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BETWEEN AND ZURICH: HUMANIST RIVALRIES AND THE WORKS OF SEBASTIAN MÜNSTER1

Matthew McLean

A resident in the of Basel in the , described the fi rst fl orescence of its scholarly world so: “Th ey all know Latin, they all know Greek, most of them know Hebrew too; one is an expert histo- rian, another an experienced theologian; one is skilled in mathematics, one a keen antiquary, another a jurist… I have certainly never before had the fortune to live in such gift ed company. And to say nothing of that, how open-hearted they are, how well they get on together! You would say that they only had one soul”.2 Th is depiction of the scholarly diversity and harmonious collaboration of his circle in the city of Basel and, by extension, of the wider respublica litterarum, has been potent and enduring. Within and beyond the Swiss Confederation, the City on the was perceived as both the beacon and the epicentre, of latitudinarian government and a tolerant intellectual climate, and of a web of scholars who sought still to communicate and cooperate across the breaches and barriers thrown up by the tectonic remaking of the political and religious topography of western Europe. Basel embodied, it seemed, what Werner Kaegi has termed the “continuity of humanist ideals in the age of confessionalisation”.3 Such continuities should not be surprising: the world of Swiss was bound together by established friendships, student- teacher relationships, collaborations, maintained through a prolifi c exchange of correspondence and refreshed by the movement of schol- ars and students between and institutions. Between the scholarly hubs of Basel and Zurich these connective sinews were especially

1 Th is paper draws in part upon the on-going research of the AHRC Protestant Latin Bible Project, of which more details can be found at: www.st-andrews .ac.uk/∼plbible. 2 Th e quotation is taken from a letter of February 1516 to Johannes Sapidus of Schlettstadt. Th e translation is that of Hans R. Guggisburg, from his Basel in the Sixteenth Century: Aspects of the city republic before, during and aft er the (St Louis, 1982). 3 Werner Kaegi, Humanistische Kontinuität (Basel, 1954), p. 12. humanist rivalries and the works of sebastian münster 271 strong: their respective sodalities were linked by friendships, literary collaborations, debts of gratitude for assistance, encouragement, sup- port. However, between the years of 1535 and 1547, there arose a series of controversies between these two centres of Swiss humanism, each occurring at the point where one might suppose the cause and occa- sion for cooperation, that harmony to which Erasmus off ers his enco- mium, should be at its most strong. Th ese controversies were caused by the overlapping production of two remarkable translations of the Bible, by the contested right to publish an edition of the Koran, and by two great topographical-historical works which, by virtue of the infelicitous timing of their publication, saw a species of humanist literature intended to unify and celebrate printed instead as rivals, in embittered and suspicious circumstances. Into their fracture these publications drew the most renowned scholars of Zurich and Basel, generating friction and intrigue between friends, and throwing into relief contrasting scholarly approaches and confessional perspectives, while illustrating how far Kaegi’s “continuity of humanist ideals” could withstand the pressure of commercial exi- gencies, and the imperatives of giving defi nition and fortifi cation to a fl edgling Church. Here, the limits of humanist confraternity and the potent infl uence of the print houses upon the culture and scholarship of the respublica litterarum are quite visible: even in the most intimate and mutually-indebted of its communities – the ‘community of the competent’ – discord was sown.4 Intimately involved in each dispute, either as author or authority, were Sebastian Münster and , professors of Hebrew at Basel and Zurich respectively.

Th e Latin Bibles of 1534/5, 1539 and 1543

In their eff orts to produce a Latin Bible, translated anew and in its entirety from the Hebrew, one might expect the scholars of Zurich and Basel to be able to work harmoniously and in collusion when necessary. Both cities were at this point Reformed: neither, it may be

4 Th e phrase is that of Professor Stephen Burnett, in ‘Reassessing the “Basel- Wittenberg Confl ict”: Dimensions of Reformation-Era Discussion of Hebrew Scholarship’, in Coudert and Shoulson (eds.), Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia, 2004), p. 182.