Author: SCALIGER, J.C.
Title: Exotericarum exercitationem liber XV. De subtilitate, ad Hier. Cardanum. Hanua Typis Wechelianus, sumpt. Clementis Schleichii, & Petri de Zetter.
Description: Hanoviae [Hanau], Typis Wechelianis, sumptibus Clementis Schleichii & Petri de Zetter, 1634. W. woodcut Pegasus printer's mark on title and a number of woodcut ills. in the text. Contemp. opverlapping vellum, recased (recent endp.), lower half of spine old restoration/rebacking in vellum, well done). (XVI, 1076, LXXXIV (Index) pp.). (Upper cover blindst. CFFL & 1637). D.S.B. XII, 134/6 on Scaliger: 'Scaliger was proud of his disputatious nature ... As Scaliger made his reputation with an attack on Erasmus, so he confirmed it with a spirited critique of Cardano's 'De subtilitate Libri XXI' The 'Exotericarum exercitationum'[originally 1557] runs well over 1200 pages. ... Scaliger based his critique on a reprint (Lyons 1554) of the first edition of De Subtilitate, rather than the revised second edition (Basel, 1554)... The full title ... implies that the critique is merely the fifteenth book of Scaliger's philosophical exercises (the first 14 remained unpublished). Following its target, the work ranges over the whole of natural philosophy. In astronomy Scaliger ridiculed Cardano's stress on the astrological significance of comets; ... Scaliger also rejected several of Cardano's beliefs in natural history: that the swan sings at its death; that gems have occult virtues...; that there exist corporeal spirits that eat;... that the peacock is ashamed of its ugly legs... The 'Exotericarum exercitationum' won a celebrity that survived the author's death. Lipsius, Bacon, and Leibnitz were among its admirers; and Kepler, who read it as a young man, accepted its Averroist doctrine of attributing the movement of each star to a particular intelligence.' : Idem, DSB vol. III pp. 64 - 67 (On Cardanus): This ed. not in Wellcome.: Scaliger, one of the greatest humanists of his period , was an opponent of Cardanus and attacked his De Subtilitate true to his adagium "Truth is brought forth by a collision of minds" , '... Unless I discover an antagonist, I can do nothing succesfully.' . Not only medical subjects (dentistry a.o.,) were dealt with, but also physics, chemistry, psychology, natural history etc. The binding with monogram C F F L 1637.

Keywords: biology