Erasmus, by Albert Jansz Vinckenbrinck, c. 1650. The scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1467-1536) gained an international reputation as a champion of tolerance, in religious as well as secular matters. Erasmus was born in Rotterdam and studied at Oxford and Paris. In Turin he graduated in theology. His Christian-Humanist ideals were tremendously influential in the Netherlands. He advocated a more individualist and critical approach to religion and the Church. Erasmus encouraged Christians to search for direct contact with Christ and to avoid false piety: veneration of saints, pilgrimages, fasts and mindless recitation of Latin prayers (which most could not understand). This oak figure is a copy of the bronze statue by Hendrick de Keyser in Rotterdam.