm (I901), zS4 'Caeterum rept TeX^V Kal 666aK^lxvs quod meditari te scribis, cupio cognoscere quid sit.'

WILLIAM SINZ 87

of the work in a letter, and that moreover he hopes to give it viable and (lefinitive form without consulting his friends, not even Erasmus; speaking now for the first time with confidence and pride: 'I spread my sails at my own behest, stand at the tiller and bend to the oar and chant the rowing-song . . . and bow to my own judgment.'50

Such high confidence is not characteristic of Vives, and must mark a time when he felt he had sailed beyond one of his reefs. What was at first hardly more than professional reserve and sensible distrust of cour- iers, to protect his work from misappropriation, is now the proud man's 'You will hear from me', utterly belying the courteous evasion of in- sisting that Vergara have full knowledge, but then alleging circum- stances to prevent that. Conrad Goclen, who later defended Vives with some warmth, was seriously annoyed with what he took to be his con- ceit during this period of euphoria.5l

In the concluding months of ISz8, immediately (one might say) after seeming proud to Goclen, Vives was forced to liquidate his position in England, became seriously pressed for money, and fell again into his habit of self-distrust. He now consulted Erasmus, in much the same spirit as he had consulted Bude eight years before, as to his future literary career. The letter, which has been lost, must have been written

50 Bonilla y San Martin, pp. 264-265: 'Quae in manibus nunc habeo de argumentis variis et magnis, nec facile possem paucis verbis explicare, nec ausim exponere, ne me vel temerarium esse putes, qui tam vastum sim pelagus ingressus, vel arrogantem, qui tantum de viribus mihi meis pollicear. Si adesses, patefacerem tibi omnia, ut consilio tuo uterer. Nunc quum abes, nihil attinet summas ad te perscribere, neque enim sententiam de te ullam audire possem dumtaxat profuturam, nisi omnibus prius perspectis ac percognitis. Nec Erasmum licet consulere, qui fere non abest propius quam tu. Itaque nos ipsi nobis vela panimus, et clavum regimus, et in scalmo assidemus, et celeusma concinimus, de- nique omnia obimus soli nauis huius munia, quod bene ac fortunatissime vertat, et acqui- escimus iudicio nostro, quum neminem habemus cuius opera possimus in hoc uti. For- tassis libris editis commode aliquid vel amici consulendo admonebunt, vel obiurgando inimici, aut etiam ignoti iudiciis suis temere iactandis. Scis enim populum nec sentire recte scire, nec posse tamen reticere, quae sentiat. Itaque voces et iudicia multitudinis in re nova aucupabimur trans pergulam, ut pictor ille Graeciae celeberrimus; non deerit cerdo, qui de crepida bene moneat. Neque tamen est animus volumina haec domo proferre, priusquam existimem ita iam posse in publicum prodire, ut non sit cur ea revocanda brevi habeam domum, et reddenda incudi. Sentio enim nos sic edendis Libris opera saepe abuti nostra et lectoris cum detrimento non exiguo fructus operis,in quo incipiam ff7rav- teFv (i.e. 'be pretentious').

51 Cf. AllenS VII, 444, Goclen to Erasmus, Louvain, I6 Aug. IS28: 'Consilia Viuis nisi e literis tuis non noui. Et animo est sublimiori quam qui nobis quicquam communicet, egoque tuum consilium secutus cum Viue praeter ciuilem amiciciam nihil habui commune.' (The reference is obscure, but it should be remarked-and has not been so far- that the advice may not have concerned Vives, but only proud men in general.)

88 VIVES'S TREATISES ON THE ARTS so guardedly as to be misread, for Erasmus, who was not spiteful, and had no reason to be cruel in this instance, answered hastily and as if writing of trifles, but with such a string of negations as to seem to offer a studied rebuff (and it is so taken in Vives's hurt reply). He begins by refusing some offered emendations to Seneca, declines to appear in any way jn Queen Catherine's behalf, negligently remarks that he had for- gotten Vives in his Ciceronianus, and blandly denies that Froben's edi- iions of works by Vives have sold: Froben should know. He adds, in response to the consultation, that Vives can increase his already substan- tial fame by some small work that should be useful to humanity (as Vives had no doubt said of his ambition) in ie way of books like Baif's De re vestiaria (I526).52

The writing of De disciplinis, now well advanced, was interrupted by the need for timely publication of whatever Vives still wanted to say about the political crisis, which concerned him greatly. De concordia et discordia was published late in I529, with the shorter pieces on pacifica- tion Sand life under the Turk, but it had been finished byJuly, and had not taken long to write, being exhortatory throughout. The final work on De disciplinis could then be undertaken. One year later, inJuly I530, he was finishing the textbooks of logic and metaphysics and the printing had already begun, in Hillen's workshop in Antwerp.63 Between the twelfth and fourteenth of the month Vives delivered two lectures 'ad iuventutem'64 in Louvain, to launch the forthcoming work, a visit that Goclen reported in some detail to Erasmus.66 The book was published a year later, inJuly IS3I.

52 Cf. Allen, vz, 47I, Erasmus to Vives, 2 Sept. I528: 'Iam est celebre nomen tuum, nec dubito quin aliquando futurum celeberrimum, praesertim si te semel commendes opusculo ad vtilitatem parato, quale est Lazari Bayfi.' (Erasmus was serious about the value of such works, and aided Baifwith his later De vasculis culinariis, printed by Froben in I 53 I *)

53 Cf. Opera omnia, , I40, Vives to Honorato Juan: 'Disciplinae meae coeptse sunt Antuerpiae excudi: Rhetorica, et de sermone, ac linguis in aliud tempus distuli, philosophicis, plusquam gestare possim, onustus.' (This letter, so far undated, can readily be assigned to earlyJuly I530, for it mentions as current an absence of Louis de Praet to at- tend the wedding festivities of Eleanor of Austria and Francis I in Paris: these took place beginning on 4July I530.)

54 Cf. Allen, vm, 493,John of Heemstede to Erasmus, Louvain, I4July I530: 'Audita nunc Ludouici Viuis ad iuuentutem oratione, commodum in ipso scholarum egressu reperio meum Goclenium.'

55 Cf. Allen, vm, 49I-492, Goclen to Erasmus, Louvain, I4July I530: '[Curtius] duo- decimo die Iulii suscepturus est insignia theologiae. Ad cuius diei celebritatem Viues, Launnus et plaerique alii ex amicorum tuorum numero dicebantur affuturi. Viuem con-

WILLIAM SINZ 89

It is not probable that the enthusiastic expectation noticed by Goclen m I530 was forthcoming when the book finally appeared. The times were runni3lg against the Erasmians. The subject of the book was becoming a commonplace. The unnatural delay in printing, perhaps in part the effect of Vives's 'Hispanizing' determination to publish a finished work that should resist criticism, was a final blow, and it is not known that the book was much read during Vives's lifetime. Nor do we know that Bude complied with his request for comment on a work that now resolved, on the whole triumphantly, that youthful query about writing something ambitious.56

This is the available evidence bearing on the working-out of Vives's treatises on the arts. The first section, De causis corruptarum artium, was worked on in I525-I526, but it reflects ideas that appear in his earliest work, especially the association of decline with the loss of autonomous principles in the sciences (in the quodlibet oration of I522) and the idea of their historical development (in the lectures on Philelphus in I52I) The second section, De tradendis disciplinis, reflects the successes and failures of Vives's occasional teaching activity, but the first specific reference to it occurs in Vergara's query of April IS26. The treatise on metaphysics, De prima philosophia, and the four textbooks of logic were written shortly before publication, but the early intention to reform logic was in fact the cornerstone ofthe whole edifice of Vives's treatises on the arts. The writing of the rhetoric, De arte dicendi, was delayed by

ueni; qui respondit, siquid in mentem veniat quod cupiat scire Erasmum, opportune se missurum literas: nequid essem sollicitus. Si ad me miserit, mittam vna cum meis. Medi- tatur hic orationes aliquot Ka; XOtyoVS TpOTp6TTIKOVS, Vt libros suos faciat vendibiliores. Simul agit cum Rutgero nostro Rescio de imprimendo commentario de causis corruptarum omnium disciplinarum, quaque ratione in integrum possint restitui. Maxima tanti promissi est expectatio. Rutgerus tamen non audet rem aggredi nisi ipsius autoris peri- culo. Exitus adhuc est in incerto. Laurinum in singulas horas expectamus . . . Venit tandem Laurinus, sed negabat se quicquam habere quod tua referret scire. Idem responsi a Lodo. Viuete et Barlando est redditum . . . Viues habitis duabus orationibus publice huc euasit, vt ostenderet priuatim sese suos commentarios esse praelecturum mercede. Res videtur illi redire ad incitas.' (I.e. 'he seems to be in straits.' Vives evidently told Goclen only of his disappointment with the Louvain printer Rescius, and not of his successful negotiations with Hillen.)

56 Cf. Goldast, Op. Cit. in note I4 above, p. 2I6, 77ives to Bude, Bruges, I Sept. I532: 4. . . vovaereler6al Kal 7ralaeveXal ?rapa aov magnam habebo gratiam, non in hisce tantum, quae sunt a nobis quodam modo 7re7ralC,ueva [text: 7re7ralz,ueva] (neque enim tibi consilium hoc meum est opus), verum etiam in seriis, velut in libris meis de disciplinis, et aliis, si quos meos vacabit [text 'vocabit'] inspicere.' Vives had written, at Bude's request, a letter of advice about spending old age.


pressure of time until after the other treatises were published, but it probably existed in the form of notes since the I52I-I522 lectures in Louvain. The grammar text was not written. The psychology, De anima et vita, derives from an unsuccessful set of lectures of I52I-I522. University of Puerto Rico WI LLIAM SINZ

Article Contentsp. 68p. 69p. 70p. 71p. 72p. 73p. 74p. 75p. 76p. 77p. 78p. 79p. 80p. 81p. 82p. 83p. 84p. 85p. 86p. 87p. 88p. 89p. 90

Issue Table of ContentsStudies in the Renaissance, Vol. 10 (1963), pp. 1-210Front Matter [pp. 1-5]Sorcery in Early Renaissance Florence [pp. 7-24]The Identity of the Emblematic Nemesis [pp. 25-43]A Manuscript of Landino's Xandra in South Africa [pp. 44-59]Aventinus and the Defense of the Empire Against the Turks [pp. 60-67]The Elaboration of Vives's Treatises on the Arts [pp. 68-90]Utopia and European Humanism: The Function of the Prefatory Letters and Verses [pp. 91-107]Pace and Timing in Rabelais's Stories [pp. 108-125]`The Bloody and Cruell Turke': The Background of a Renaissance Commonplace [pp. 126-135]The Cosmic Voyage in French Sixteenth-Century Learned Poetry [pp. 136-162]Double Translation in English Humanistic Education [pp. 163-174]Tasso's Experience of Petrarch [pp. 175-191]William Harvey and His Methods [pp. 192-210]

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