Erasmus in Basel

Erasmus's Gravestone in the Minster in Basel

When I was on holiday in the southern part of the Alsace, in eastern France, a few weeks ago, I made also a trip to Basel, only a 40 minutes’ drive from my holiday home. For it was in Basel that the famous Dutch humanist, theologian and philosopher Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam had passed the last years of his life.
When Erasmus left the – now Belgian

Zum Sessel (the house with
the red groundfloor and white
upper floors)

 – city of Leuven in 1521, he might have realised that maybe he would never return there again. Erasmus left Leuven because he was increasingly criticised for his religious ideas, since Luther had openly published his criticism of the Roman Catholic Church in 1517. Some even saw Erasmus as a supporter of Luther, although Erasmus stayed a loyal though critical supporter of the Catholic Church till the end of his life. Erasmus had decided to move to Basel, for Johann Froben there had been the publisher of his works already for many years. Froben had one of the most important publishing houses of his time in Europe. It was established in a building called Zum Sessel, in the present Totengässlein. Today a pharmacy museum is established in the house.

Zur Alten Treu 
{left of the scaffolding)

Erasmus went to work for Froben as an author, editor and acquirer. They got along very well and, moreover, Erasmus was by far Froben’s most popular and most productive author, and someone who worked very hard for his publisher. So, no wonder that Froben bought a house for Erasmus in the Nadelberg street, called Zur Alten Treu (nowadays a bookshop). Froben gave Erasmus also a yearly income of 200 florins. Since Erasmus had other earnings as well, he could live a very good life in Basel. Moreover, besides working for Froben, Erasmus taught private students, who could live in Zur Alten Treu for 40 florins a year. One of the persons Erasmus met in Basel was the Swiss painter Hans Holbein the Younger, who worked as an illustrator for Froben and also painted the now famous portrait of Erasmus.
Buying a house and giving him an income was not the only thing Froben did for Erasmus. He bought even a garden for him, a thing which Erasmus had longed to have already for years. It was a space large enough to walk, with a gazebo where he could work. Erasmus could reach the garden walking from Zum Sessel or from his house along the Peter’s Church to the city wall on the westside of the town.

Zum Luft

In 1527 Johann Froben died. His son Hieronymus succeeded his father in the publishing house, and since also Erasmus and the son got along well, Erasmus could continue his life more or less as it was. However, in 1529 the Reformation reached also Basel. The Roman Catholic churches became Protestant, and Erasmus no longer felt at ease in Basel, and he decided to move to Freiburg in southwest Germany. Erasmus gradually got many physical complaints and he was often ill and he

Erasmus's garden

became a really old man. Because the situation in Basel had somewhat improved, in 1535 Erasmus decided to return and to pass the last days of his life there. Hieronymus Froben gave him an apartment in the Haus zum Luft in the Bäumleingasse, the house to which Hieronymus had moved his father’s publishing house. Erasmus continued working on a new manuscript, but his health deteriorated sharply and he died in Zum Luft on 12 July 1536, almost 70 years old.
Erasmus was buried in the Basel Minster. Since this had become a Protestant church, it was remarkable that the city authorities allowed that a Catholic requiem mass was celebrated for him. Erasmus’s grave was originally in the nave of the Minster, but was moved to the catacombs in the 19th century. The gravestone was placed in the left side aisle of the church.

The Minster in Basel

Sources
- Anne Bakker, “Citytrip Bazel – In de voetsporen van Erasmus”, https://reportersonline.nl/citytrip-bazel-in-de-voetsporen-van-erasmus/ .
- Sandra Langereis, Erasmus: Dwarsdenker. Een biografie, Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2021; esp. pp. 640-701.
- “Das Haus zum Luft / Erasmushaus”, https://altbasel.ch/haushof/haus_zum_luft.html .