The literary culture of Antwerp in the 16th century
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BookSection
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Kraków : Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
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274-291
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Strona wydawcy: https://www.wuj.pl
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dc.abstract.en
The 16th century was the time of Antwerp’s rise but also its downfall. During a period of
fifty years Scheldt city gained the status of a European metropolis. It was one of the biggest
and most important centres of trade on the Old Continent. It was also here that the
most famous bankers families had their offices and on the New Exchange the non-cash
transactions were made. Thanks to the concentration of wealth and large-scale immigration, the city developed a literary culture independent from the ducal courts based in Mechelen and Brussels. Religious tolerance and presence of reformed confessions fostered book production and humanistic discussions in which even Erasmus of Rotterdam took part. Despite the absence of a university, Antwerp was an attractive place for intellectuals educated in Leuven and other European academic centres. They were involved in city governing bodies, working as secretaries, chancellors, and archivists. Antwerp’s humanists were also well known as schoolmasters and teachers in private and parish schools that were very popular with patrician families.
Antwerp was, along with Venice and Lyon, one of Europe’s capitals of typography in the
16th century. Book production evolved from religious texts and handbooks for common
people, to classic and Latin literature, philosophical and medical treaties, and geographical
atlases. Dirk Martens, Christoffel Plantijn and other publishers and printers lead their publishing
houses in the city on the right bank of Scheldt. They produced books for local as
well as foreign markets, which, thanks to traders, reached most cities and courts of Europe.
Antwerp was an open city, a lens that focused ideas from the Eastern and Western Worlds.
Its inhabitants had a very wide range of contacts which can be seen in the correspondence
of Christoffel Plantijn, in alba amicorum of Abraham Ortelius or in Zeitungsbriefen sent
by Fuggers’ offices to their headquarters in Augsburg. The landscape of Antwerp’s literary culture is not complete without mentioning the rhetoric chambers. Humanists and artists from Saint Lucas Guild organisations created these entries to the city of the rulers of the Low Countries, landujewelen - the poetic competitions and animated discussions on the religious and politic state of the Seventeen Provinces. Finally, the transformation of the literary relations within the city and its surrounding world, can be found in the chorographic text by Lodovico Guicciardini, Johannes
Goropius Becanus and Carolus Scribani. They showed how Antwerp - a diamond in the
ring of the Netherlands - lost its status and wealth after the siege of 1585 and during the
Catholic revival.
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Antwerp
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literary culture
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16th century
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Low Countries
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early modern period
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dc.description.series
Terminus. Bibliotheca Classica. Seria 2; nr 6
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1
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978-83-233-9486-0
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dc.title.container
Literatura renesansowa w Polsce i Europie : studia dedykowane Profesorowi Andrzejowi Borowskiemu
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pol
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Wydział Historyczny : Instytut Historii
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Article
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OTHER; otwarte repozytorium; ostateczna wersja wydawcy; po opublikowaniu; 36