Event details
Dec
4
Friends of PUL Small Talk: "Joseph Scaliger, Forger: The Secret Life of the Most Learned Man in Europe’s Great Age of Learning" with Tony Grafton
Tony Grafton has studied master scholar Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609) for two decades of his life. In April 2024, Grafton began to realize that Scaliger was also a forger.
He faked evidence to prove that his father, and he after him, were descended from the della Scala, Italian princes who had ruled Verona in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This genealogy was a complete fantasy that Joseph’s father—who was really the son of a very skillful illuminator and cartographer—bequeathed to him. Yet Joseph defended it as passionately as any of his other scholarly theories—so passionately that he went off the rails that he had followed throughout his life.
It is strange and ironic that Scaliger turned to forgery. In an intellectual world dominated by bearded men who were fantastically erudite and sharply critical—he was the most learned and critical, as well as the best-bearded, of them all. He mastered many languages, which he used to revolutionize the study of world history. His discoveries won him a unique position at the University of Leiden, where he received a very high salary and was not required to teach. Above all, he became Europe’s greatest expert on forgeries. Greek and Roman, Jewish and Christian fakes that had fooled everyone fell to his criticism.
Yet Scaliger deliberately changed and invented evidence to support his father’s mythical account of their genealogy. In this talk, Grafton will briefly describe Scaliger’s life and work and then discuss his forgeries, presenting evidence that ranges from a wonderful book in Princeton’s Special Collections to his own writings. Why did this brilliant gamekeeper turn, at the end of his life, into a poacher, courting humiliation? And how did his version of his family’s past win out in the long run?
(Image: Portrait of Josephus Justus Scaliger, by Jan Cornelisz. van 't Woudt or Woudanus, 1608.)
Current Friends of PUL members are invited to attend in person. Registration is required.
The presentation will also be available by Zoom for non-members.
Please select the appropriate registration type below. Due to limited capacity, membership status will be checked after registration.
He faked evidence to prove that his father, and he after him, were descended from the della Scala, Italian princes who had ruled Verona in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This genealogy was a complete fantasy that Joseph’s father—who was really the son of a very skillful illuminator and cartographer—bequeathed to him. Yet Joseph defended it as passionately as any of his other scholarly theories—so passionately that he went off the rails that he had followed throughout his life.
It is strange and ironic that Scaliger turned to forgery. In an intellectual world dominated by bearded men who were fantastically erudite and sharply critical—he was the most learned and critical, as well as the best-bearded, of them all. He mastered many languages, which he used to revolutionize the study of world history. His discoveries won him a unique position at the University of Leiden, where he received a very high salary and was not required to teach. Above all, he became Europe’s greatest expert on forgeries. Greek and Roman, Jewish and Christian fakes that had fooled everyone fell to his criticism.
Yet Scaliger deliberately changed and invented evidence to support his father’s mythical account of their genealogy. In this talk, Grafton will briefly describe Scaliger’s life and work and then discuss his forgeries, presenting evidence that ranges from a wonderful book in Princeton’s Special Collections to his own writings. Why did this brilliant gamekeeper turn, at the end of his life, into a poacher, courting humiliation? And how did his version of his family’s past win out in the long run?
(Image: Portrait of Josephus Justus Scaliger, by Jan Cornelisz. van 't Woudt or Woudanus, 1608.)
Current Friends of PUL members are invited to attend in person. Registration is required.
The presentation will also be available by Zoom for non-members.
Please select the appropriate registration type below. Due to limited capacity, membership status will be checked after registration.
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