I Codices Scaligerani The Hebrew manuscripts bequeathed to Leiden University by J. J. Scaliger formed a small but very important part of his private library 3 . Josephus Justus Scaliger (de 1’Escale, della Scala, 1540-1609), who came to Leiden in 1593, possessed, in addition to other not inconsiderable qualities, a substantial and then unrivalled knowledge of oriental languages : he knew not only Arabic, in which he was initiated by Guillau me Postel and which interested him greatly during his whole life, but also Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Persian, Coptic and Armenian. He had to acquire his knowledge of these languages primarily from the original sources and this extensive reading justifiably won him the admiration of his contemporaries 4 . In the 16th century the possession of manuscripts or easy access to them was a prerequisite of practising science and they were certainly indispensable for the universal interests of Scaliger who, although neither driven nor even able to indulge in extravagant acquisition, still managed to assemble a quite remarkable collection of books and manuscripts by means of his many contacts and his own scholarly insight. There are several noteworthy items amongst the 18 Hebrew manuscripts, e.g. a very old, complete text of Rashi’s Bible commentary (pre-1270) in a particularly imposing format (Seal. 1) and an equally imposing codex, containing 20 medical works trans lated from the Arabic (Seal. 2). Steinschneider was very impressed by this manuscript (“de hoc Codice solo libellum facile conscribere possemus”) and devoted 30 pages to a description of these texts, whilst he kept most of the material he gathered from this codex for his book on Hebrew translations from the Arabic 5 . Seal. 3 is a manuscript of the Palestinian Talmud, the only one to have been preserved more or less intact and Steinschneider was the first to recognise that this very copy must have been used as the basis for the editio princeps on which all the other printed texts are based 6 . Seal. 4 is a large collection of liturgical poetry (Selihot), the as yet 3. One ought to remember that Scaliger’s Hebrew manuscripts, just as those of Warner, formed part of a larger collection which, in each case, consisted of manuscripts in various Oriental languages, Greek and Latin manuscripts, and also printed books, all collected by one man. Therefore, each collection ought to be treated as an entity in any definitive study. The pages which follow can only modestly contribute to such study, as they are confined to the Hebrew manuscripts. 4. See, for example, W. M. C. Juynboll, Zeventiende eeuwse beoefenaars van het Arabisch in Nederland (Utrecht 1931) pp. 45-51. The excellent biography by J. Bemays, Josephus Justus Scaliger (Berlin 1855), has not yet been superseded but the time is now ripe. See also C. M. Bruehl, “Josef Justus Scaliger”, Zeitschr.f. Rel. u. Geistesgesch. 12(1960) 201-218; 13 (1961) 45-65. 5. Not published until 1893, under the title “Die hebraische Uebersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher”. 6. S. M. Schiller-Szinessy has given an extensive description of MS Seal. 3 and its history in ; Occa sional notices of Hebrew Manuscripts I, Description of the Leyden MS of the Palestinian Talmud (Cambridge 1878). See also A. van der Heide, P. Sj. van Koningsveld, “Het Leidse handschrift van de Jerusalemse Talmud”, Studia Rosenthaliana 7 (1973) 258-265. Scaliger does not himself seem to have been particularly knowledgeable on this point, cf. Scaligerana, p. 395. The Arukh was not printed by Bomberg on the basis of his own MS copy (now Seal. 5) but is a corrected reprint of Gershom Soncino’s edition (Pisarro 1517).