Erasmus Collection
Rotterdam Public Library holds the world’s largest collection of books written, translated, or edited by Erasmus of Rotterdam, amounting to some 5,000 items. The wealth of 16th- and 17th-century editions is especially great. About 30 percent of the books present were printed in Erasmus’s lifetime. Highlights are four autograph letters, some 90 first editions of his work, and many illustrated editions of his Praise of Folly. Books and articles about Erasmus are present in the collection, too.
The Erasmus Collection provides a unique opportunity to tell the complete story of Desiderius Erasmus, his philosophy, the spreading of his ideas over the world, and how people throughout the ages and throughout Europe interacted with his texts.