Leontius Pilatus (
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
: Λεόντιος Πιλάτος, Leontios Pilatos,
Italian: Leonzio Pilato; died 1366) was an
Italian scholar from
Calabria
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and was one of the earliest promoters of
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
studies in
Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
. Leontius translated and commented upon works of
Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars at ...
,
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
and
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the '' Iliad'' and the '' Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of ...
including the
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', the ...
and the
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...
into Latin and was the first professor of Greek in western Europe.
Biography
Calabria still had at this time, several centuries after the
Norman conquest of the territory from the Byzantine Empire, a large if not majority
Greek-speaking and Eastern Rite Christian population. The process of "Latinization", adoption of Latin for legal documents, and adoption of Romance-language dialects in popular speech — was only definitively completed in the 16th century with the
suppression of the Greek Basilian monasteries by Rome.
Thus Pilatus is assumed by most scholars to have been an ethnic-Greek Calabrian. But the situation is confused by a famous letter from
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists.
Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...
to
Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was som ...
, in which he complains:
It is unclear from this whether Pilatus was holding himself out as being from Greece proper, or Petrarch was unaware of the ethno-linguistic situation in Calabria.
It is through this connection with Petrarch and Boccaccio, that the important contribution of Pilatus to the revival of Greek in Western scholarship was effected. He made a bald and almost word for word translation of
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the '' Iliad'' and the '' Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of ...
into
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
prose for Boccaccio, subsequently sent to Petrarch, who owed his introduction to the poet to Pilatus and was anxious to obtain a complete translation. Pilatus also furnished Boccaccio with some of the material for his genealogy of the gods (''
Genealogia deorum gentilium
''Genealogia deorum gentilium'', known in English as ''On the Genealogy of the Gods of the Gentiles'', is a mythography or encyclopedic compilation of the tangled family relationships of the classical pantheons of Ancient Greece and Rome, wri ...
libri'') which was, according to
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work, '' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, i ...
: "a work, in that age, of stupendous erudition, and which he ostentatiously sprinkled with Greek characters and passages, to excite the wonder and applause of his more ignorant readers."
Pilatus was killed when lightning struck a ship's mast while he was standing against it, on a voyage from Constantinople.
See also
*
Byzantine scholars in Renaissance
*
Barlaam of Seminara
Barlaam of Seminara (Bernardo Massari, as a layman), c. 1290–1348, or Barlaam of Calabria ( gr, Βαρλαὰμ Καλαβρός) was an Eastern Orthodox Greek scholar born in southern Italy he was a scholar and clergyman of the 14th century, ...
*
Greek–Calabrian dialect
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pilatus, Leonzio
1366 deaths
Renaissance writers
People from Reggio Calabria
Deaths from lightning strikes
Greek Renaissance humanists
Greek–Latin translators
14th-century Italian writers
14th-century Greek people
Year of birth unknown
Italian people of Greek descent
Translators of Homer