Leontius Pilatus ( Greek: Λεόντιος Πιλάτος, Leontios Pilatos, Italian: Leonzio Pilato; died 1366) was an Italian scholar from

Calabria , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

and was one of the earliest promoters of Greek 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 ...

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 the ...

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'', ...

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 ''Ody ...

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, 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

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 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.

Biography

See also