Joseph Justus Scaliger published De emendatione temporum in 1583. The work transformed chronology by comparing calendars, ancient histories and astronomical cycles. It gave scholars tools for placing sacred, classical and non-European histories into more rigorous relation.

Chronology changed literary study by letting poets, editors and historians imagine the past in ordered time. Scaliger's work helped create the scholarly frame in which ancient epics, biblical poetry and national legends could be dated and compared.