Arnoldus Arlenius Peraxylus, (c. 1510 - 1582), born Arndt or Arnout van Eyndhouts or van Eynthouts, also known as Arnoud de Lens, was a Dutch

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 humanist

Renaissance humanism

Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...

 philosopher and poet.

He was born in Aarle, near Helmond

Helmond

Helmond is a municipality and a city in the province of North Brabant in the southern Netherlands.- Quarters and Neighbourhoods :*Quarter 11 Inner City**Neighbourhood 0 Centrum**Neighbourhood 2 Leonardus**Neighbourhood 3 Heipoort...

, (although some accounts say 's-Hertogenbosch), North Brabant

North Brabant

North Brabant , sometimes called Brabant, is a province of the Netherlands, located in the south of the country, bordered by Belgium in the south, the Meuse River in the north, Limburg in the east and Zeeland in the west.- History :...

, in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, at that time part of the possessions of the Habsburgs. He studied under Macropedius

Macropedius

Georgius Macropedius , also known as Joris van Lanckvelt, was a Dutch humanist, schoolmaster and 'the greatest Latin playwright of the 16th century'.-Biography:...

 and later travelled to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, and Ferrara and studied at the University of Bologna

University of Bologna

The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...

 for five years, becoming a first-rate Greek scholar and supporting himself by bookselling and acting as a scout for the printers of Basel, arranging the publication of books such as Caelius Rhodiginus

Caelius Rhodiginus

Caelius Rhodiginus was a Venetian writer, and professor in Greek and Latin.His original name was Ludovico or Lodovico Celio Ricchieri. He took the name Rhodiginus from his birthplace, Rovigo. He studied at Ferrara and Padua. He was a professor in Greek and Latin at Rovigo from 1491-9, and again...

's Lectiones antiquae.

In 1542 he travelled to Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, where he became librarian to the Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 ambassador, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, finding new texts and organising the transcription of documents, work which involved him in travelling to Frankfurt and Florence. He also catalogued Mendoza's collection of Greek manuscripts. Working with manuscripts found in Mendoza's substantial library, he produced in 1544 the first printed Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 version of the works of Josephus

Josephus

Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...

. This was published by Hieronymus Froben

Hieronymus Froben

Hieronymus Froben was a famous pioneering printer in Basel and the eldest son of Johann Froben. He was educated at the University of Basel and traveled widely in Europe....

 in Basle, and for many years was the basis of all existing translations from the Greek. In addition, he was responsible for the publication of important early editions of Lycophron

Lycophron

Lycophron was a Hellenistic Greek tragic poet, grammarian, and commentator on comedy, to whom the poem Alexandra is attributed .-Life and miscellaneous works:...

 (Basle, 1546) and Niccolò Perotti

Niccolò Perotti

Niccolò Perotti, also Perotto or Nicolaus Perottus was an Italian humanist and author of one of the first modern Latin school grammars.-Biography:...

's Latin translation of Polybius

Polybius

Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...

 (Basle, 1549). His Greek-Latin Lexicon was published in Venice in 1546.

He later worked as a corrector for the printer Lorenzo Torrentino and obtained books and manuscripts for Johann Jakob Fugger. In 1556 he was responsible for the publication in Basel of an edition of Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

's works, based on the 1534 edition by the scholar Simon Grynaeus

Simon Grynaeus

Simon Grynaeus , German scholar and theologian of the Reformation, son of Jacob Gryner, a Swabian peasant, was born at Veringendorf, in Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.He adopted the name Grynaeus from the epithet of Apollo in Virgil...

, which he personally corrected with the assistance of manuscripts of Plato which he had collected in Italy. This edition is described by the classicist Myles Burnyeat

Myles Burnyeat

Myles Fredric Burnyeat CBE FBA is an English classicist and philosopher.-Life:Educated at Bryanston School and King’s College, Cambridge, Burnyeat was a student of Bernard Williams at University College London....

 as "one of the most barbarously ligatured ever put into print."

Sources

• Charles Anthon, A Manual of Greek Literature from the Earliest Authentic Periods to the Close of Byzantine Era (New York, 1853)
• Anthony Hobson, Renaissance Book Collecting: Jean Grolier and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, their Books and Bindings: pp 72-74