Lost Erasmus book returns to Rotterdam after 400 years

A book by Dutch Renaissance philosopher Desiderius Erasmus, which was thought to be lost, has been returned to Rotterdam after being identified by a collector in the US.

La civilité puérile (The Civility of Children) is a short collection of thoughts on good manners in children, printed in French in 1609.

The booklet contains rules such as: “It is downright ridiculous to make trumpet sounds with your nose: leave that to horn players and elephants.”

“If someone else sneezes, you must wish them good health (pay close attention to that)” is another piece of advice, along with “only sit down at the table after you have washed your hands, and cut your nails too.”

John Tholen, a curator at the Rotterdam Library, told regional broadcaster Rijnmond that getting the book back after four centuries was a very special event.

“We have found an unknown piece of the puzzle regarding the history and influence of Erasmus’s ideas,” Tholen said. “This copy is the only one left in the world from a print run of perhaps as many as 1,000.”

The UNESCO Erasmus Collection in Rotterdam holds more than 3,000 editions of the scholar’s works, plus another 3,000 books and articles about him published after 1900.