Rabelais, scriptwriter of the imaginary worlds of Pliny the ElderThe Fifth Book and the BSB copy of the Erasmian edition of Natural History (Basel: Froben, 1525)
Abstract: This article studies a copy of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History kept at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB). The copy was published by Erasmus in Basel in 1525, under the Froben press. It contains many anonymous handwritten annotations that strongly echo an interpretation of Pliny offered by the Pantagruel chronicles in general, and in particular by the drafts published posthumously as The Fifth Book. Did this copy once belong to Rabelais?
