Nicasius Ellebodius and the “otium litterarum” The Vicissitudes of a Flemish Humanist in Pozsony (1571–77)

Abstract

This study reviews Nicasius Ellebodius’s Pozsony (today: Bratislava) period (1571–77) from a biographical and intellectual historical perspective. Ellebodius (1535–1577) was a Flemish philologist of vast erudition, one of the finest Graecists of his day. His biography and character are much less discussed in scholarship than his works, although his letters provide us with invaluable information about his life, as well as about the participation of the academic elite of 16th-century Hungary in the international res publica litteraria. The article will revisit the problem of how far he could realize the otium litterarum that he yearned for so much, and what challenges he had to face in his everyday life in Pozsony.