and
agreeable, and the citizens polite. A bridge joins the two towns, and
the situation on the river is splendid. Truly Basle is [Greek:
basileia], a queen of cities.'

[21] Beatus Rhenanus, _Res Germanicae_, 1531, pp. 140, 1.

In 1513 the two greatest printers of Basle were in partnership, John
Amorbach and John Froben. Amorbach, a native of the town of that name
in Franconia, had taken his M.A. in Paris, and then had worked for a
time in Koberger's press at Nuremberg. About 1475 he began to print at
Basle, and for nearly forty years devoted all his energies to
producing books that would promote good learning; being, however, far
too good a man of business to be indifferent to profit. His ambition
was to publish worthily the four Doctors of the Church. Ambrose
appeared in 1492, Augustine in 1506, and Jerome succeeded. The work
was divided amongst many scholars. Reuchlin helped with the Hebrew and
Greek, and spent two months in Amorbach's house in the summer of 1510
to bring matters forward. Subsequently his province fell to Pellican,
the Franciscan Hebraist, and John Cono, a learned Dominican of
Nuremberg, who had mastered Greek at Venice and Padua, and had
recently returned from Italy with a store of Greek manuscripts copied
from the library of Musurus. Others who took part in the work were
Conrad Leontorius from the Engental; Sapidus, afterwards head master
of the Latin school at Schlettstadt; and Gregory Reisch, the learned
Prior of the Carthusians at Freiburg, who seems to have been specially
occupied with Jerome's Letters.

Amorbach's sons, Bruno, Basil, and Boniface, were just growing up to
take their father's place, when he died on Christmas Day, 1513. The
eldest, Bruno, was born in 1485, and easily paired off with Basil, who
was a few years younger. They went to school together at Schlettstadt,
under Crato Hofman, in 1497. In 1500 they matriculated at Basle; in
1501 they went to Paris, where in 1504-5 they became B.A., and in 1506
M.A. Bruno was enthusiastic for classical studies, and enjoyed life in
Paris, where he certainly had better opportunities, especially of
learning Greek, than he had at Basle; so his father allowed him to
stay on. Basil was destined for the law, and was sent to work under
Zasius at Freiburg. The youngest son, Boniface, 1495-1562, also went
to school at Schlettstadt; but when his time came for the university,
his father preferred to keep him at home under his own eye. He was
ra