Humanist Spirituality and Ecclesial Reaction: Thomas More's Monstra

Abstract

“Do you want to see new marvels (monstra)? Do you want to see strange ways of life, to find the sources of virtue or the causes of all evil; to sense the vast emptiness that commonly goes unnoticed?”Cornelius Grapheus was responsible for this sales promotion. Along with other prefatory material, it introduced Thomas More's Utopia to readers in 1516. More's friend, Erasmus of Rotterdam, had collected endorsement, and either he or Peter Giles had approached Grapheus, then secretary to the municipal government at Antwerp. It is reasonable to assume that Grapheus jumped at the chance to associate his name with the new work. He had published nothing before this time, save for some devotional verse in 1514, yet careers were launched, patrons found, and reputations ennobled by promotional material as well as by the material promoted.