SCALIGER, JULIUS CÆSAR, a learned critic, poet, physician, and philosopher, was born at the castle of Riva, in the territories of Verona, in 1484, and is said to have been descended from the ancient princes of Verona, though this is not mentioned in the letters of naturalization which he obtained in France in 1528. He learned the first rudiments of the Latin tongue in his own country; and in his twelfth year was presented to the Emperor Maximilian, who made him one of his pages. He served that emperor seventeen years, and gave signal proofs of his valour and conduct in several expeditions. He was present at the battle of Ravenna in April 1512, in which he had the misfortune to lose his father, Benedict Scaliger, and his brother Titus, on which his mother died with grief; when, being reduced to necessitous circumstances, he entered into the order of the Franciscans, and applied himself to study at Bologna. But soon afterwards, changing his mind with respect to his becoming a monk, he took arms again, and served in Piedmont, at which time a physician persuaded him to study physic, which he did at his leisure hours, and also learned Greek; and at last the gout determined him, at forty years of age, to abandon a military life. He soon afterwards settled at Agen, where he married, and began to apply himself seriously to his studies. He learned first the French language, which he spoke perfectly in three months; and then made himself master of the Gascon, Italian, Spanish, German, Hungarian, and Slavonian; but the chief object of his studies was polite literature. Meanwhile, he supported his family by the practice of physic. He did not publish any of his works till he was forty-seven years of age, when he soon gained a great name in the republic of letters. He had a graceful person, and so strong a memory, even in his old age, that he dictated to his son two hundred verses which he had composed the day before, and retained without writing them down. He was so charitable, that his house was as it were an hospital for the poor and sick; and he had such an aversion to lying, that he would have no correspondence with those who were given to that vice; but, on the other hand, he had much vanity, and possessed a satirical spirit, which created him many enemies. He died of a retention of urine in 1558. The following is a list of his principal works:—Commentarii Hippocratis librum De Insomniis, Græc. et Lat., 8vo, Lyon, 1538; De Causis Linguae Latinae, Libri xviii., 4to, Lyon, 1540—unquestionably a great work; Poetices Libri Septem, folio, Lyon, 1561—a monument of grammatical knowledge; In Theophrasti Libros sex de Causis Plantarum Commentarii, folio, Geneva, 1566; Commentarii in Aristotelis adscriptos Libros Duos de Plantis, Geneva, 1566; Aristotelis Historiae Animalium Liber Decimus, Lyon, 1584; Animadversiones in Theophrasti historias Plantarum, Lyon, 1584; J. C. Scaligeri ade. Desid. Erasmi Orationes Duæ, Eloquentiae Romanae Vindices, Toulouse,
1621—an exceedingly virulent attack upon Erasmus. The Latin poems published by J. C. Scaliger did not tend greatly to increase his fame.