Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship. Volume I: Textual Criticism and Exegesis

by Anthony Grafton

This volume is the first half of an intellectual biography of Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609), the greatest classical scholar of his time. Anthony Grafton describes Scaliger's early work as an editor of and commentator on classical texts, setting this into the wider context of classical scholarship in the Renaissance. At the same time he interprets the major changes that Scaliger's work underwent, as responses to pressures exerted by his social situation and emotional life.

Genres: History

376 pages, Hardcover

First published September 22, 1983

About the author

Anthony Thomas Grafton is an American historian of early modern Europe and the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, where he is also the Director the Program in European Cultural Studies. He is also a corresponding fellow of the British Academy and a recipient of the Balzan Prize. From January 2011 to January 2012, he served as the President of the American Historical Association. From 2006 to 2020, Grafton was co-executive editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas.

Reviews

[N Perrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grafton's biography does an incredible job combing individual lines of early modern scholarship to piece together a contextual portrait of Scaliger's scholarly career. His care to detail is very impressive, but at the same time the biography feels encumbered by the number of examples and citations Grafton provides.

But you could say that merely reflects Scaliger's own approach to scholarship, a fastidious attention to the particular that eschews grandiose generalizations. In that way, Grafton is certainly a worthy successor to Scaliger.