Joseph Justus Scaliger (/ˈskælɪdʒər/; 5 August 1540 – 21 January 1609) was a Franco-ItalianCalvinist religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion ofclassical history fromGreek andAncient Roman history to includePersian,Babylonian,Jewish andAncient Egyptian history. He spent the last sixteen years of his life in theNetherlands.
In 1540, Scaliger was born inAgen, France, to Italian scholar and physicianJulius Caesar Scaliger and his wife, Andiette de Roques Lobejac. His only formal education was three years of study atthe College of Guienne inBordeaux, which ended in 1555 due to an outbreak of thebubonic plague.[1] Until his death in 1558, Julius Scaliger taught his son Latin and poetry; he was made to write at least 80 lines of Latin a day.[2][1]
After his father's death, Scaliger spent four years at theUniversity of Paris, where he studiedGreek underAdrianus Turnebus. 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 readHomer in twenty-one days, and afterwards read other classical Greek poets, orators, and historians, forming agrammar for himself as he went along. At the suggestion ofGuillaume Postel, after learning Greek he learnedHebrew, and thenArabic, becoming proficient in both.[2]
His most important teacher wasJean Dorat, who was able not only to impart knowledge but also to kindle enthusiasm in Scaliger. 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 Chasteigner, the young lord ofLa Roche-Posay, as a companion in his travels. The two young men formed a close friendship which remained unbroken until Louis's death in 1595. The travellers first went toRome. Here they foundMarc Antoine Muret, who, when atBordeaux andToulouse, had been a great favourite and occasional visitor of Julius Caesar Scaliger at Agen. Muret soon recognized the young Scaliger's merits and introduced him to many contacts well worth knowing.[2]
After visiting a large part of Italy, the travellers moved on to England andScotland, passing through the town of La Roche-Posay on their way.[3] During his time in the British Isles, Scaliger formed an unfavourable opinion of the English. Their inhumane disposition and inhospitable treatment of foreigners especially made a negative impression on him. He was also disappointed at finding only a few Greek manuscripts and, in his opinion, few learned men. It was not until a much later period that he became intimate withRichard Thomson and other Englishmen. Over the course of his travels, he became aProtestant.[2]
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On his return to France, he spent three years with the Chastaigners, accompanying them to their differentchâteaux inPoitou, as the calls of the civil war required. In 1570 he accepted the invitation ofJacques Cujas and proceeded toValence to studyjurisprudence 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.[2]
TheSt Bartholomew's Day Massacre – which occurred just before he was to accompany thebishop of Valence on an embassy toPoland – caused Scaliger to flee, alongside otherHuguenots, toGeneva, where he was appointed a professor atthe Academy of Geneva. While there, he lectured onAristotle'sOrganon andCicero'sDe Finibus to much satisfaction for the students, but not appreciating it himself. He hated lecturing and was bored with the persistence of the fanatical preachers, accordingly in 1574 he returned to France and made his home for the next twenty years with Chastaigner.[2]
Of his life during this period we have interesting details and notices in theLettres françaises inédites de Joseph Scaliger, edited by Tamizey de Larroque (Agen, 1881). Constantly moving throughPoitou and theLimousin, 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.[2]
It was during this period of his life that he composed and published his books of historical criticism. His editions of theCatalecta (1575), ofFestus (1575), ofCatullus,Tibullus andPropertius (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 revision, and to change textual criticism from a series of haphazard guesses into a "rational procedure subject to fixed laws" (Mark Pattison).[2]
These works, despite proving Scaliger's skill among his contemporaries as a Latin scholar and critic, did not go beyond simple scholarship. It was reserved for his edition ofManilius (1579), and hisDe emendatione temporum (1583), to revolutionize perceived ideas of ancientchronology—to show that ancient history was not confined to that of theGreeks andRomans, but also comprises that of thePersians, theBabylonians and theEgyptians, hitherto neglected, and that of theJews, 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 a treatise on ancientastronomy, and it forms an introduction toDe emendatione temporum; in this work, Scaliger investigates ancient systems of determiningepochs,calendars and computations of time.[2] Applying the work ofNicolaus 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 theDe emendatione. He succeeded in reconstructing the lostChronicle ofEusebius—one of the most valuable ancient documents, especially valuable for ancient chronology. This he printed in 1606 in hisThesaurus temporum, in which he collected, restored, and arranged every chronological relic extant in Greek or Latin.[4]
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WhenJustus Lipsius retired from theUniversity of Leiden in 1590, the university and its protectors, theStates-General of theNetherlands and thePrince of Orange, resolved to appoint Scaliger as his successor. He declined; he hated lecturing, and there were those among his friends who erroneously believed that with the success ofHenry IV learning would flourish, and Protestantism would be no barrier to his advancement.[citation needed] 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 sixteen 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 ofVerona, a sensitive issue for theScaligeri, was recognized. Leiden lying betweenThe Hague andAmsterdam, 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.[5]
During the first seven years of his residence at Leiden, his reputation was at its highest point. His literary judgment 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 encouragedGrotius when only a youth of sixteen to editMartianus Capella. At the early death of the youngerDouza, he wept as at that of a beloved son.Daniel Heinsius, at first his favourite pupil, became his most intimate friend.[5]
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 quotation. 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 animperfect induction of facts. Sometimes he misunderstood the astronomical science of the ancients, sometimes that ofCopernicus andTycho Brahe. And he was no mathematician.[5]
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. TheJesuits, 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. Muret in the latter part of his life professed the strictest orthodoxy, Lipsius had been reconciled to the Church of Rome,Isaac Casaubon 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 destroy his reputation. This was no easy task, for his moral character was absolutely spotless.[5]
After several attacks purportedly by the Jesuits, in 1607 a new attempt was made. In 1594 Scaliger had published hisEpistola de vetustate et splendore gentis Scaligerae et JC Scaligeri vita. In 1601Gaspar Scioppius, then in the service of the Jesuits published hisScaliger Hypobolimaeus ("The Supposititious Scaliger"), aquarto volume of more than four hundred pages. The author purports to point out five hundred lies in theEpistola 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 the narrative of his father's early life. "No stronger proof," says Pattison, "can be given of the impressions produced by this powerfulphilippic, 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."[5]
To Scaliger, the publication ofScaliger Hypobolimaeus was crushing. Whatever his father Julius had believed, Joseph had never doubted himself to be a prince of Verona, and in hisEpistola had put forth all that he had heard from his father. He wrote a reply to Scioppius, entitledConfutatio fabulae Burdonum. 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 purported that Scioppius committed more blunders than he corrected, claiming that the book made untruthful allegations, but he did not succeed in adducing any proof either of his father's descent from the La Scala family, or of any of the events narrated by Julius before he arrived at Agen. Nor does Scaliger attempt a refutation of the crucial point, namely, that William, the last prince of Verona, had no son Nicholas, who would have been the alleged grandfather of Julius.[5]
Complete or not, theConfutatio had little success; the attack attributed to the Jesuits was successful. Scioppius was wont to boast that his book had killed Scaliger. TheConfutatio was Scaliger's last work. Five months after it appeared, on 21 January 1609, at four in the morning, he died at Leiden in the arms of his pupil and friend Heinsius.[5] In his will Scaliger bequeathed his renowned collection of manuscripts and books (tous mes livres de langues étrangères, Hebraiques, Syriens, Arabiques, Ethiopiens) toLeiden University Library.[citation needed]
One notable biography of Joseph Scaliger is that ofJakob Bernays (Berlin, 1855). It was reviewed by Pattison in theQuarterly Review, vol. cviii (1860), since reprinted in theEssays, i (1889), 132–195. Pattison had made many manuscript collections for the life of Joseph Scaliger on a much more extensive scale, which he left unfinished. In writing the above article,Richard Copley Christie had access to and made much use of these manuscripts, which include the life of Julius Caesar Scaliger. The fragments of the life of Joseph Scaliger have been printed in theEssays, i. 196–245. For the life of Joseph, besides the letters published by Tamizis de Larroque (Agen, 1881), the two old collections of Latin and French letters and the twoScaligerana are the most important sources of information.[5] The complete correspondence of Scaliger is now available in eight volumes.[6]
For the life of his father Julius Caesar Scaliger, the letters edited by his son, those subsequently published in 1620 by the President de Maussac, theScaligerana, and his own writings are full of autobiographical matter, are the chief authorities. Jules de Bourousse de Laffore'sEtude sur Jules César de Lescale (Agen, 1860) and Adolphe Magen'sDocuments sur Julius Caesar Scaliger et sa famille (Agen, 1873) add important details to the lives of both father and son. The lives byCharles Nisard – that ofJulius et Les Gladiateurs de la république des lettres, and that of JosephLe Triumvirat littéraire au seizième siècle – are equally unworthy of their author and their subjects. Julius is simply held up to ridicule, while the life of Joseph is almost wholly based on the book ofScioppius and theScaligerana.[5]
A complete list of the works of Joseph will be found in his life by Jakob Bernays. See alsoJ. E. Sandys,History of Classical Scholarship, ii. (1908), 199–204.[7] A technical biography isAnthony T. Grafton,Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, 2 vol. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1983, 1993).[citation needed]
Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Christie, Richard Copley;Sandys, John Edwin (1911). "Scaligers.v. 2. Joseph Justus Scaliger". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 284–286.
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