Rudolphus Frisius (Rudolf Husmann) Agricola

See also Rodolphus Agricola


1444-485. Dutch humanist. Born at Baflo, Groningen, he studied at St. Martin's School there under the influence of the Brethren of the Common Life,* and at Erfurt, Louvain, and Cologne universities. He experienced Italian Renaissance culture in Pavia and Ferrara (1469-79) and formed an excellent Latin style and mastered Greek. He spent his last three years lecturing informally on rhetoric and the classics at Heidelberg. His major work, De Inventione Dialectica (1479), was concerned with the relation of logic to rhetoric and harmonized new and traditional views. In De Formando Studio (1484) he put forward enlightened views of education. His ideas greatly influenced Erasmus* and the sixteenth-century German humanists. He was also a famous lutist and composer of part-songs.