Joseph Justus Scaliger
Encyclopedia
Joseph Justus Scaliger was a French
religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek
and Ancient Roman
history to include Persian, Babylonia
n, Jewish
and Ancient Egyptian history
.
and Andiette de Roques Lobejac. When he was twelve years old, he was sent with two younger brothers to the College of Guienne
in Bordeaux
, which was then under the direction of Jean Gelida. An outbreak of the plague
in 1555 caused the boys to return home, and for the next few years Joseph was his father's constant companion and amanuensis
.
The composition of Latin verse was the chief amusement of his father Julius in his later years, and he would daily dictate to his son between eighty and a hundred lines, and sometimes even more. Joseph was also required each day to write a Latin theme or declamation, though in other respects he seems to have been left to his own devices. He learned from his father to be not only a scholar, but also an acute observer, aiming at historical criticism more than at correcting texts.
, where he began the study of Greek
under Adrianus Turnebus
. But after two months he found he was not in a position to profit from the lectures of the greatest Greek scholar of the time. He read Homer
in twenty-one days, and then went through all the other Greek poets, orators and historians, forming a grammar
for himself as he went along. From Greek, at the suggestion of Guillaume Postel
, he proceeded to attack Hebrew
, and then Arabic
; of both he acquired a respectable knowledge.
His most important teacher was Jean Dorat. He was able not only to impart knowledge, but also to kindle enthusiasm. It was to Dorat that Scaliger owed his home for the next thirty years of his life, for in 1563 the professor recommended him to Louis de Chastaigner, the young lord of La Roche-Posay
, as a companion in his travels. A close friendship sprang up between the two young men, which remained unbroken till the death of Louis in 1595. The travellers first went to Rome
. Here they found Marc Antoni Muretus
, who, when at Bordeaux
and Toulouse
, had been a great favourite and occasional visitor of Julius Caesar Scaliger at Agen. Muretus soon recognized the young Scaliger's merits, and introduced him to many contacts well worth knowing.
After visiting a large part of Italy, the travellers moved on to England and Scotland
, passing as it would seem La Roche-Posay on their way Scaliger formed an unfavourable opinion of the English. Their inhuman disposition and inhospitable treatment of foreigners especially made a negative impression on him. He was also disappointed in finding only few Greek manuscripts and few learned men. It was not until a much later period that he became intimate with Richard Thomson and other Englishmen. In the course of his travels he had become a Protestant.
x in Poitou
, as the calls of the civil war required. In 1570 he accepted the invitation of Jacques Cujas
and proceeded to Valence
to study jurisprudence
under the greatest living jurist. Here he remained three years, profiting not only by the lectures but even more by the library of Cujas, which filled no fewer than seven or eight rooms and included five hundred manuscripts.
The massacre of St Bartholomew—occurring as he was about to accompany the bishop of Valence
on an embassy to Poland
—made Scaliger flee, together with other Huguenot
s, for Geneva
, where he was appointed a professor in the academy. He lectured on the Organon
of Aristotle
and the De Finibus of Cicero
to much satisfaction for the students, but not appreciating it himself. He hated lecturing, and was bored with the importunities of the fanatical preachers; and in 1574 he returned to France and made his home for the next twenty years with Chastaigner.
Of his life during this period we have interesting details and notices in the Lettres françaises inédites de Joseph Scaliger, edited by Tamizey de Larroque (Agen, 1881). Constantly moving through Poitou
and the Limousin
, as the exigencies of the civil war required, occasionally taking his turn as a guard, at least on one occasion trailing a pike on an expedition against the Leaguers, with no access to libraries, and frequently separated even from his own books, his life during this period seems most unsuited to study. He had, however, what so few contemporary scholars possessed—leisure, and freedom from financial cares.
(1575), of Catullus
, Tibullus
and Propertius (1577), are the work of a man determined to discover the real meaning and force of his author. He was the first to lay down and apply sound rules of criticism and emendation, and to change textual criticism from a series of haphazard guesses into a "rational procedure subject to fixed laws" (Mark Pattison
).
But these works, while proving Scaliger's right to the foremost place among his contemporaries as Latin scholar and critic, did not go beyond mere scholarship. It was reserved for his edition of Manilius
(1579), and his De emendatione temporum (1583), to revolutionize perceived ideas of ancient chronology
—to show that ancient history is not confined to that of the Greeks
and Romans
, but also comprises that of the Persians, the Babylonians and the Egyptians
, hitherto neglected, and that of the Jews
, hitherto treated as a thing apart; and that the historical narratives and fragments of each of these, and their several systems of chronology, must be critically compared. It was this innovation that distinguished Scaliger from contemporary scholars. Neither they nor those who immediately followed seem to have appreciated his innovation. Instead, they valued his emendatory criticism and his skill in Greek. His commentary on Manilius is really a treatise on ancient astronomy, and it forms an introduction to De emendatione temporum, In this work Scaliger investigates ancient systems of determining epoch
s, calendar
s and computations of time. Applying the work of Nicolaus Copernicus
and other modern scientists, he reveals the principles behind these systems.
In the remaining twenty-four years of his life he expanded on his work in the De emendatione. He succeeded in reconstructing the lost Chronicle of Eusebius—one of the most valuable ancient documents, especially valuable for ancient chronology. This he printed in 1606 in his Thesaurus temporum, in which he collected, restored, and arranged every chronological relic extant in Greek or Latin.
retired from the University of Leiden, the university and its protectors, the States-General of the Netherlands
and the prince of Orange
, resolved to appoint Scaliger his successor. He declined; he hated lecturing, and there were those among his friends who erroneously believed that with the success of Henry IV
learning would flourish, and Protestantism would be no barrier to his advancement. The invitation was renewed in the most flattering manner a year later; the invitation stated Scaliger would not be required to lecture, and that the university wished only for his presence, while he would be able to dispose of his own time in all respects. This offer Scaliger accepted provisionally. Midway through 1593 he set out for the Netherlands, where he would pass the remaining thirteen years of his life, never returning to France. His reception at Leiden was all that he could have wished for. He received a handsome income; he was treated with the highest consideration. His supposed rank as a prince of Verona
(a sensitive issue for the Scaligeri; see below) was recognized. Leiden being midway between The Hague
and Amsterdam
, Scaliger was able to enjoy, besides the learned circle of Leiden, the advantages of the best society of both these capitals. For Scaliger was no hermit buried among his books; he was fond of social intercourse and was himself a good talker.
During the first seven years of his residence at Leiden his reputation was at its highest point. His literary judgement was unquestioned. From his throne at Leiden he ruled the learned world; a word from him could make or mar a rising reputation, and he was surrounded by young men eager to listen to and profit from his conversation. He encouraged Grotius when only a youth of sixteen to edit Capella. At the early death of the younger Douza
he wept as at that of a beloved son. Daniel Heinsius
, at first his favourite pupil, became his most intimate friend.
At the same time, Scaliger had made numerous enemies. He hated ignorance, but he hated still more half-learning, and most of all dishonesty in argument or in quotation. Himself the soul of honour and truthfulness, he had no toleration for the disingenuous argument and the misstatements of facts of those who wrote to support a theory or to defend an unsound cause. His pungent sarcasm soon reached the ears of the persons who were its object, and his pen was not less bitter than his tongue. He was conscious of his power, and not always sufficiently cautious or sufficiently gentle in its exercise. Nor was he always right. He trusted much to his memory, which was occasionally treacherous. His emendations, if often valuable, were sometimes absurd. In laying the foundations of a science of ancient chronology he relied sometimes on groundless or even absurd hypotheses, often based on an imperfect induction of facts. Sometimes he misunderstood the astronomical science of the ancients, sometimes that of Copernicus
and Tycho Brahe
. And he was no mathematician.
was supposed to be wavering, but Scaliger was known to be an irreconcilable Protestant. As long as his intellectual supremacy was unquestioned, the Protestants had the advantage in learning and scholarship. His enemies therefore aimed, if not to answer his criticisms or to disprove his statements, yet to attack him as a man and to destroy his reputation. This was no easy task, for his moral character was strong.
volume of more than four hundred pages, written with consummate ability in an admirable and incisive style, with the entire disregard for truth which Scioppius always displayed, and with all the power of his accomplished sarcasm
. Every piece of scandal which could be raked together concerning Scaliger or his family is to be found there. The author professes to point out five hundred lies in the Epistola de vetustate of Scaliger, but the main argument of the book is to show the falsity of his pretensions to be of the family of La Scala, and of the narrative of his father's early life. "No stronger proof," says Pattison, "can be given of the impressions produced by this powerful philippic
, dedicated to the defamation of an individual, than that it had been the source from which the biography of Scaliger, as it now stands in our biographical collections, has mainly flowed."
To Scaliger the blow was crushing. Whatever his father Julius had believed, Joseph had never doubted to be a prince of Verona, and in his Epistola had put forth with the most perfect good faith, and without inquiry, all that he had heard from his father. He immediately wrote a reply to Scioppius, entitled Confutatio fabulae Burdonum. It is written, for Scaliger, with unusual moderation and good taste, but perhaps for that very reason had not the success which its author wished and even expected. In the opinion of Pattison, "as a refutation of Scioppius it is most complete"; but there are certainly grounds for dissenting from this judgment. Scaliger undoubtedly shows that Scioppius committed more blunders than he corrected, that his book literally bristles with pure lies and baseless calumnies; but he does not succeed in adducing a single proof either of his father's descent from the La Scala family, or of any single event narrated by Julius as happening to himself or any member of this family prior to his arrival at Agen. Nor does he even attempt a refutation of the crucial point, which Scioppius had proved, as far as a negative can be proved, namely, that William, the last prince of Verona, had no son Nicholas, who would have been the alleged grandfather of Julius.
But whether complete or not, the Confutatio had no success; the attack of the Jesuits was successful, far more so than they could possibly have hoped. Scioppius was wont to boast that his book had killed Scaliger. It certainly embittered the few remaining months of his life, and it is not improbable that the mortification which he suffered may have shortened his days. The Confutatio was his last work. Five months after it appeared, on January 21, 1609, at four in the morning, he died in the arms of his son Heinsius. In his will Scaliger bequeathed his renowned collection of manuscripts and books (tous mes livres de langues étrangères, Hebraiques, Syriens, Arabiques, Ethiopiens) to Leiden University Library
.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
and Ancient Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
history to include Persian, Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
n, Jewish
Jewish history
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Since Jewish history is over 4000 years long and includes hundreds of different populations, any treatment can only be provided in broad strokes...
and Ancient Egyptian history
History of Ancient Egypt
The History of Ancient Egypt spans the period from the early predynastic settlements of the northern Nile Valley to the Roman conquest in 30 BC...
.
Early life
He was born at Agen, the tenth child and third son of Italian scholar Julius Caesar ScaligerJulius Caesar Scaliger
Julius Caesar Scaliger was an Italian scholar and physician who spent a major part of his career in France. He employed the techniques and discoveries of Renaissance humanism to defend Aristotelianism against the new learning...
and Andiette de Roques Lobejac. When he was twelve years old, he was sent with two younger brothers to the College of Guienne
College of Guienne
The Collège of Guienne was a school founded in 1533 in Bordeaux. The collège became renowned for the teaching of liberal arts between the years 1537 and 1571, attracting students such as Michel de Montaigne.-History:...
in Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, which was then under the direction of Jean Gelida. An outbreak of the plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
in 1555 caused the boys to return home, and for the next few years Joseph was his father's constant companion and amanuensis
Amanuensis
Amanuensis is a Latin word adopted in various languages, including English, for certain persons performing a function by hand, either writing down the words of another or performing manual labour...
.
The composition of Latin verse was the chief amusement of his father Julius in his later years, and he would daily dictate to his son between eighty and a hundred lines, and sometimes even more. Joseph was also required each day to write a Latin theme or declamation, though in other respects he seems to have been left to his own devices. He learned from his father to be not only a scholar, but also an acute observer, aiming at historical criticism more than at correcting texts.
University and travels
After his father's death he spent four years at the University of ParisUniversity of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
, where he began the study of Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
under Adrianus Turnebus
Adrianus Turnebus
Adrianus Turnebus was a French classical scholar.-Life:Turnebus was born at Les Andelys in Normandy. At the age of twelve he was sent to Paris to study, and attracted great notice by his remarkable abilities...
. But after two months he found he was not in a position to profit from the lectures of the greatest Greek scholar of the time. He read Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
in twenty-one days, and then went through all the other Greek poets, orators and historians, forming a grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
for himself as he went along. From Greek, at the suggestion of Guillaume Postel
Guillaume Postel
Guillaume Postel was a French linguist, astronomer, Cabbalist, diplomat, professor, and religious universalist.Born in the village of Barenton in Basse-Normandie, Postel made his way to Paris to further his education...
, he proceeded to attack Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, and then Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
; of both he acquired a respectable knowledge.
His most important teacher was Jean Dorat. He was able not only to impart knowledge, but also to kindle enthusiasm. It was to Dorat that Scaliger owed his home for the next thirty years of his life, for in 1563 the professor recommended him to Louis de Chastaigner, the young lord of La Roche-Posay
La Roche-Posay
La Roche-Posay is a commune in the Vienne department in the Poitou-Charentes region in western France.-Demographics:-References:*...
, as a companion in his travels. A close friendship sprang up between the two young men, which remained unbroken till the death of Louis in 1595. The travellers first went to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. Here they found Marc Antoni Muretus
Muretus
Muretus is the Latinized name of Marc Antoni Muret , a French humanist who was among the revivers of a Ciceronian Latin style and is among the usual candidates for the best Latin prose stylist of the Renaissance.-Biography:He was born at Muret near Limoges...
, who, when at Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
and Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
, had been a great favourite and occasional visitor of Julius Caesar Scaliger at Agen. Muretus soon recognized the young Scaliger's merits, and introduced him to many contacts well worth knowing.
After visiting a large part of Italy, the travellers moved on to England and Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, passing as it would seem La Roche-Posay on their way Scaliger formed an unfavourable opinion of the English. Their inhuman disposition and inhospitable treatment of foreigners especially made a negative impression on him. He was also disappointed in finding only few Greek manuscripts and few learned men. It was not until a much later period that he became intimate with Richard Thomson and other Englishmen. In the course of his travels he had become a Protestant.
France, Geneva, and France
On his return to France he spent three years with the Chastaigners, accompanying them to their different châteauChâteau
A château is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally—and still most frequently—in French-speaking regions...
x in Poitou
Poitou
Poitou was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers.The region of Poitou was called Thifalia in the sixth century....
, as the calls of the civil war required. In 1570 he accepted the invitation of Jacques Cujas
Jacques Cujas
Jacques Cujas was a French legal expert. He was prominent among the legal humanists or mos gallicus school, which sought to abandon the work of the medieval Commentators and concentrate on ascertaining the correct text and social context of the original works of Roman law.He was born at...
and proceeded to Valence
Valence, Drôme
Valence is a commune in southeastern France, the capital of the Drôme department, situated on the left bank of the Rhône, south of Lyon on the railway to Marseilles.Its inhabitants are called Valentinois...
to study jurisprudence
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...
under the greatest living jurist. Here he remained three years, profiting not only by the lectures but even more by the library of Cujas, which filled no fewer than seven or eight rooms and included five hundred manuscripts.
The massacre of St Bartholomew—occurring as he was about to accompany the bishop of Valence
Jean de Montluc
Jean de Montluc was bishop of Valence and brother of Blaise de Montluc. He was sympathetic to the Protestants, attacked the cult of images, and made prayers in French, thereby earning him the opprobe of Rome...
on an embassy to Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
—made Scaliger flee, together with other Huguenot
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
s, for Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, where he was appointed a professor in the academy. He lectured on the Organon
Organon
The Organon is the name given by Aristotle's followers, the Peripatetics, to the standard collection of his six works on logic:* Categories* On Interpretation* Prior Analytics* Posterior Analytics...
of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
and the De Finibus of Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
to much satisfaction for the students, but not appreciating it himself. He hated lecturing, and was bored with the importunities of the fanatical preachers; and in 1574 he returned to France and made his home for the next twenty years with Chastaigner.
Of his life during this period we have interesting details and notices in the Lettres françaises inédites de Joseph Scaliger, edited by Tamizey de Larroque (Agen, 1881). Constantly moving through Poitou
Poitou
Poitou was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers.The region of Poitou was called Thifalia in the sixth century....
and the Limousin
Limousin (province)
Limousin is one of the traditional provinces of France around the city of Limoges. Limousin lies in the foothills of the western edge of the Massif Central, with cold weather in the winter...
, as the exigencies of the civil war required, occasionally taking his turn as a guard, at least on one occasion trailing a pike on an expedition against the Leaguers, with no access to libraries, and frequently separated even from his own books, his life during this period seems most unsuited to study. He had, however, what so few contemporary scholars possessed—leisure, and freedom from financial cares.
Academic output
It was during this period of his life that he composed and published his books of historical criticism. His editions of the Catalecta (1575), of FestusSextus Pompeius Festus
Sextus Pompeius Festus was a Roman grammarian, who probably flourished in the later 2nd century AD, perhaps at Narbo in Gaul.He made an epitome in 20 volumes of the encyclopedic treatise in many volumes De verborum significatu, of Verrius Flaccus, a celebrated grammarian who flourished in the...
(1575), of Catullus
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
, Tibullus
Tibullus
Albius Tibullus was a Latin poet and writer of elegies.Little is known about his life. His first and second books of poetry are extant; many other texts attributed to Tibullus are of questionable origins. There are only a few references to him in later writers and a short Life of doubtful authority...
and Propertius (1577), are the work of a man determined to discover the real meaning and force of his author. He was the first to lay down and apply sound rules of criticism and emendation, and to change textual criticism from a series of haphazard guesses into a "rational procedure subject to fixed laws" (Mark Pattison
Mark Pattison
Mark Pattison was an English author and a Church of England priest. He served as Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford.-Life:...
).
But these works, while proving Scaliger's right to the foremost place among his contemporaries as Latin scholar and critic, did not go beyond mere scholarship. It was reserved for his edition of Manilius
Marcus Manilius
Marcus Manilius was a Roman poet, astrologer, and author of a poem in five books called Astronomica.-Criticism:The author of Astronomica is neither quoted nor mentioned by any ancient writer. Even his name is uncertain, but it was probably Marcus Manilius; in the earlier books the author is...
(1579), and his De emendatione temporum (1583), to revolutionize perceived ideas of ancient chronology
Chronology
Chronology is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time, such as the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events".Chronology is part of periodization...
—to show that ancient history is not confined to that of the Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
and Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
, but also comprises that of the Persians, the Babylonians and the Egyptians
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, hitherto neglected, and that of the Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
, hitherto treated as a thing apart; and that the historical narratives and fragments of each of these, and their several systems of chronology, must be critically compared. It was this innovation that distinguished Scaliger from contemporary scholars. Neither they nor those who immediately followed seem to have appreciated his innovation. Instead, they valued his emendatory criticism and his skill in Greek. His commentary on Manilius is really a treatise on ancient astronomy, and it forms an introduction to De emendatione temporum, In this work Scaliger investigates ancient systems of determining epoch
Epoch (reference date)
In the fields of chronology and periodization, an epoch is an instance in time chosen as the origin of a particular era. The "epoch" then serves as a reference point from which time is measured...
s, calendar
Calendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar are usually, though not...
s and computations of time. Applying the work of Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe....
and other modern scientists, he reveals the principles behind these systems.
In the remaining twenty-four years of his life he expanded on his work in the De emendatione. He succeeded in reconstructing the lost Chronicle of Eusebius—one of the most valuable ancient documents, especially valuable for ancient chronology. This he printed in 1606 in his Thesaurus temporum, in which he collected, restored, and arranged every chronological relic extant in Greek or Latin.
The Netherlands
When in 1590 Justus LipsiusJustus Lipsius
Justus Lipsius was a Southern-Netherlandish philologist and humanist. Lipsius wrote a series of works designed to revive ancient Stoicism in a form that would be compatible with Christianity. The most famous of these is De Constantia...
retired from the University of Leiden, the university and its protectors, the States-General of the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
and the prince of Orange
Prince of Orange
Prince of Orange is a title of nobility, originally associated with the Principality of Orange, in what is now southern France. In French it is la Principauté d'Orange....
, resolved to appoint Scaliger his successor. He declined; he hated lecturing, and there were those among his friends who erroneously believed that with the success of Henry IV
Henry IV of France
Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....
learning would flourish, and Protestantism would be no barrier to his advancement. The invitation was renewed in the most flattering manner a year later; the invitation stated Scaliger would not be required to lecture, and that the university wished only for his presence, while he would be able to dispose of his own time in all respects. This offer Scaliger accepted provisionally. Midway through 1593 he set out for the Netherlands, where he would pass the remaining thirteen years of his life, never returning to France. His reception at Leiden was all that he could have wished for. He received a handsome income; he was treated with the highest consideration. His supposed rank as a prince of Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
(a sensitive issue for the Scaligeri; see below) was recognized. Leiden being midway between The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
and Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Scaliger was able to enjoy, besides the learned circle of Leiden, the advantages of the best society of both these capitals. For Scaliger was no hermit buried among his books; he was fond of social intercourse and was himself a good talker.
During the first seven years of his residence at Leiden his reputation was at its highest point. His literary judgement was unquestioned. From his throne at Leiden he ruled the learned world; a word from him could make or mar a rising reputation, and he was surrounded by young men eager to listen to and profit from his conversation. He encouraged Grotius when only a youth of sixteen to edit Capella. At the early death of the younger Douza
Franciscus Dousa
Franciscus Dousa, Latinized from Frans van der Does, was a Dutch classical scholar, at Leiden. He was a younger son of Janus Dousa, a pupil of Justus Lipsius, and a friend of Joseph Justus Scaliger....
he wept as at that of a beloved son. Daniel Heinsius
Daniel Heinsius
Daniel Heinsius was one of the most famous scholars of the Dutch Renaissance.-His youth and student years:...
, at first his favourite pupil, became his most intimate friend.
At the same time, Scaliger had made numerous enemies. He hated ignorance, but he hated still more half-learning, and most of all dishonesty in argument or in quotation. Himself the soul of honour and truthfulness, he had no toleration for the disingenuous argument and the misstatements of facts of those who wrote to support a theory or to defend an unsound cause. His pungent sarcasm soon reached the ears of the persons who were its object, and his pen was not less bitter than his tongue. He was conscious of his power, and not always sufficiently cautious or sufficiently gentle in its exercise. Nor was he always right. He trusted much to his memory, which was occasionally treacherous. His emendations, if often valuable, were sometimes absurd. In laying the foundations of a science of ancient chronology he relied sometimes on groundless or even absurd hypotheses, often based on an imperfect induction of facts. Sometimes he misunderstood the astronomical science of the ancients, sometimes that of Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe....
and Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations...
. And he was no mathematician.
Scaliger vs. the Jesuits
But his enemies were not merely those whose errors he had exposed and whose hostility he had excited by the violence of his language. The results of his method of historical criticism threatened the Catholic controversialists and the authenticity of many of the documents on which they relied. The Jesuits, who aspired to be the source of all scholarship and criticism, saw the writings and authority of Scaliger as a formidable barrier to their claims. Muretus in the latter part of his life professed the strictest orthodoxy, Lipsius had been reconciled to the Church of Rome, Isaac CasaubonIsaac Casaubon
Isaac Casaubon was a classical scholar and philologist, first in France and then later in England, regarded by many of his time as the most learned in Europe.-Early life:...
was supposed to be wavering, but Scaliger was known to be an irreconcilable Protestant. As long as his intellectual supremacy was unquestioned, the Protestants had the advantage in learning and scholarship. His enemies therefore aimed, if not to answer his criticisms or to disprove his statements, yet to attack him as a man and to destroy his reputation. This was no easy task, for his moral character was strong.
Veronese descent
After several scurrilous but ineffectual attacks by the Jesuit party, in 1607 a new and more successful attempt was made. Scaliger's weak point was his pride. In 1594 Scaliger had published his Epistola de vetustate et splendore gentis Scaligerae et JC Scaligeri vita. In 1601 Gaspar Scioppius, then in the service of the Jesuits published his Scaliger hypototimaeus ("The Supposititious Scaliger"), a quartoQuarto
Quarto could refer to:* Quarto, a size or format of a book in which four leaves of a book are created from a standard size sheet of paper* For specific information about quarto texts of William Shakespeare's works, see:...
volume of more than four hundred pages, written with consummate ability in an admirable and incisive style, with the entire disregard for truth which Scioppius always displayed, and with all the power of his accomplished sarcasm
Sarcasm
Sarcasm is “a sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter jibe or taunt.” Though irony and understatement is usually the immediate context, most authorities distinguish sarcasm from irony; however, others argue that sarcasm may or often does involve irony or employs...
. Every piece of scandal which could be raked together concerning Scaliger or his family is to be found there. The author professes to point out five hundred lies in the Epistola de vetustate of Scaliger, but the main argument of the book is to show the falsity of his pretensions to be of the family of La Scala, and of the narrative of his father's early life. "No stronger proof," says Pattison, "can be given of the impressions produced by this powerful philippic
Philippic
A philippic is a fiery, damning speech, or tirade, delivered to condemn a particular political actor. The term originates with Demosthenes, who delivered several attacks on Philip II of Macedon in the 4th century BC....
, dedicated to the defamation of an individual, than that it had been the source from which the biography of Scaliger, as it now stands in our biographical collections, has mainly flowed."
To Scaliger the blow was crushing. Whatever his father Julius had believed, Joseph had never doubted to be a prince of Verona, and in his Epistola had put forth with the most perfect good faith, and without inquiry, all that he had heard from his father. He immediately wrote a reply to Scioppius, entitled Confutatio fabulae Burdonum. It is written, for Scaliger, with unusual moderation and good taste, but perhaps for that very reason had not the success which its author wished and even expected. In the opinion of Pattison, "as a refutation of Scioppius it is most complete"; but there are certainly grounds for dissenting from this judgment. Scaliger undoubtedly shows that Scioppius committed more blunders than he corrected, that his book literally bristles with pure lies and baseless calumnies; but he does not succeed in adducing a single proof either of his father's descent from the La Scala family, or of any single event narrated by Julius as happening to himself or any member of this family prior to his arrival at Agen. Nor does he even attempt a refutation of the crucial point, which Scioppius had proved, as far as a negative can be proved, namely, that William, the last prince of Verona, had no son Nicholas, who would have been the alleged grandfather of Julius.
But whether complete or not, the Confutatio had no success; the attack of the Jesuits was successful, far more so than they could possibly have hoped. Scioppius was wont to boast that his book had killed Scaliger. It certainly embittered the few remaining months of his life, and it is not improbable that the mortification which he suffered may have shortened his days. The Confutatio was his last work. Five months after it appeared, on January 21, 1609, at four in the morning, he died in the arms of his son Heinsius. In his will Scaliger bequeathed his renowned collection of manuscripts and books (tous mes livres de langues étrangères, Hebraiques, Syriens, Arabiques, Ethiopiens) to Leiden University Library
Leiden University Library
Leiden University Library is a library founded in 1575 in Leiden, Netherlands. It is regarded as a significant place in the development of European culture: it is a part of a small number of cultural centres that gave direction to the development and spread of knowledge during the Enlightenment...
.
See also
- History of scholarshipHistory of scholarshipThe history of scholarship is the historical study of fields of study which are not covered by the English term "science" , but are covered by, for example, the German term "Wissenschaft"...
- Julian Period - a tricyclic system of years proposed by Scaliger
Quotes
- I wish to be a good grammarian. Religious discord depends on nothing except ignorance of grammar. (Utinam essem bonus grammaticus. Non aliunde discordiae in religione pendent quam ab ignoratione grammaticae.)