Manilius (Marcus) Astronomicon, edited by Joseph Scaliger, 2 parts in 1, collation: ?-?⁴, A-R⁴; *-**⁴, ***², a-3S⁴, woodcut device on titles, small hole in C¹ with slight loss of text, astrological diagrams in text, Latin and Greek text with occasional Hebrew and Arabic (in the new type Raphalengius had acquired for the project), near contemporary mottled calf, gilt, rubbed, spine ends chipped, joints cracking, 4to, Leiden, ex Officina Plantiniana, apud Christopherum Raphelengium, 1600.

⁂ Scaliger's massively revised second edition of Manilius (first issued at Paris in 1579) is one of the monuments of late humanistic classical scholarship, and of scholarly polemic as well - in this instance against the whole school of modern astrology. Anthony Grafton devotes a sub-chapter of his magisterial Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship (ii [1992], 437-59) to 'The Second Manilius, 1597-1599: Reprises and Reprisals', pointing out that Scaliger here re-based his text on the recently-discovered C11 Gembloux MS, and that all his revised commentary took into account that new source, whereby 'in Scaliger's work as textual critic and exegete the second Manilius marked a culmination, perhaps the highest point on the high arc of his humanistic scholarship'.

Provenance: Earls of Macclesfield (South Library bookplate and small embossed stamp to first 3 leaves).

Literature: Smitskamp, Scaliger Collection, no. 98; Adams M 365.