1484-1558

Italian physician and humanist who established his intellectual reputation with an attack on Erasmus's criticism of Cicero. After a minor military career, Scaliger studied at the University of Padua. He traveled to France and adopted the name Jules Cesar de l'Escale de Bordonis. He translated a number of ancient texts into Latin, including Aristotle's Natural History. He published works on grammar, poetry, literary criticism, zoology, and botany, and proposed a new system of botanical classification based on distinctive characteristics.