An exhortation to the diligent studye of scripture by William Roye and An exposition in to the seventh chaptre of the pistle to the Corinthians by William Roye (review)

HUMANITIES 209 painting. On the way to this conclusion, Nagel also argues that Michelangelo disdained painting in oils because of its ability to represent the kind of overly demonstrative religiosity (or more simply, emotional display) Michelangelo loathed. Instead, his religion was perfectly suited to the presentation drawing, a concept Michelangelo developed to a high pitch in his famous pietàs for Vittoria Colonna which embodied his conception of salvation as unrestrained gift. Again paradoxically, this departure fed straight into the commodofication of art. Nagel makes gestures in the direction of broader context, especially in chapter 6 on Michelangelo and Colonna, which appeared earlier in Art Bulletin. In this respect, his work marks a signal advance on Maria Cali=s study of Michelangelo=s religious context, which Nagel (probably quite properly) does not even cite. Nevertheless, it is here that Nagel=s book is weakest. His historicism turns out to be fundamentally formalist. Thus what we still need is work combining the merits of Nagel=s subtle generic analysis with the thick historical context of Massimo Firpo=s recent study of Pontormo. Historians and art historians could usefully talk to each a good deal more than they do. This book, beyond its profoundly stimulating readings of some of Michelangelo=s most puzzling works, offers a subtle agenda for such discussions. (THOMAS MAYER) William Roye. An exhortation to the diligent studye of scripture and An exposition in to the seventh chaptre of the pistle to the Corinthians Edited by Douglas H. Parker. University of Toronto Press. 244. $65.00 Douglas Parker=s wide-ranging and meticulously annotated edition of two fairly rare texts by that enigmatic English reformer William Roye is a valued resource, both in itself and as a fuel for early Reformation scholarship. Erasmus=s Exhortation (or Paraclesis by its more common name) B which is actually the preface to a Greek and Latin edition of the New Testament B appeared in 1516; Luther=s more disturbingly polemical Exposition, in 1523. The Antwerp printer Johannes Hoochstraaten published Roye=s translation of these two texts in 1529 for an English audience whose appetite for these two great reformers had recently been whetted by reputation and controversy. >Roye=s work,= notes Parker, >serves a bold political end by yoking together two major antagonists so as to suggest unity among them.= And both texts are highly political in their aim and effect: no conservative, orthodox defender could ignore the fact that in the Exhortation it was Erasmus who was calling for a vernacular Bible, or fail to see how easily Luther=s exegesis of a Pauline text dealing largely with marriage and chastity could become an attack on clerical celibacy and by extension a 210 LETTERS IN CANADA 2000 polemic against papal law and authority itself. Because Roye=s translation of the infamous German heretic is >the first full-scale English rendering of a complete Lutheran work,= its reception and impact would have been considerable. Parker=s old-spelling critical edition uses the British Library version as the copy text; five others were collated. The lucid and uncluttered introduction not only discusses the English versions of Erasmus and Luther in turn, but also explores >Context, Content, and Structure,= and follows the texts with a pointed, brisk >Commentary= glossing words, themes, and doctrines as well as providing extended page-length commentaries on Roye=s relations with the other expatriate reformers, for example, or contextualizing Luther and Tyndale in their historical moment. The sections on >Bibliographical Descriptions= and >Variants= help the professional scholar, while the >Glossary= assists contemporary students substantially. Parker=s attention to Roye=s rhetorical mannerisms and his additions /deletions to or from both Erasmus and Luther distinguish this handsome and durable edition. Of belletristic note are Roye=s >frequent doublings and his love of the rhetorical device of synonymy,= which become in the rendering of Erasmus >Roye=s own peculiar linguistic tic,= and his fondness for >building into his translation imagery and metaphors drawn from the Bible itself.= Overall, concludes Parker, >Roye=s English is more poetic, more figurative, and more colourful than Erasmus=s Latin.= Those qualities of a rendering that is more than a mere translation characterize Roye=s approach...