SCALIGER,J.J. Iosephi Scaligeri Iul. Caes. a Burden F. Elenchus utriusque orationis chronologicae D. Davidis Parei: quarum secunda operis calci addita: prior vero commentariis auctoris in Hoseam Heydelbergae excusis prostat. Leiden (Lugduni Batavorum), Ex officina Henrici Ludovici ab Haestens, Impensis Ludovici Elzevierii, 1607. Small 4to. 3 parts in 1: 103,(3),(2 blank);(40);(40) p., folding table. Contemporary limp vellum 19.8 cm (Ref: STCN ppn 115523170; Willems 50; Rahir 33; Berghman 1444; Not in Smitskamp, the Scaliger Collection; Graesse 6/1,289; Ebert 20432) (Details: Two thongs laced through the joints. Short title in ink on the back. All 3 parts have different title pages. First title in red and black. Woodcut of Elsevier's first printer's mark, depicting an aegle that holds a bundle of 7 arrows in its beak, the bird is surrounded by the motto: 'A. 1595, Concordia Res Parvae crescunt'; the seven arrows represent the union of the Seven Provinces of the Dutch republic; since its foundation in 1588 the motto of the seven United Provinces was 'Concordia res parvae crescunt', in Dutch 'Eendracht maakt macht', a still popular motto in the coat of arms of many countries. The saying was coined by the Roman historian Sallust. ('Bellum Jugurthinum', caput 10) Woodcut initials. § The second part, with the first 'Elenchus' has a title of its own: 'Iosephi Scaligeri Iul. Caes. a Burden F. Elenchus primae Orationis Chronologicae Davidis Parei. Lugduni Batavorum, Ex officina Ioannis Patii, 1607, Impensis Ludovici Elzevierii'; The printer's mark, an angel with book and scythe, has the motto 'Scrutamini', or 'Search!, examine!, explore!' The title of the third volume is: 'Davidis Parei oratio chronologica altera, de quaestione utrum chronologia integra ab Adamo ad Christum ex sola historia sacra haberi possit? (...) Lugduni Batavorum, Ex officina Henrici Ludovici ab Haestens, Impensis Ludovici Elzevierij, 1607'. It has no printer's mark) (Condition: Binding slightly soiled and spotted. Right lower corner of lower board cover expertly repaired with vellum. All 4 ties gone. Front flyleaf gone. Faint stamp and old ownership inscription on the title. Lower margin of first & last leaf slightly spotted. The last of the 3 volumes slightly foxed. The tip of the right lower corner of the last 10 pages gone, without loss of text) (Note: In the 16th and 17th century the study of chronology, calendars and historical dates was controversial. Chronology was a battlefield for theologians, classical scholars, astronomers and the church. The debate raged fiercely about the reliability of the dates and the dating in the Bible, and in early Christian writings. The French scholar Josephus Justus Scaliger, 1540-1609, was the very man for this debate. He was already famous as an ingenious and innovative editor of Latin texts, when he published in 1583 his 'De emendatione Temporis', a work which placed him according to Sandys 'at the head of all the living representatives of ancient learning'. (Sandys 2,202) His efforts to combine calvinism and classical scholarship led to attacks on him from Flanders and Germany by the Jesuits and their scholarly straw men. Scaliger wanted to read the Bible with the same philological method that he applied to the Greek and Roman authors, and to compare the information of ancient historians and the data of astronomy with the Bible. In 1601 he was denounced by Martin Delrio because he denied the genuineness of the work of Dionysius Areopagites, now called Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagites. He was attacked for his lack of sufficient knowledge of Hebrew, but especially for his arrogance and vanity. This book on offer is part of that ongoing war. In 1606, the year of his triumph, when he published in Leiden his last large work on the chronology of the world history 'Thesaurus Temporum', Scaliger received a public challenge from one of his protestant opponents, the German theologian David Pareus, since 1598 professor of the exegese of the Old Testament at Heidelberg (extraordinarius controversiarum theologicarum exactor et censor). Since 1605 this dogmaticus, who believed that the 'ars critica' was an invention of the devil, published a series of polemic commentaries on the Bible. The attempt to create an exact astronomical table of history was according to him a thing above human capacity. Pareus 'considered the pagans entirely mendacious and cited their myths as evidence in favour of this view in two sharply polemical orations'. Scaliger responded with this 'Elenchus' (Refutation) of Pareus orations, 'in which he argued that the myths were not veiled accounts of philosophical doctrines but confused accounts of historical events. (...) He claimed that simple common sense sufficed to find the facts beneath the myths: 'For it is equally certain that Hercules existed, and that the Hydra, continually reborn with its innumerable heads, did not exist'. (..) At the same time, Scaliger insisted all over again that the ancient Greek scholars had used their knowledge of the calendar and astronomy as dexterously as their understanding of the nature of myth. They could have given a far more precise and accurate account of Greek history than the Jews - to take a people supposedly exemplary for their records - could give of their early times'. (A. Grafton, 'Joseph Scaliger, A study in the history of classical scholarship', Oxford, 1993, vol. 1, p. 611/12; see also Grafton's monography on Casaubon of 2010) At the end, after both refutations by Scaliger, the second oration of Pareus has been added. The first one, with Pareus' commentary on Hosea, was omitted in this edition of 1607, because it was still for sale in Heidelberg. Only one copy Dutch libraries (Leiden)) (Provenance: A round rubber or metal stamp on the title with the legend: 'M.D.I.P.D.R.D.I.' In its center the letters 'C.G'. This stamp belongs to: 'Commissario Governativo, Ministero Della Istruzione Pubblica Del Regno DItalia'. In 1870, with the occupation of Rome by Italian troops and the unification of Latium with the rest of Italy, the new government closed down convents and religious organisations. All documents, libraries and furniture had to be transfered to the municipalities. The confiscated books were all marked with the above mentioned stamp. In a short history of 'La Biblioteca Comunale degli Ardenti' in Viterbo it is reported that circa 30.000 precious books from the suppressed convents of 'Santa Maria in Gradi', 'Santa Maria del Paradiso', 'Santa Maria della Quercia', 'Trinità' and of the Cappuccins, came into the possession of the community of Viterbo. This collection lay for 10 years neglected, and much of worth was stolen, sold to booksellers, or just disappeared. The British Library acquired allready in 1873 a book of 1520 with this stamp. The remainder came hereafter in the good care of diligent librarians, but disaster struck a second time, when part of the library of Viterbo was destroyed on the 26th of May of 1944 by Anglo-American bombers. 'Tutto questo intenso lavorio subì un trauma tremendo il mattino del 26 maggio 1944. Erano da poco passate le 9 quando risuonò lallarme aereo: il personale in servizio e i pochi lettori trovarono rifugio nel ricovero predisposto nella vicina Chiesa di San Francesco. Due formazioni di quadrimotori "Liberator" angloamericani sganciarono a tappeto un micidiale carico di bombe. Furono cinque minuti dinferno: una densa colonna di fumo e polvere sinnalzò al cielo, oscurando la luce del giorno'. Rain, snow and theft did the rest. The library lost again 10.000 books. (http://www.bibliotecaviterbo.it/storia_la-biblioteca-comunale-degli-ardenti/) Stolen books can be found in libraries all over the world, just type: 'M.D.I.P.D.R.D.I', to see a tip of the iceberg . On the title also an allmost completely illegible inscription in ink. Legible are the date, '1700', and perhaps a name 'Comenius') (Collation: A-N4, O2 (with a folding table after leaf A2; leaf O2 blank); 2A-E; 3A-E4) (Photographs on request)
Book number: 130164 Euro 900.00

Keywords: (Oude Druk), (Rare Books), Astronomie, Chronologie, Scaliger, alte Geschichte, ancient history, antike altertum antiquity, astronomy, chronology