Bonifacius Amerbach

Bonifacius Amerbach (Basel, 11 October 1495 – Basel, April 1562) was a Swiss humanist whose career linked the legal scholarship of the Renaissance with a notable enthusiasm for music. The son of the printer Johannes Amerbach, he was first trained in the classics by a private tutor and then at the humanist school in Schlettstadt, led by Hieronymus Gebwiler, before enrolling at the University of Basel around 1510.

His academic path was long and methodical. In 1513 he took the degree of baccalaureus artium and moved to Freiburg im Breisgau, where he specialised in ethics, physics and grammar while studying law under Ulrich Zasius. He then continued with Andrea Alciati in Avignon, where he received his doctorate in law in 1525. His friendship with Erasmus, which began during his student years, proved decisive: when the humanist died in Basel in 1536, Amerbach was named his heir and legal executor. Between 1524 and 1555 he taught law at the university, served as rector on nine occasions and regularly advised the city council. He was also one of the earliest major patrons of Hans Holbein the Younger.

In the field of music, between 1510 and 1551 Amerbach assembled a remarkable collection of manuscript and printed music, now held in the University Library of Basel. Its holdings include a songbook by Hofhaimer, Isaac, Compère and Obrecht, a copy of Antico's Canzoni nove, and an extensive manuscript of German keyboard music, begun in 1513 under the direction of the organist Hans Kotter, which occupied his attention for almost twenty years. He played the recorder and bought wind instruments. Around 1546 he engaged Christoph Piperinus to teach singing to his son Basilius, which gave rise to several manuscript part-books.

His legacy extends beyond his lifetime. His collection documents in great detail the tastes, practice and musical abilities of a humanist in sixteenth-century Basel, and his holdings later passed to his nephew Ludwig Iselin, who also cultivated music during his university studies.