12mo (XL),394,(2 blank) p., frontispiece, portrait. Overlapping vellum 13 cm (Ref: Breugelmans 1642:7, p. 494/95; Vander Haeghen, Bibliotheca Erasmiana, p. 101) (Details: Manuscript title on the back. Printer's mark on the title. Frontispiece engraved by C.V. Dalen, depicting Erasmus as the magister of some young men. Between leaf *2 and *3 has been added a double leaf with a portrait engraved by William Marshall of Thomas Nigellus (Thomas Neale), author of the book 'A treatise of direction, how to travell safely and profitably into forraigne countries' (1643). On the page opposite this portrait the publisher offers Thomas Neale his apologies for wrongly naming him in the dedication 'Ioannes Neale'; under Neale's portrait his coat of arms. On page *8 recto a round woodcut portrait of Erasmus. On p. *11 recto a woodcut of Erasmus' signet ring, depicting a bust of Terminus, with Erasmus' famous motto Nulli cedo. On page *12 verso, the last of the preliminaries, a list of 14 works of Erasmus which Maire had published in 1641. This Vita Erasmi was meant to be the first part of Maire's series of Erasmus editions) (Condition: Binding age-tanned. Slight wear to the foot of the spine. First flyleaf waterstained, caused by the removal of a bookplate. Faint dampstain in the lower corner of the first and the last quire) (Note: Joannes Maire, publisher, printer and bookseller in Leiden, 1603-1657, produced during his career quite a number of Erasmus editions. This Erasmus project ensured Maire's reputation through the ages. He published between 1641 and 1652 23 different volumes. § After the dedicatio follows the introduction, consisting of an elogium on Erasmus by the Italian historian and biographer Paulus Iovius (Paolo Giovio), and epitaphia written by friends of Erasmus and later scholars. Pages 1-160 contains the vita-part, and is openend by Erasmus' autobiography (p. 1/12), followed the biography of Erasmus by Beatus Rhenanus (p. 12-63), Erasmus' last will (p. 63-68), a long letter to Lambertus Grunnius (p. 69-116), a letter (of 1514) to Father Servatius (Rogerus), Erasmus' somewhat younger cloister-brother, who was since 1504 prior of Steyn, the monastery Erasmus left, never to return; (Erasmus' letters to Servatius play a role in the anachronistic ’Erasmus was gay’ hypothesis) and to Hector Boeotius Deidonanus (p. 116-135), a list of Erasmus' works (p. 135-144), and two letters of Erasmus, one addressed to his friends, and the other to Christophorus Mesia Hispanus. (p. 145-160) The second half of the book has a half title of its own: Desiderii Erasmi epistolarum illustrium, & in magno volumine non comparentium liber. This part consists of more than 70 letters that were written by Erasmus later in life and that were not included in a 'great' edition of Erasmus' letters. (Which earlier edition of Erasmus' letters is referred to is not clear) It contains letters to Conradus Goclenius, Mutianus Rufus, Johannes de Hondt, Pirckheimer, Oecolampadius, Petrus Vulcanius, et alii; many letters are addressed to Eobanus Hessus. § The main part of this 1642 edition, containing the vita and the letters, is a reissue of an edition which was published in 1615 by the Leiden printer Godefridus Basson, and which was edited by the Dutch scholar Petrus Scriverius, in Dutch Pieter Schrijver. Scriverius based his edition on Vita D. Erasmi ex ipsius manu fideliter repraesentata, comitantibus, quae ad eandem, aliis of the Dutch scholar Paullus Merula, which was published in 1607 in Leiden by Thomas Basson. Johannes Maire repeated this 1642 edition in 1649, adding a new dedication and some new preliminary pages) (Collation: *12 (Plus a double leaf chi between *2 and *3), 2*6, A-Q12, R6 (leaf R6 blank)) (Photographs on request)