Abstract
_ Source: _Volume 38, Issue 1, pp 5 - 24 Fully aware of an antipathy to comparisons that looks back not only to ancient philosophy and law but to the early modern schoolroom, Erasmus nevertheless puts his full prestige behind the strategy so foundational to the rhetorical theory of Plato, Cicero, Quintilian and Aphthonius. This essay examines the key role of comparison in the form of _similitudo_, _parabola_ or _collatio_, and _imago_ in Erasmus’ educational reform as represented by his _De copia_, _De ratione studii_, and _De conscribendis epistolis_, as well as in his own literary production, especially his _Adages_.