Which Renaissance scholar popularized the phrase “Pandora’s box” in European writing?

Erasmus of Rotterdam popularized the phrase “Pandora’s box” in European writing.

The ancient Greek story did not originally describe a box. Hesiod’s surviving versions refer to a large storage jar, usually called a pithos. The familiar box wording developed later through translation and retelling.

Erasmus helped spread the expression through his collection Adagia, a major compilation of classical proverbs first published in 1500. He connected the Pandora story with the image of evils being released from a container.

A common mix-up is to credit Hesiod with the phrase “Pandora’s box.” Hesiod supplied the myth, but the “box” form belongs to later tradition. Today, the expression means a seemingly small action that unleashes many unforeseen problems.