Hadrianus Junius (1511-1575): A Humanist from Hoorn

This book does not pretend to be a scholarly biography. It sketches the life of Hadrianus Junius and provides some political, religious, psychological and scholarly contexts for it. Particular attention is devoted to the tradition of humanism, without which Junius’ scholarly output cannot be properly assessed and understood. The portrait of Junius gives insight into some of the key events of the sixteenth century, such as the Reformation, the birth of the Church of England, and the Dutch Revolt. Like many fellow humanists, Junius studied in Louvain and travelled around Europe. But unlike most of his learned compatriots, he returned to his home country and settled in Haarlem. Because Junius was the single most learned scholar during the third quarter of the sixteenth century in the Northern Netherlands, his life and letters teach us many things about the world of learning in those decades. Junius anticipated some of the most successful literary enterprises of the Dutch Golden Age: historiography, emblem literature and the Leiden school of philology. The first generations of scholars at Leiden University, founded in 1575, considered Junius to be the grand old man of Dutch humanism. They were inspired by the scope and depth of his works, which they acknowledged by nicknaming him a Second Erasmus. Adriaen de Jonge or Hadrianus Junius, was born in the Westfrisian town of Hoorn on 1 July 1511, from a family of local regents. He attended the Latin School in Haarlem. At the relatively advanced age of 23, he went to study in Louvain, where he spent a couple of years. He then embarked on his peregrinatio academica, which led him through Siena, Bologna, Venice and Rome. In his letters, he reports on his visits to the famous legal humanist Andrea Alciato, his attendance at an interrupted Greek-orthodox liturgical service in Venice, and on an experiment with glow-worms in the Bolognese countryside. He obtained his doctoral degree in philosophy and medicine in Bologna in 1540. Not long after his graduation, Junius left for Paris, a centre of printing. There he acted as an agent for the printer Christian Wechel, who published his first work: an edition with Latin translation of Cassius Felix Iatrosophista (1541). In Paris Junius seems to have met Edmund Bonner, bishop of London, with whom he visited Ghent. In April 1544 he headed for London, where Thomas Howard, third duke of Norfolk, made him his physician. Howard’s son Henry, the ‘poet earl of Surrey’ (who was naturally interested in literary men like Junius) enlisted him as a tutor to his children. Junius spent much of his time in Norfolk, at the family’s castle in Kenninghall. He divided his time between private instruction to the children (about whom he complained) and on various scholarly projects: an edition of Curtius Rufus’ biography of Alexander the Great (published 1546), an edition with translation of part of Plutarch’s Moral essays (published 1547) and a Greek-Latin Lexicon (1548). The alliance with the Howards came to an abrupt end when Thomas and Henry Howard were imprisoned on allegations of high treason. Junius lost a large part of his library when his patron’s belongings were confiscated. Even before Henry Howard was executed by Henry VIII, on 19 January 1547, Junius successfully solicited the patronage of Charles V’s envoy Franciscus van der Dilft (or Dilfius), to whom he dedicated his edition of Plutarch. He dedicated his Lexicon to the new king: the very young protestant Edward VI. Apparently, Junius tried to secure a position at the English court; in 1550 he dedicated the manuscript of his work on calendars to Edward as well. Meanwhile, he also praised Charles V in his edition of Curtius and perhaps he tried his luck, through Van der Dilft, at the Habsburg court as well, since he did not feel entirely comfortable witnessing the conversion of the English Church to Protestantism. In his letters, he describes the stripping of the altars as a result of the Edwardian injunctions. In 1550 Junius left for Holland to marry and take up a post as rector of the Latin School in Haarlem. The job was not to his liking, and after two years he exchanged it for a post as city physician. Meanwhile, he had not given up on the English and the Habsburg courts, for he dedicated the published version of his book on calendars to Edward VI (1553) and the revised edition to his successor, the Catholic Mary Tudor (1556). In the meantime he had travelled to London to present his epic poem Philippeis to Mary on the occasion of her wedding to Philip of Spain in 1554. He dedicated his commentary on Horace’s Odes to Gonsalvo Perez, and that on the third book of Vergil’s Aeneid to Juan de Verzosa. Both of these dedicatees were loyal servants to the Spanish crown and humanists in their own right. But the clean copies he prepared for the press were never printed and attempts to enter the inner circle around Bijlage 5 English abstract English abstract the Spanish throne through the intervention of, amongst others, bishop Stephen Gardiner and the future Cardinal Granvelle, faltered as well. All his dedications to mighty Protestants and Catholics alike had remained fruitless. During the 1550s, Junius’ works appeared with various printers in Basle. Despite a fire in his study in 1554, which cost him ‘months, if not years of work’, his hodge-podge collection of philological annotations on classical literature appeared in 1556: the Animadversa. He dedicated it to Granvelle and its pages repeatedly pay tribute to Granvelle’s secretary, the antiquarian Antoine Morillon. To the Animadversa was appended a long treatise De coma commentarium (Commentary on hair), a paradoxical encomium, purportedly written in defiance of critique on the short Italian haircut which he had adopted in Italy. The commentary was crushed under its own weight as a result of its endless strings of quotations and lack of humour, but it demonstrates Junius’ antiquarian interests and his ability to group together hundreds of fragments. In 1558 his edition of the Homeric commentator Eustathius appeared in Basle, prefaced by the anti-Catholic Laurence Humphrey. Junius himself would have preferred to see the work printed with a dedication to Joachim Hopper, a man who soon was to rise at Philip II’s court. The year 1558 also saw the publication of Junius’ supplement of 850 proverbs to Erasmus’ famous and much used Adagia. All these works show a preference for the juxtaposition of fragments from all sorts of sources. Junius’ first marriage had resulted in the birth of two children, Clara and Petrus. After the death of his wife he remarried, in 1555. His new wife was Adriana Hasselaer, sister of Kenau, who became legendary for her supposedly heroic role in defending Haarlem against the Spanish during the siege of 1573. Junius became well integrated into the cultural élite of the Haarlem, which included the philosopher Dirck Volkertsz Coornhert, the engraver Philips Galle, the painter Maarten van Heemskerck, and, later, the school rector and Latin playwright Cornelius Schonaeus. He also set up a private school in his own house, to teach the sons of the élite he knew so well and to secure himself a stable income in addition to the salary he gained from his post as a physician. We know very little of his medical practice: it seems to have been more of an honorary post, but he occasionally acted as advisor on medical politics in the city. An expedition to Copenhagen in 1564, answering the call to become professor of medicine and royal physician, resulted in disillusion after just three months, due to lack of payment, bad weather and his unconfident speech (Junius stammered). In the years leading up to the Danish adventure, he had been preparing a number of works. In 1564 appeared a curious booklet with a description of a mushroom found in the dunes and shaped in the form of a penis: the fungus is still known as the Phallus hadriani today. After his return Junius focused with renewed energy on another project. He cashed in on his by now firmly established fame by striking a deal with Europe’s leading printer Christopher Plantin, who published his religious poem Anastaurosis, his influential Emblemata and his edition of the lexicographer Nonius Marcellus. The Emblems show that the political situation of that time was not as clearcut as it would become in the years which followed. Some of the Emblems are dedicated to representatives of the Spanish crown (including Granvelle and some Dutch administrators), but Junius also managed to secure the support of William the Silent in his bid to be appointed as historiographer of the States of Holland and Westfrisia. Perhaps the dedication of his octolingual dictionary Nomenclator (printed 1567) to William’s son Philip William had contributed to his success. Junius was charged with collecting historical evidence for the States’ right to convene independently from the central government in Brussels. Junius made plans to travel around Holland to do research for his history, but he worked on other projects as well: in 1568 he republished his edition of Martial. The first edition, based on a manuscript he had obtained in England, had appeared in 1559 in Basel without his name being mentioned anywhere in the book, much to his annoyance. In 1568 he also travelled to London, to present his edition and Latin translation of Eunapius’ Life of philosophers to Queen Elizabeth. To his disappointment, she ignored the gesture and after failed attempts to further his cause via William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Junius returned home. But he first asked the Queen’s direct permission to export sixty dickers of cow’s skins, presumably destined for Christopher Plantin, who needed parchment to print a number of luxurious editions of his famous Antwerp Polyglot Bible. In 1570, Junius finished the first draft of his Batavia. By then, the political landscape had altered dramatically: 1566 saw a wave of iconoclasm (Junius report

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