ABOVE was my first illustration for the website, it was for an article about Erasmus of Rotterdam, entitled "In praise of folly", although the article wasn't actually about that piece of Erasmus writing, I decided to draw folly because I like him.
Here Folly has been transported into our age he is now wearing specialist headgear, because he has been morphed within the the legacy of Erasmus of Rotterdam. That is the legacy of the classical tradition in combination with the unreformed doctrine of the Catholic Church. That is why his hand, his instrument of power is inside the church and the Greek temple is on top of his head.
I decided to draw only half a Greek temple after I came across this very nice cutaway of the Parthenon to the right, and also I like the idea that segments of the classical tradition were cut out and utilised by religious scholars in the time Erasmus, with other less savoury ideas and customs of the Greeks discarded. Or lobotomised in the case the above illustration of folly.
ABOVE AND TO THE RIGHT is the next illustration I drew, for the next article about a follower of a Erasmus from Spain, Francisco de Vitoria. He came across as rather boring and Conservative but nevertheless a nice guy, in the same way as Erasmus but maybe without his wit. He was also a big fan of travelling the world, seeing all races and creeds as part of God's great kingdom.
I have illustrated him being guided by the Stoic and careful tortoise, who incidentally issues God's will via moon worship, not unlike some of the Greek pagans that the European Catholic scholars had recently rediscovered, "That knowledge, It was already in them, the parts that they didn't want" the tortoise might say...
