AGRICOLA, RODOLFO. – Born at Bafloo, near Groningen in the northern Netherlands, on 17 Feb. 1444. From childhood A. showed an inclination for music, drawing, wood engraving, and sculpture. He is said to have been instructed by Thomas à Kempis. From Groningen A. went, at the age of 12, to Erfurt, and two years later to Louvain, which was becoming one of the most important university centers. At Erfurt, before he was fifteen, he obtained the degree of bachelor, and at Louvain, before he was seventeen, he earned the title of doctor. From Louvain, in 1462, he went to Cologne, seat of scholastic theology. It was at Cologne that his interest in the historical and scientific study of religion arose, as a reaction against the dominant theology. He seems to have spent some time in Paris, where he formed a friendship with Johann Reuchlin. In 1468 or ’69 he was able to come to Italy, where he appears to have lived, apart from brief interruptions, for a decade. The years spent in Italy decisively influenced his formation. From his letters we learn that he was in Pavia, where he devoted himself to the study of law. As was customary among our humanists, he served as tutor to young men of distinguished families, among them Johann von Dalberg, who later, as bishop of Worms, would summon him to Heidelberg. A., who had first turned to the study of law, later abandoned it to devote himself entirely to classical letters; but wishing to deepen his knowledge of Greek and finding no one in Pavia truly capable of instructing him in it, he moved (1475) to a more suitable place, namely Ferrara, which he called “the true fatherland of the muses,” and where the tradition initiated by Battista Guarino, son of Guarino Veronese, was still alive. Here his teachers were Battista Guarino and Theodore Gaza. From this time onward Greek became the most engaging study for A.: he translated Lucian, studied Isocrates, Aristotle, Thucydides, Xenophon, Isidore of Scio, and Polybius. He also wrote a Vita Petrarchae, which reveals the love he bore to the initiator of humanism. He diligently studied the Italian language, driven as he was to penetrate the spirit and understanding of Italy. He loved gymnastics, music, singing, and drawing, displaying in all these arts an aptitude and versatility of remarkable distinction. During his stay in Ferrara he had the honor of being invited to deliver a public oration in Latin in praise of true philosophy and liberal culture in the presence of Duke Ercole.
In 1479 A. returned to the Netherlands with a solid knowledge of Greek and Latin. Many universities vied for the honor of having him, but he was not a man to bind his freedom to a prince or a school; nonetheless, he did not fail to take an active interest, through letters, writings, and speech, in the teaching methods then in use, with a view to reforming them. The memory of Italy never left him. Indeed, he felt a deep longing for Italy, which can be sensed in the correspondence he maintained (1480–1485) with friends on the other side of the Alps.
In May 1484, accepting the invitation of his old pupil Dalberg, A. moved to Heidelberg, where shortly after his arrival he began to teach Dalberg and various other young men. He accompanied Bishop von Dalberg to Worms, where, besides visiting the monuments of the city, he gave lectures on classical subjects before an audience largely composed of teachers. He also addressed the clergy of the diocese, whom the bishop wished to interest in the new studies. Around A. gathered the finest scholars of the time, all intent on preparing translations of Greek and Latin classics. A. also devoted himself to religious studies, perceiving, as was generally held in Italian humanism, no contradiction between religion and humanism.
Nourishing a lively nostalgia for Italy, A. was able to satisfy his great desire to see it again in 1484, on the occasion of the election of Innocent VIII to the papacy. The Elector Palatine decided to send a delegation to congratulate the new Pope, and the choice fell on Dalberg and A., who, on 30 May, after a very brief stay in Ferrara, arrived in Rome, where they remained for three weeks admiring the beauties of the city. After delivering the oration, the two set out on their return journey, but the toils of travel broke A.’s health, and after a little more than a month he died at Heidelberg on 27 Oct. 1485.
Of particular interest to the history of pedagogy is a letter that A. wrote in 1484 to one of his friends, Barbirianus, under the title De formando studio. This work is the first in a long series of German studies on education. A. excludes from the new education all the disciplines of the medievals. More than the reality of ideas, he was interested in the content of the ideas themselves. In A.’s curriculum philosophy and letters are of great importance: these, in relation to the former, serve to form and strengthen character. Therefore not only the great moralists—Cicero, Aristotle, Seneca—but also historians, orators, and poets are of great importance as guides to conduct. The great ancient writers must be read for their authority in every field of knowledge and because, with their examples and models of character, they render us “more ready for virtue.”
Another aspect of philosophy is that of expressing the truth; hence, for A. too, eloquence was not an ornament of the mind but the very expression of the man. In his introductory manual of logic, De inventione dialectica, translated into Italian by Toscanella (Venice 1567), A. teaches the art of investigating and arranging every object according to its various relations and the general and natural laws of thought that the sciences must follow. Logic, like grammar, is a factor of style; the force of the argument is of greater importance than ornamentation and variety. Style cannot be separated from content: it is a thought of A.’s but one already present in the humanists. A. also held that the theoretical and practical study of painting, architecture, and sculpture was of notable importance for the formation of the individual; not for nothing had A. been in Italy during the period when Alberti’s work flourished. He was also one of the first to devise special means for instructing the deaf and mute. A. exercised a considerable influence on the spread of classical culture, so effective for the formation of modern culture beyond the Alps.