Prima Scaligerana, nusquam antehac edita, cum praefatione T. Fabri.

Utrecht (Ultrajecti), Apud Petrum Elzevirium, 1670. 8vo. (X),101,(1 blank) p. 19th century marbled boards. 15.5 cm (Ref: Willems 1605: one of the few Elzevier-editions from Utrecht; Rahir 1782; Berghman 1339; Not in the 'Scaliger Collection', Smitskamp, Leiden 1993, only mentioned in the register, p. 128) (Details: Marbled endpapers; woodcut printer's mark on the title) (Condition: Head & tail of the spine chafed. Joints starting to split. Some faint pencil marks in in a few margins) (Note: The place of Josephus Justus Scaliger, 1549-1609, in the history of classical scholarship is royal. His preeminence is best understood from the entry which the French classicist Isaac Casaubon made in his diary after the death of this great man: 'Exstincta est illa seculi nostri lampas, lumen litterarum, decus Galliae, ornamentum unicum Europae'. His erudition was considered by his contemporaries to be a wonder of mankind. 'He not only exhibits a remarable aptitude for the soundest type of textual emendation; but he is also the founder of historical criticism. His main strength lay in a clear conception of antiquity as a whole, and in the concentration of vast and varied learning on distinctly important works' (Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, volume 2, p. 199-204). He was one of the first to point the way to a sounder method of emendation founded on the genuine tradition of MSS. In 1590 he filled the vacant place left by Justus Lipsius at the young University of Leiden. 'His disinclination to lecture was duly respected; all that the authorities at Leyden desired was his living and inspiring presence in that seat of Protestant learning' (Sandys, op. cit. p. 202). On this honorary post he produced works that made him immortal. His immortality was further ensured by the publication after his death of the 'Prima Scaligerana', a collection of table conversations in which observations of great scientific value can be found, and which is an exceptional and much-quoted source in the historiography of the late humanistic republic of letters. The complicated history of this 'Prima Scaligerana' and 'Secunda Scaligerana' is explained best online at The Warburg Institute (research/projects/scaliger/scaligerana). The table conversations were originally penned down by a friend of Scaliger, the medicin Franciscus Vertunianus. 'Soweit sie also mündliche Aeusserungen Scaligers enthält, umfasst die Sammlung die Periode 1574 bis 1593.' (...) Nach Vertunians Tode (1607) blieben diese Aufzeichnungen unter seinen Papieren in Poitiers liegen, bis sie um das Jahr 1669 ein dortiger Advokat, de Sigogne, an sich brachte und dem Tanaquil Faber nach Saumur zur Herausgabe schickte'. (Bernays,J., 'Joseph Justus Scaliger', Berlin, 1855, p. 232) They left the press in Saumur in that same year under a fake imprint, i.e. 'Groningae, apud Petrum Smithaeum, 1669', this to escape the attention of the authorities of the church and the state. This work was edited by the French classical scholar Tanneguy Lefebvre, or Tanaquillus Faber, 1615-1672. In the short preface to this work M. Lefebvre explains also why this edition was called: 'Prima Scaligerana'. That was because the edition of an other collection of Scaligerana which was published a few years earlier (1666 & 1668) contained material of a later date than his edition. The Dutch printer Pieter Elzevier, one of the last Elzeviers of this celebrated family of booksellers, publishers and printers of the 17th century, published in 1670 this reprint of the Groningen edition of 1669) (Collation: A-G8) (Photographs on request)