This is the tradition of Eduard Meyer and Wilamowitz but quite different from Th. Mommsen, Rostovtzeff and even Syme. Mommsen abandoned his country pastor father and Marxism discouraged Rostovtzeff. Syme only reluctantly admitted that religion was able to influence reasonable men of power and intelligence. He stresses Momigliano's interest in biography and autobiography and ability to show how modern scholars' views of antiquity are determined by their private lives.
Care is needed.
This is misdirected praise. Momigliano wilfully conceals the most important fact of Bernays' personal life, that he was a homosexual. Freud knew the truth in 1932. Homosexuality was surely an attraction of Scaliger for Bernays. Not a word on that.