*** 'Catalogus van het oosterse legaat van Josephus Justus Scaliger 1609', K. van Ommen and F.A. de Wolff, can be found at : http://hdl.handle.net/1887/123271 ***In 1593 the eminent scholar... Show more*** 'Catalogus van het oosterse legaat van Josephus Justus Scaliger 1609', K. van Ommen and F.A. de Wolff, can be found at : http://hdl.handle.net/1887/123271 ***In 1593 the eminent scholar Josephus Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) arrived in Leiden to accept the position as honorary professor in Latin language, antiquities and history. Scaliger had taken a part of his library, including many Oriental books and manuscripts, with him to Leiden. In 1609 Scaliger bequeathed by testament the part of his library to Leiden university that consisted of ‘[…] tous mes livres de langues estrangeres, Hebraics, Syriens, Arabics, Aethiopiens, lesquels livres sont contenus dans le Catalogue que i’ay adiousté a la copie latine de ce mien testament […]’. The governors of the university acknowledged the importance of this bequest, immediately recognized the potential of this collection of rare printed books and manuscripts and realized that this collection could make a substantial difference in acquiring a prominent position amongst the other European universities that were competing for scholarly supremacy during the seventeenth century. The governors stressed the importance of compiling a catalogue of the bequest, but subsequent catalogues from the period 1612-1674 all provide an incomplete overview of the bequest. In this thesis Scaligers bequest containing all his printed Oriental books is reconstructed and presented for the first time. Show less
The library which Leiden University bought in 1690 from the heirs of Isaac Vossius (1618-1689) had a reputation with his contemporaries to be the best and most complete private library of its time.... Show moreThe library which Leiden University bought in 1690 from the heirs of Isaac Vossius (1618-1689) had a reputation with his contemporaries to be the best and most complete private library of its time. This acquisition of more than 700 manuscripts and about 4,000 printed books doubled the Academy’s collections at one stroke and made an architectural extension for the library necessary. The private collector Isaac Vossius had more means and resources at his disposal to keep up with the scientific developments of his time than the librarian of the institutional library of the university. Books by Galilei, Descartes and Newton became available in the Leiden University Library for the first time in 1690. Reconstructing the medical, philosophical and mathematical sections of Vossius’s library provides insight in the sources he may have used for his own scholarly production, which he wrote during the second half of his life. A careful analysis of the printed books reveals many provenances of contemporary scholars and earlier bookcollectors. It shows to what extent Isaac Vossius stood on the shoulders of men like Joseph Scaliger, Hugo Grotius, his own father Gerardus Johannes Vossius and many others of which he owned books and manuscripts. Show less
During the Second World War, the Nazis carried out violent attacks on Jewish cultural heritage, paying special attention to book collections in libraries, archives and other institutes. This... Show moreDuring the Second World War, the Nazis carried out violent attacks on Jewish cultural heritage, paying special attention to book collections in libraries, archives and other institutes. This destructive event is now sometimes referred to as the ‘Bibliocaust’. The plundering, destruction and dispersal of many private and public collections by the Nazis’ ideological brigade, Alfred Rosenberg’s ERR, shifts our perception of the Germans as anti-intellectual vandals: their aim was to preserve certain Jewish cultural artefacts to justify their extermination, and destroy the rest. Inspired by an essay on becoming a book collector written by the Jewish writer and culture critic Walter Benjamin, this article investigates what the term ‘collecting’ meant during this chaotic time, how books lost their meaning as a result of dispersal, and how their owners fought back against the destruction of their memory. Show less
