Arnoldus Arlenius Peraxylus, ( – 1582), born Arndt or Arnout van Eyndhouts or van Eynthouts, also known as Arnoud de Lens, was a Dutch

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...

philosopher and poet. He was born in Aarle, near Helmond, (although some accounts say

's-Hertogenbosch s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 160,783. It is the capital of ...

), North Brabant, in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, at that time part of the possessions of the Habsburgs. He studied under Macropedius and later travelled to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, and Ferrara and studied at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...

for five years, becoming a first-rate Greek scholar and supporting himself by bookselling and acting as a scout for the printers of Basel, arranging the publication of books such as Caelius Rhodiginus's ''Lectiones antiquae''. In 1542 he travelled to

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

, where he became librarian to the Spanish ambassador, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, finding new texts and organising the transcription of documents, work which involved him in travelling to Frankfurt and Florence. In 1543 he met Conrad Gessner who visited him in Venice. He also catalogued Mendoza's collection of Greek manuscripts. Working with manuscripts found in Mendoza's substantial library, he produced in 1544 the first printed Greek version of the works of

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

. This was published by Hieronymus Froben in

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

, and for many years was the basis of all existing translations from the Greek. In addition, he was responsible for the publication of important early editions of Lycophron (Basel, 1546) and Niccolò Perotti's Latin translation of

Polybius Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...

(Basel, 1549). His Greek-Latin Lexicon was published in Venice in 1546. He later worked as a corrector for the printer Lorenzo Torrentino and obtained books and manuscripts for Johann Jakob Fugger. In 1556 he was responsible for the publication in Basel of an edition of

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

's works, based on the 1534 edition by the scholar Simon Grynaeus, which he personally corrected with the assistance of manuscripts of Plato which he had collected in Italy. This edition is described by the classicist Myles Burnyeat as "one of the most barbarously ligatured ever put into print."M. F. Burnyeat, 'Plato' (Master Mind Lecture), Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 111, Oxford University Press 2001

Sources

* Charles Anthon, ''A Manual of Greek Literature from the Earliest Authentic Periods to the Close of Byzantine Era'' (New York, 1853) * Anthony Hobson, ''Renaissance Book Collecting: Jean Grolier and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, their Books and Bindings'': pp 72–74. *Jenny, B.R. ‘Arlenius in Basel’, ''Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Alterthumskunde'', 64 (1964), 5–45.

References

1510s births 1582 deaths People from Laarbeek 16th-century Dutch people Dutch Renaissance humanists {{Netherlands-bio-stub