Most of us who inhabit the western, post-Christian world are so accustomed to pictures of the Madonna and child or of the Holy Family that we hardly notice the details. When we encounter such images in museums, on posters, or on Christmas cards, we tend to respond sentimentally if at all. We note whether the baby looks like a baby or not. We are pleased if the figures appear happy and affectionate. Perhaps we even feel gratitude for the somewhat banal support of an institution—the human family—that seems worn a little thin in the modern world. But we are not shocked. Recognizing that the Incarnation is a central Christian tenet, we feel no surprise that Christian artists throughout the western tradition should have painted God as a male baby.

The theory and practice of proffering consolation commanded a prominent place in humanist moral thought and literature. Reviving and furthering the tradition of the ancient consolatio, Renaissance writers formulated solace for such problems as bereavement, the fear of death, illness, despair, and misfortune. In the Trecento and Quattrocento there appeared many consolatory letters and funeral orations as well as numerous consolatory dialogues and treatises. The coherence and importance of this consolatory tradition in Renaissance culture have not been fully recognized. By studying this tradition more closely we can learn much about the psychological functions of rhetoric and philosophy in Renaissance thought. Equally important, we can begin to see more clearly how the history of ideas has sometimes been changed and enriched by its quiet counterpart, the “history of emotions.”

The Moriae Encomium and the Novum Instrumentum of Erasmus provoked remarkable storms. Even now the bitter sarcasm at the center of the Encomium shocks many as does the boldness of In principio erat Sermo, his alternative to the Vulgate's words that had a millennial sanction in theological discourse and in liturgy—In principio erat Verbum. Turbulence also radiates from the uniquely significant Romans 5:12 where he rendered eph hô by quatenus (in as much as), replacing in quo (in whom) of the Vulgate. Because of his translation and his annotations of the texts of Romans 5:12 and 14, Catholics and non-Catholics accused him of Pelagianism soon after the publication of the first edition of the Novum Instrumentum (1516).