RHETORIC, PHILOLOGY AND EGYPTOMANIA IN THE I570s: J. J. SCALIGER'S INVECTIVE AGAINST M. GUILANDINUS'S PAPYRUS By A. Grafton 'Apvocxhy MOqLyXyl Vr-n ) e' P~oizoarrq yeveOXELoc I A t one point in his commentary on Festus, Joseph Scaliger quotes a passage from the elder Pliny's Natural History, emends it, and then reflects: The current reading of this text is corrupt, and it was also harmed by Melchior Guilandinus, who wrote on Pliny's chapters on papyrus. But I shall write against him at greater length and expose the errors of this man who raves against all worthwhile authors.' This passage has few resonances now. Scaliger's Festus, until the nine- teenth century a work that any serious scholar had to know, has been rele- gated to the dustbin of the history of scholarship. Melchior Guilandinus is entirely-albeit unjustly-forgotten. Yet the story of this disagreement deserves attention. For a close examination of the documents in the case will enable us to see not merely two men quarrelling, but two schools of philologists in conflict. Indeed, in the grounds of their quarrel we will even find some of the reasons for the split that developed in the later sixteenth century between Italian and French humanism. II Nothing fascinated the humanists more deeply or deluded them more often than the material remains of the ancient world, and the remains of Egyptian antiquity glimmered more alluringly than most. Naturally the obelisks were the most imposing relics, but there were others that aroused almost as much interest. Mummy, for example, was a favourite specific for diseases of all sorts and, at the same time, a tangible witness to the powers of Egyptian natural magic. Small objets d'art, ranging from scarabs and other gems to that strange cult object, the mensa Isiaca or tabula Bembina, found homes in many Renaissance collections.2 One of the most interesting and accessible 1J. J. Scaliger, In Sex. Pompei libros de verborum significatione castigationes, in M. Verrii Flacci quae extant. Sex. Pompei Festi de verborum significatione libri xx . . ., Paris 1576, separately paginated, p. 60o ad Paul. ex Fest. 71.4-5 L.: [Pliny, Natural History (hereafter NH), xiii, 81]. 'Qui locus et perperam hodie legitur, et male conceptus est a Melchiore Guillandio, qui in ea capita Plinii de papyro scripsit. At nos plura in eum dicemus, et errata hominis in omnes bonos scriptores debacchantis in medium proferemus.' 2K. H. Dannenfeldt, 'Egypt and Egyptian Antiquities in the Renaissance,' Studies in the Renaissance, vi, 1959, PP. 7-27; E. Iversen, The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs in Euro- pean Tradition, Copenhagen 1961. 167