WANDERING WOODS AGAIN 53
as if Wower participated to some extent, for instance in correcting the
scholia, in the edition of his compatriot Lindenbruch.^29 Scaliger, at
least, qualified them later as birds of the same feather, when he says:
“Lindenbruch est un fat et plagiaire, Lindenbruch, Woveren, grands
plagiaires”.^30
Bernaert seems an isolated case, whereas the spider in the Statian
web in the North is Joseph Scaliger, who arrived in Leiden in 1593 as
a research professor. He was a Calvinist, educated in the South of
France, and his private copy of Statius was the 1547 edition from Ly-
ons, rather than any of the early Parisian editions.^31 Like the lack of
Statian poetry in the Netherlands, this suggests that the Parisian enthu-
siasm for Poliziano, Silvae and Statius of the twenties and thirties did
not penetrate to the Netherlands. Scaliger possessed quite a few edi-
tions of Statius, and annotated their margins,^32 but the most intriguing
part of his curae statianae is found in the letter of 30 March 1600 to
Wower. There he writes “Every day I expect the notes written by Po-
liziano in the margin of his book, copied out of his very old manu-
script. Your edition will be distinguished by them”.^33 Two collections
of marginal notes made by Poliziano exist(ed): those made in the mar-
On Friedrich, see Horváth 1990, and 1988, which I could not consult. The three Ham-
burgers had studied together in Leiden, see also van Dam 1996b, 79–80.
29 Did Wower send Lactantius in galley-proofs to Scaliger? He once was one of
Scaliger’s favourites, so much so that Scaliger’s enemy the infamous Caspar Sciop-
pius, spread the story that their relationship was sexual, see Deitz 1995, 134. Dr Dirk
van Miert pointed out to me that during his Italian tour Wower also inspected a manu-
script of the Silvae in the Bibliotheca Medicea in Florence, “sed valde inconditum et
manu recentiori” (Woverius Epistulae 223–4, of 7 December; the year is not men-
tioned but must be 1601), see also below. Gronovius refers to Wower and this manu-
script in his Diatribe (ed. Hand p. 108). The part played by Scaliger in these Statius
edition(s?) remains unclear.
30 Sc aligeriana 1666 s.v. Lindenbruch, see also under Woveren. Cf. van Dam
1996b, 80.
31 The rare one by Hieronymus Aleander (c. 1510), and the 1530 edition by
Colinaeus. Scaliger’s 1547 private copy is now Leiden University Library shelfmark
757 F 17.
32 See van Dam 1996a, n. 36, where four editions are mentioned, the most recent
one a copy of Bernaert’s 1595 text collated with the ms. Senensis. That book was sold
to G.J. Vossius, and is now in Göttingen university library (8 COD MS PHILOL 146).
On Scaliger’s conjectures on the Silvae, see also van Dam 1996, n. 32; some of them
are in Courtney’s OCT.
33 Scaliger 1627 no 374, 30.III.1600: “In diem expecto quae Politianus olim Sylva-
ru m margini ex vetustissimo codice annotarat. Ea multum editionem tuam exornabunt
...”.