Claimed by Desiderius Erasmus
Serves 6 · 2 of 5 items checked · 4 aisles
Dairy & Eggs
Pantry / Durable
Spices & Seasoning
- Checked by Thomas More
Other
- Checked by Desiderius Erasmus
Gathering
The printer's house
1520 · Basel, Switzerland
Erasmus gathers More, Machiavelli, and Copernicus around a Basel press and argues that the printed word will outlast every prince.
Erasmus has taken rooms above a Basel printing house, where his Greek New Testament and his editions of the Fathers are being set into type. The press clatters below while he talks, and he is delighted to show his guests the sheets coming off it.
More has come from England, Machiavelli from Florence, and Copernicus from Warmia, and each of them is engaged in a struggle the others only partly understand. Erasmus argues that the press has changed the terms of every argument, because an idea once printed cannot be called back. Machiavelli is skeptical: he notes that princes still have soldiers, and soldiers still have swords. They eat polenta, stewed carp, and fried sage leaves, and Erasmus promises to send each of them a printed book.
The table
Host: Desiderius Erasmus
Thomas More — Erasmus's friend, in Basel while his own book is being printed.
Niccolò Machiavelli — Between appointments, doubtful that books can restrain a prince.
Nicolaus Copernicus — Whose manuscript on the heavens may one day go to this same press.
The menu
Everything you need to host this menu, sorted aisle by aisle:
The menu
7 of 21 items checked
Claimed by Thomas More
Serves 4 · 2 of 8 items checked · 5 aisles
Claimed by Niccolò Machiavelli
Serves 4 · 2 of 4 items checked · 4 aisles
Claimed by Nicolaus Copernicus
Serves 4 · 1 of 3 items checked · 2 aisles
Claimed by Desiderius Erasmus
Serves 12 · 0 of 1 item checked · 1 aisle
The conversation
Desiderius Erasmus
The press is the great engine of our age. A thousand copies of a good book can do what an army cannot.
Niccolò Machiavelli
And a thousand copies of a bad one. I have seen how words move men to war.
Thomas More
Then let the good words be better printed. That is the whole of the reform I ask.
Nicolaus Copernicus
My book waits years for the courage to publish. The press is patient; the author is not.
A reconstruction — imagined from the figures' own writings.
This gathering is an editorial recreation grounded in the biographies of those present; it did not necessarily take place as described.