Moses of Bergamo was a twelfth-century Italian

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...

and

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

. He spent time in

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth ( Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...

, where he was one of the first Western Europeans to be interested in collecting

Greek language Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southe ...

manuscripts.
/ref> He is known for his ''Liber Pergamensis'', a description of

Bergamo Bergamo (; lmo, Bèrghem ; from the proto- Germanic elements *''berg +*heim'', the "mountain home") is a city in the alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from Switzerland, the alpine lakes C ...

Latin verse The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus, the earliest surviving examples of Latin literature, are estimated to have been composed around 205-184 BC. History Scholars conven ...

. It is the earliest surviving example of a genre: the patriotic description of a

medieval commune Medieval communes in the European Middle Ages had sworn allegiances of mutual defense (both physical defense and of traditional freedoms) among the citizens of a town or city. These took many forms and varied widely in organization and makeup. C ...

Notes

References

*Charles Homer Haskins (1924), ''Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science'', Chapter X Italian poets Italian male poets Italian translators 12th-century Italian poets People from Bergamo {{Italy-translator-stub