In Spain the Renaissance had made a promising beginning; Antonio of Nebrija (1444–1522) anticipated Erasmus in showing that the Greek language had been pronounced by the ancients differently from the modern Greeks, and later Antonio Agostino, archbishop of Tarragona (1517–86), did important work on ancient law and numismatics. But the Spanish Renaissance was frozen by the Counter-Reformation.

During the late 15th and early 16th centuries the new learning began to establish itself north of the Alps. William Grocyn, who had studied in Italy, was probably the first man to teach Greek in an English university; he was friendly with John Colet and Thomas More, both of England, and later with the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus. Thomas Linacre, later an eminent physician, studied Greek in Italy under Politian; on his return to England he gave lectures at which More was present.

Erasmus (c. 1466–1536), the first editor of the New Testament, was more concerned with biblical and patristic studies than with the Greek and Latin classics for their own sake. Yet his philosophia Christi, an attempt to mediate between ancient wisdom and Christian faith, was closely linked with classical scholarship, and he found time to produce numerous editions and translations of Greek and Latin authors, besides making such contributions to scholarship as his famous collection of proverbs, the Adagia. The Utopia of his English friend Thomas More was profoundly influenced by Platonism. Erasmus’ pupil Beatus Rhenanus was one of a group of German scholars who brought out important editions of Latin texts. Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560) actively promoted scholarship in Germany; his associate Joachim Camerarius (1500–74) did much for Plautus, as did Hieronymus Wolf (1516–80) for the Attic orators.

Erasmus formed a close connection with the great printer of Basel, Johannes Froben. Amerbach, Cratander, and Hervagius were other notable printers of that city, active in the production of critical editions of ancient texts.

Obliged as they were to concede primacy in Latin studies to the Italians, the French during the 16th century took the lead in Greek, although Denis Lambin (Lambinus; 1516–72) did valuable work on Cicero, Lucretius, and Horace. Guillaume Budé (Budaeus; 1467–1540) laid the foundations in Greek studies, and Jean Dorat (Auratus; 1508–88) and Adrien de Tournebu (Turnebus; 1512–65), pioneers in the study of Greek poetry, inspired the contemporary poets Ronsard and du Bellay, the leaders of the Pléiade group, with admiration for Greek literature. The great printer Robert Estienne (Stephanus; 1503–59) produced the first critical edition of the Greek New Testament (1551), reprinting Erasmus’ text but adding variants from 15 manuscripts. Estienne’s son, Henri, published many editiones principes of Greek authors and a Greek Thesaurus (1572) not superseded until the early 19th century.

Two French scholars—Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540–1609) and Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614)—deserve particular mention. Like Erasmus, Scaliger saw that classical learning should be a unity. His diversity was that of the explorer, not the dilettante; each edition opened up a new path: that of Festus (1575) to Old Latin, that of Manilius’ Astronomica (1579) to ancient astronomy, for example. He assisted Janus Gruterus (1560–1627) by compiling the indexes to his famous Inscriptiones antiquae totius orbis Romani and encouraged the collection of the fragments of classical literature. But his greatest achievement was to bring order into the chaos of ancient chronology in his De emendatione temporum (1583) and Thesaurus temporum (1606).

Casaubon, too, perceived that antiquity must be studied as a whole and also (and this too Erasmus understood) that the study must begin from Greek. Through his series of detailed commentaries on difficult and prolific authors (Strabo, Athenaeus, Polybius), he was instrumental in turning scholarship—hitherto an art—into a science.

Henri Estienne, Scaliger, and Casaubon were all Huguenots, and all died in exile—Estienne in Lyon, Scaliger in Leiden, and Casaubon in London. Another eminent Huguenot scholar of the time, Marcus Antonius Muretus (Marc-Antoine de Muret; 1526–85), the most elegant writer of Ciceronian Latin since Cicero, who defended the practice of emendation against the cautious Victorius, left France when accused of homosexuality, became a Catholic, and enjoyed great success in Rome.

Scholarship in the 17th century

After the conversion of Henri IV to Roman Catholicism French scholarship declined, as Italian scholarship declined during the age of the Counter-Reformation. But the action of the Jesuits in challenging the authenticity on which the privileges of the Benedictines depended caused the latter to turn to the study of paleography in order to defend themselves, thus occasioning the chief contribution of France to classical studies during the 17th century. Jean Mabillon (1632–1707) established Latin paleography as a modern science, and another inmate of the monastery of St. Germain-des-Prés, Bernard de Montfaucon (1655–1741), did the same for Greek paleography. This kind of work was continued by the great antiquarians of the following century, notably L.A. Muratori (1672–1750) and Scipione Maffei (1675–1755).

As scholarship declined in France (where the series of Delphin Classics supervised by Pierre-Daniel Huet from 1670 to 1680 marks the summit of strictly classical achievement), so it rose and flourished in the Netherlands. Christophe Plantin had founded his great press in Antwerp in 1550 and the Elzevirs theirs in Leiden in 1580 and later in Amsterdam. Scaliger ended his days in the newly founded State University of Leiden. Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) produced important editions of Tacitus and Seneca, at the same time promoting a new Christian Stoicism. The great jurist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), in many ways the true successor of Erasmus, did brilliant work in classical studies as well as in many other fields. Nicolas Heinsius (1620–81) produced editions, based on extensive study of manuscripts, that earned him the title “saviour of the Latin poets.” His counterpart in prose, John Gronovius (1611–71), produced editions of Livy, Seneca, Pliny, and others. The letters of Heinsius and Gronovius testify to as ample a conception of classical studies as that of Scaliger and Casaubon.

The Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) had a disastrous effect on scholarship. Among the classicists in Holland and Germany, stagnation set in; unwieldy, uncritical variorum editions became the fashion, and the collection of “antiquities,” divorced from linguistic study and from critical scholarship, degenerated into the mere piling up of information.

The 18th century: the age of Bentley

Since the late 16th century little had been heard of English scholarship; once the study of Greek had been established by Linacre, Grocyn, Sir John Cheke, and their contemporaries, the English preoccupation with education had set in. John Selden is the most notable of few exceptions, and he was a jurist and antiquary, not an academic, though his De Diis Syris (1617) laid the foundations of Eastern scholarship. A new era began with the Epistola ad Joannum Millium (1691) of Richard Bentley (1662–1742). This collection of brilliant miscellaneous observations, prompted by the editio princeps of the 6th-century Byzantine chronicle of John Malalas, displayed already the comprehensive learning and rare power of divination that were to enable Bentley to lay the foundations of the critical scholarship of the coming age. Although his achievements in textual criticism were singularly brilliant, Bentley must not be thought of as a mere editor of texts but as the creator of a critical method that was to be applied with powerful effect in every department of antiquity. This is in evidence above all in his Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris (expanded edition, 1699), the first important work of classical scholarship written in a modern language. His editions of Horace (1711), Terence (1726), and Manilius (1739) were all of masterly quality. He did remarkable work in collecting fragments of Menander and Callimachus, and although he never completed his proposed editions of Homer and the New Testament, the preparatory work he did toward them had a revolutionary effect in both fields of study.

After Bentley’s death the only part of his inheritance taken up by his countrymen was his work in textual criticism. The work of his English contemporaries in this field, who include such important scholars as Jeremiah Markland (1693–1776), Thomas Tyrwhitt (1730–86), Benjamin Heath (1704–66), and Samuel Musgrave (1732–80), was carried further by the next generation. Richard Porson (1759–1808), Peter Elmsley (1773–1825), and P.P. Dobree (1782–1825) all concentrated upon Attic drama, Porson showing a particularly fine feeling for Greek.

In 1786 Sir William Jones (1746–94) began the study of Sanskrit that was to lead to the establishment of the new discipline of comparative philology. Edward Gibbon (1737–94), essentially self-educated despite his early residence at Magdalen College, Oxford, made with The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88) the greatest single contribution to the study of ancient history in the whole 18th century. The Essay on the Original Genius of Homer by Robert Wood (c. 1717–71), printed privately in 1767 and published posthumously in 1775, not only marked a new stage in Homeric studies but also assisted the movement toward exploration of ancient sites in Greece. Exploration was powerfully promoted by the publications in London of the Society of Dilettanti, especially the drawings in The Antiquities of Athens (four volumes, 1762–1808), by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands, where Bentley’s greatness had at once been recognized, a distinguished series of scholars—Tiberius Hemsterhuys (1685–1766), L.K. Valckenaer (1715–85), the German emigrant David Ruhnken (1723–98), and, later, Daniel Wyttenbach (1746–1820)—continued to do valuable work on Greek texts, including the difficult but rewarding remains of ancient lexicography. Bibliographical works and dictionaries were now improved; Johann Albert Fabricius (1668–1736) put the bibliography of Greek and then Latin literature on a new footing, and Egidio Forcellini in Padua superseded the Latin thesaurus of Robert Estienne. The study of ancient coins was greatly advanced by the work of the Swiss-born scholar Ezechiel Spanheim (1629–1710) and the Austrian scholar J.H. Eckhel (1737–98).

In archaeology the 18th century saw the beginning of the excavation of Herculaneum and Pompeii and of exploration of the remains of the Etruscan civilization. Historical source criticism (Quellenkritik) began in the work of the German historian Barthold Niebuhr (1776–1831). But technical progress was not enough. A new spirit was needed to arouse classical studies to take their place in the modern world, and it came from Germany.