Demetrios Chalkokondyles ( el, Δημήτριος Χαλκοκονδύλης ),
Latinized as Demetrius Chalcocondyles and found variously as Demetricocondyles, Chalcocondylas or Chalcondyles (14239 January 1511) was one of the most eminent
Greek scholars in the West. He taught in Italy for over forty years; his colleagues included
Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino (; Latin name: ; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver of ...
,
Poliziano, and
Theodorus Gaza in the revival of letters in the Western world, and Chalkokondyles was the last of the Greek
humanists who taught Greek literature at the great universities of the Italian Renaissance (
Padua,
Florence,
Milan). One of his pupils at Florence was the famous
Johann Reuchlin. Chalkokondyles published the first printed publications of
Homer (in 1488), of
Isocrates
Isocrates (; grc, Ἰσοκράτης ; 436–338 BC) was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education throu ...
(in 1493), and of the
Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souidas ...
lexicon (in 1499).
Life
Demetrios Chalkokondyles was born in
Athens in 1423
to one of the noblest Athenian families and was the cousin of the chronicler of the
fall of Constantinople
The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. The city fell on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun o ...
,
Laonicus Chalcocondyles. He soon moved to the
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese (), Peloponnesus (; el, Πελοπόννησος, Pelopónnēsos,(), or Morea is a peninsula and geographic regions of Greece, geographic region in southern Greece. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmu ...
, with his Athenian family who had migrated after its persecution by the
Florentine dukes. He migrated to Italy in 1447
and arrived at
Rome in 1449 where
Cardinal Bessarion became his patron.
He became the student of
Theodorus Gaza and later gained the patronage of
Lorenzo de Medici, serving as a tutor to his sons. Afterwards Chalkokondyles lived the rest of his life in Italy, as a teacher of Greek and philosophy. One of Chalkokondyles' Italian pupils described his lectures at Perugia, where he taught in 1450:
Among his pupils were
Janus Lascaris,
Poliziano,
Leo X,
Castiglione,
Giglio Gregorio Giraldi,
Stefano Negri
Stefano is the Italian form of the masculine given name Στέφανος (Stefanos, Stephen). The name is of Greek origin, Στέφανος, meaning a person who made a significant achievement and has been crowned. In Orthodox Christianity the ac ...
, and
Giovanni Maria Cattaneo.
[
In 1463 Chalkokondyles was made professor at Padua, and later, at Francesco Philelpho's suggestion, in 1479 he took over the place of ]Ioannis Argyropoulos
John Argyropoulos (/ˈd͡ʒɑn ˌɑɹd͡ʒɪˈɹɑ.pə.ləs/ el, Ἰωάννης Ἀργυρόπουλος ''Ioannis Argyropoulos''; it, Giovanni Argiropulo; surname also spelt ''Argyropulus'', or ''Argyropulos'', or ''Argyropulo''; c. 1415 – 2 ...
, as the head of the Greek Literature department and was summoned by Lorenzo de Medici to Florence. Chalkokondyles composed several orations and treatises calling for the liberation of his homeland Greece from what he called “the abominable, monstrous, and impious barbarian Turks.” In 1463 Chalkokondyles called on Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
and "all of the Latins
The Latins were originally an Italic tribe in ancient central Italy from Latium. As Roman power and colonization spread Latin culture during the Roman Republic.
Latins culturally "Romanized" or "Latinized" the rest of Italy, and the word Latin ...
" to aid the Greeks against the Ottomans
The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922).
Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...
, he identified this as an overdue debt[ and reminded the Latins how the Byzantine Greeks once came to Italy's aid against the Goths in the Gothic Wars (535–554 AD)
It was during his tenure at the Studium in Florence that Chalkokondyles edited Homer for publication, which, dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, is his major accomplishment. He assisted Marsilio Ficino with his Latin translation of Plato. During his tenure at Florence, the German classical scholar Johannes Reuchlin was one of his pupils.] He also taught Alessandra Scala, the Florentine Greek and Latin poet.
Chalkokondyles married in 1484 at the age of sixty-one and fathered ten children.[ Finally, invited by ]Ludovico Sforza
Ludovico Maria Sforza (; 27 July 1452 – 27 May 1508), also known as Ludovico il Moro (; "the Moor"). "Arbiter of Italy", according to the expression used by Guicciardini, , he moved to Milan (1491/1492), where he taught until he died.
Work
He wrote in Ancient Greek the grammar handbook "Summarized Questions on the Eight Parts of Speech With Some Rules" (). He translated Galen's ''Anatomy'' into Latin.
As a scholar, Chalkokondyles published the ''editio princeps In classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand.
For ...
'' of Homer (Florence 1488), Isocrates
Isocrates (; grc, Ἰσοκράτης ; 436–338 BC) was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education throu ...
(Milan 1493) and the Byzantine ''Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souidas ...
'' lexicon (1499).
*Greek Grammar, edited 1546 by Melchior Volmar in Basel
*Latin translation of the ''Anatomical Procedures'' of Galen, edited and published in 1529 by Jacopo Berengario da Carpi
Ἡ τοῦ Ὁμήρου ποίησις ἅπασα
1488, ''editio princeps In classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand.
For ...
'' of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, edited by Bernardus Nerlius Bernardus is a Latinized form of the Germanic name Bernard. It has been a given name in the Netherlands since the 17th century, though bearers tend to use a short form in daily life, like ''Barend'', ''Ben'', ''Ber'', ''Berend'', ''Bernard'', ''B ...
and Chalkokondyles, appeared in Florence, not before 13 January 1489, in two folio volumes. It was the first Greek book to be printed in Florence. The Greek type used to print the 1488–1489 Homer is believed to have been cast by the Cretan Demetrius Damilas from the type that he had used to print Constantine Lascaris’ ''Erotemata
The ''Erotemata'' (Ἐρωτήματα) are the first printed basic Greek grammar in use in Western Europe, written by Manuel Chrysoloras who was a pioneer in spreading Greek literature in Western Europe.
Chrysoloras' ''Erotemata'' were likely f ...
'' (Milan 1476), the first book to be printed entirely in Greek, based upon the hand of Damilas’s fellow scribe Michael Apostolis
Michael may refer to:
People
* Michael (given name), a given name
* Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael
Given name "Michael"
* Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and ...
.
See also
*Chalkokondyles family {{Unreferenced, date=December 2009
Chalkokondyles or Chalcocondyles ( el, Χαλκοκονδύλης), also seen as Chalkokandeles (Χαλκοκαντήλης) or Charchandeles (Χαρχαντήλης), was a Greek noble family of Athens which was ...
* Greek scholars in the Renaissance
Notes
References
* Nancy Bisaha, ''Creating East and West: Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006, pp. 113–15.
* Deno J. Geanakoplos, "The discourse of Demetrius Chalcocondyles on the inauguration of Greek studies at the University of Padua", ''Studies in the Renaissance'', 21 (1974), 118–44 and in Deno J. Geanakoplos, ''Interaction of the ‘Sibling’ Byzantine and Western Cultures in the Middle Ages and Italian Renaissance (330–1600)'', New Haven and London, 1976, pp. 296–304
* Jonathan Harris, ''Greek Émigrés in the West, 1400–1520'', Camberley: Porphyrogenitus, 1995.
* Robert Proctor, ''The Printing of Greek in the Fifteenth-Century'', London, 1930, pp. 66–9.
* Fotis Vassileiou & Barbara Saribalidou, ''Short Biographical Lexicon of Byzantine Academics Immigrants to Western Europe'', 2007.
* N.G. Wilson, ''From Byzantium to Italy. Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance'', London, 1992.
External links
*
The "First Edition" of the ''Iliad''
article about the textual history the ''Iliad''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chalcocondyles, Demetrius
1424 births
1511 deaths
Writers from Athens
University of Perugia faculty
Greek Renaissance humanists
Byzantine writers
Greek educators
Renaissance writers
Greek–Latin translators
15th-century Byzantine people
16th-century Greek people
Demetrius
15th-century Byzantine writers
15th-century Latin writers
15th-century Greek writers
16th-century Greek writers
16th-century male writers
15th-century Greek educators
16th-century Greek educators