The Kaleidoscopic Scholarship of Hadrianus Junius (1511-1575): Northern Humanism at the Dawn of the Dutch Golden Age

Hadrianus Junius (1511-1575) is generally regarded as the greatest humanist in the Northern Netherlands between the death of Erasmus in 1536 and the foundation of Leiden University in 1575. For both literary authors and professional philologists of the Golden Age, Junius remained the only significant point of reference on Dutch soil in the second and third quarters of the sixteenth century. As physician, lexicographer, historiographer, emblematist, poet, mycologist, chronologer and philologist, he was a prolific editor (and translator) of Latin and Greek texts. Yet we still know little about the kind of scholarship this stuttering polymath pursued, and about the connections between his numerous works. The chapters in this book analyse Junius’ most important works, some of which have never been studied before. All chapters contextualise his works in light of the tradition of humanism so familiar to Junius.