unpublished parts of which would furnish material for scholarship for years to come. Also represented are the Maliberet of Menahem ben Saruq and the Arukh of Natan ben Yehiel (Seal. 5), the More Nevukhim of Maimonides (Seal. 6) and the oldest dated manuscript of the so-called Yalqut Makhiri, a substantial compilation of Haggadic texts (Seal. 7). Seal. 8 and 10 are of specific historical interest. The former is a manuscript of the Psalms with Latin glosses which originated in a Christian environment and, judging by the paleography of the Latin, must have been written in England in the 12th cen tury. Study of the Hebrew Bible was rarely practised in Christian circles at that time 7 . Seal. 10 contains, amongst other things, an encyclopedic and cabbalistic work by Moses de Rieti; it is written in Italian using Hebrew script and is important for the study of Italian dialects and the so-called “Jewish Italian” 7a . The collection further consists of medical, philosophical, cabbalistic, astronomical and chronological works, numerous texts sometimes being gathered between the same covers. Seal. 16 is a Rabbinic Hebrew dictionary of substantial scope quoting many examples from Rabbinic literature; the author is not known. MS Or. 221, the Arabic text of Maimonides’ “Guide of the Perplexed”, written in Hebrew script, also belongs to the Scaliger Bequest (Steinschn. p. 382) 8 . Thanks to his correspondence we learn how Scaliger assembled his very varied collection of books and manuscripts even though he personally never travelled far, except once to Italy in his youth. Time without number, in this correspondence, he refers to books and titles he is seeking or thanks others for the receipt of such items. As far as the Arabic manuscripts are concerned, Scaliger’s relations with a merchant at Marseille, a certain Hostagier (also Ostag(i)er), were particularly fruitful •; it was through this man’s efforts that contact was made with the Samaritans in Cairo 10 . The services of Gianvincenzo Pinelli (1535-1602), a famous Italian biblio phile, and his many contacts-in Constantinople amongst other places - probably also yielded results u . Scaliger was always on the look out for books and manuscripts of various kinds but reference to Hebrew manuscripts in the correspondence is, 7. The interesting vicissitudes of this manuscript are described by H. I. Lieftinck in “The ‘Psalterium Hebraycum’ from St. Augustine’s Canterbury rediscovered in the Scaliger bequest at Leyden”, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 2 (1955) 97-104. 7 s . An edition of the Italian text is at present being prepared by Prof. I. Hijmans-Tromp. 8. See Scaliger, Epistolce (Leiden 1627) p. 195, 704. 9. Scaligerana ..., (Amsterdam 1740) p. 205 : “Tous les livres Arabes que j’ay eus, c’a estè par Marseille, d’Alexandrie et du Caire”. J. de Réve, Epistres franpaises ...ctM.de Lescale, (Harderwijk 1624) pp. 142, 281. For an opportunity which was evidently missed see Epistolce... (Leiden 1627) p. 380v. 10. H. A. Hamaker, “Aanmerking over de Samaritanen en hunne briefwisseling met eenige Europese geleerden ...”, Archief voor kerkelijke Geschiedenis inzonderheid van Nederland 5 (1834) 1-56, especially p. 6. 11. P. Tamizey de Larroque, Lettres franpaises inédites de Joseph Scaliger (Agen/Paris 1879) pp. 117-8, 111, 113. For Pinelli see ibid. p. 105 and C. G. Jöcher, Allgemeines Gelehrtenlexicon, s.v. For a survey of Scaliger’s search for books and MSS see W. M. C. Juynboll, Zeventiende eeuwse beoefenaars van hst Arabisch in Nederland (Utrecht 1931) p. 50.