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Demetrius Chalcondyles
Δημήτριος Χαλκοκονδύλης

Demetrius Chalcondyles[1][2][3][4][5][6], [detail] Zachariah in the Temple by Domenico Ghirlandaio. Fresco. Santa Maria Novella, Cappella Tornabuoni, Florence, Italy. 1486–1490.
Born Demetrius Chalcondyles

(Δημήτριος Χαλκοκονδύλης)
1424
Athens, Greece
Died 1511
Milan, Italy
Occupation Scholar, politician, diplomat, philosophy
Nationality Greek[7]
Literary movement Renaissance, Greek literature, philosophy

Demetricocondyles or Demetrios Chalcocondylis (Greek: Δημήτριος Χαλκοκονδύλης) or Chalcocondylas or Chalcondyles (1424[8] – 1511), was a Greek[9] humanist, scholar and Professor who taught the Greek language in Italy for over forty years; at Padua[10], Perugia[11], Milan and Florence.[12] Among his pupils were Janus Lascaris, Poliziano, Leo X, Castiglione, Giraldi, Stefano Negri, and Giovanni Maria Cattaneo,[13] he was associated with Marsilius Ficinus, Angelus Politianus, and Theodorus Gaza in the revival of letters in the Western world. One of his pupils at Florence was the famous Johann Reuchlin.[14] Chalcondyles published the first printed publications of Homer in (1488), of Isocrates in (1493), and of the Suda lexicon in (1499).[15] In 1463 Demetrius Chalcondyles delivered an exhortation for crusade and the recovery and liberation of his homeland Greece[16] from the invading Ottoman Turks.[17] He was one of the most eminent Greek scholars in the West and also contributed to Italian Renaissance literature and was the last of the Greek humanists who taught Greek literature at the great universities of the Italian Renaissance (Padua, Florence, Milan).

Contents

Life

Demetrius Chalcondyles was born in Athens in 1424 of Greek ancestry,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] and belonged to one of the noblest Athenian families and was a first cousin of the chronicler of the fall of Constantinople, Laonicus Chalcondyles. He soon moved to the Peloponnisos, with his Athenian family who had migrated after its persecution by the Florentine dukes. He migrated to Italy in 1447[27] 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. Chalcondylas spent the rest of his life as a teacher of Greek and philosophy at Perugia, Padua, Rome, Florence, and Milan. One of Demetrius Chalcondyles Italian pupils described his lectures at Perugia in 1450 and wrote:

“ A Greek has just arrived, who has begun to teach me with great pains, and I to listen to his precepts with incredible pleasure, because he is Greek, because he is an Athenian, and because he is Demetrius. It seems to me that in him is figured all the wisdom, the civility, and the elegance of those so famous and illustrious ancients. Merely seeing him you fancy you are looking on Plato; far more when you hear him speak.[28] „

In 1463 he was made professor at Padua and later, in 1479 at Francesco Philelpho's suggestion, he took over the place of Ioannis Argyropoulos, as the head of the Greek Literature department and was summoned by Lorenzo de Medici to Florence. Demetrius Chalcondyles composed orations and treatises calling for the liberation of his homeland Greece[29] from what he called “the abominable, monstrous, and impious barbarian Turks.”[30] In 1463 Chalcondyles called on Venice and “all of the Latins” to aid the Greeks against the Ottomans, he identified this as an overdue debt[31] and reminded the Latins how the Byzantine Greeks once came to Italy’s aid against the Goths in the Gothic Wars (535-53 C.E.)[32]:

Gravestone, in Milan.
“ Just as she [Greece] had empended in their behalf [the Latins] all of her most precious and outstanding possessions liberally and without any parsimony, and had restored with her hand and force of arms the state of Italy, long ago oppressed by the Goths, they [the Latins] should in the same way now be willing to raise up prostrate and afflicted Greece and liberate it by arms from the hands of the barbarians.[33] „

It was during his tenure at the Studium in Florence that Chalcondyles edited Homer for publication. He assisted Marsilio Ficino with his Latin translation of Plato. Demetrius Chalcondyles got married in 1484 at the age of sixty-one and fathered ten children.[34] His edition of Homer, dedicated to Lorenzo, Piero de' Medici's son, is his major accomplishment. Finally, invited by Ludovico Sforza, he moved to Milan (1491/1492), where he taught until he died.

Work

He wrote in Ancient Greek the grammar handbooks "Summarized Questions of the Eight Parts of Word After Their Rules" (Ἐρωτήματα συνοπτικὰ τῶν ὀκτὼ τοῦ λόγου μερῶν μετὰ τινῶν κανόνων). He translated Galen's Anatomy into Latin.

As a scholar, Chalcondyles published the editio princeps of Homer, ('Ὁμήρου τὰ σωζόμενα', Florence, 1488), Isocrates, (Milan, 1493) and the Suda (Σοῦδα), the Byzantine 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
  • 1488, editio princeps of Homer's Ilias and Odyssey, Poiesis Hapasa, edited by Bernardus Nerlius and Demetrius Chalcondylas, 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 Constantinus Lascaris’ Erotemata (Milan, 1476), the first book to be printed entirely in Greek, based upon the hand of Damilas’s fellow scribe Michael Apostolis.

Notes

  1. ^ Sandys, Sir John Edwin (1908). A History of Classical Scholarship ...: From the revival of learning to the end of the eighteenth century (in Italy, France, England, and the Netherlands). Cambridge : Univ. Pr. p. 62–64. OCLC 312685884. "MARSILIO FICINO, CRISTOFORO LANDINO, ANGELO POLIZIANO, and DEMETRIUS CHALCONDYLES. Reproduced (by permission) from part of Alinari’s photograph of Ghirlandaio’s fresco on the south wall of the choir in Santa Maria Novella, Florence (ep. p. 64 n.6)… A fresco in Santa Maria Novella panted by Ghirlandaio (d.1498) represents an apparently friendly group of scholars who have been identified as Ficino, Landino, Politian and Demetrius."  
  2. ^ Festa, Nicola (1935). Umanesimo: Ventisette tavole fuouri testo. U. Hoepli. p. 108. OCLC 3983429. "CALCONDILA. [ Affresco del GHIRLANDAIO, nel coro di Santa Maria Novella in Firenze"  
  3. ^ Società editrice Fiorentina (1910). Artistic guide of Florence and its environs ...: with historical notices on the town and on the principal monuments, engravings, topographical plans-catalogues of the galleries Edition: 3. Firenze, Società editrice Fiorentina. p. 81. OCLC 23489553. "The admirable frescoes now to be seen are by Domenico Ghirlandaio : they were executed by order of John Tornabuoni and costed more than 1000 gold florins…The patriarch Zachariah in the Temple : the four half-figures at left hand are the portraits of Agnolo Poliziano, Cristopher Landino, (in red cloak), Demetrius Calcondila, and Marsilio Ficino, (in purple robe)."  
  4. ^ Riccardi, Palazzo Medici (1939). Mostra Medicea: Palazzo Medici, Firenze, 1939-XVII.. Casa Editrice Marzocco. p. 109. OCLC 7123855. "DEMETRIO CALCONDILA Ritratto: copia dall'originale di Domenico Ghirlandaio negli affreschi della cappella Tornabuoni in SM Novella (1490)"  
  5. ^ Geanakoplos, Deno John (1979). Medieval Western civilization and the Byzantine and Islamic worlds: interaction of three cultures. D. C. Heath. p. 463. ISBN 0669008680, 9780669008685. "This detail of a fresco by the painter Ghirlandaio in Santa Maria Novella, Florence.... Poliziano and Landino, and the Byzantine Demetrius Chalcondyles, at the extreme right. The latter explained difficult passages in Plato to Ficino."  
  6. ^ Belloni, Gino; Fantoni, Marcello; Cassamarca, Fondazione; Drusi, Riccardo (2007). Il Rinascimento italiano e l'Europa, Volume 2. Fondazione Cassamarca. p. 596. ISBN 9788889527177 888952717X. "Demetrio Calcondila in un particolare dell'Apparizione dell'angelo a Zaccaria di Domenico Ghirlandaio, Firenze"  
  7. ^ Bisaha, Nancy (1997). Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks. Cornell University. p. 125. OCLC 44529765. "The Greek scholar Demetrius Chalcondyles (d. 1511), who taught Greek in Padua, Florence, and Milan"  
  8. ^ "Demetrius Chalcondyles.". www.britannica.com. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/157045/Demetrius-Chalcondyles. Retrieved 2009-09-25. "Demetrius Chalcondyles – born 1424, Athens [Greece] died 1511, Milan [Italy]."  
  9. ^ Hochman, Stanley (1984). McGraw-Hill encyclopedia of world drama: an international reference work in 5 volumes, Volume 5. Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG. p. 43. ISBN 0070791694, 9780070791695. "Finally, in 1505, he was able to go to Milan to study under the famous Greek scholar Demetrius Chalcondyles."  
  10. ^ "Demetrius Chalcondyles.". www.britannica.com. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/157045/Demetrius-Chalcondyles. Retrieved 2009-09-24. "Demetrius Chalcondyles – born 1424, Athens [Greece] died 1511, Milan [Italy]. In 1447 Demetrius went to Italy, where Cardinal Bessarion became his patron. He was made professor at Padua in 1463."  
  11. ^ Cubberley, Ellwood Patterson (2008). The History of Education Volume 1. BiblioBazaar, LLC. p. 264. ISBN 0554225239, 9780554225234. "Another Greek of importance was Demetrius Chalcondyles of Athens (1424–1511), who reached Italy in 1447. In 1450 he became professor of Greek at Perugia."  
  12. ^ Bèze, Théodore de; Summers, Kirk M. (2001). A view from the Palatine: the Iuvenilia of Théodore de Bèze. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. p. 442. ISBN 0866982795 9780866982795. "Demetrius Chalcondyles (1423–1511), a Greek refugee who taught Greek at Perugia, Padua, Florence, and Milan. Around 1493 he produced a Greek textbook for beginners."  
  13. ^ Valeriano, Pierio; Gaisser, Julia Haig (1999). Pierio Valeriano on the ill fortune of learned men: a Renaissance humanist and his world. University of Michigan Press. p. 281. ISBN 0472110551, 9780472110551. "Demetrius Chalcondyles was a prominent Greek humanist. He taught Greek in Italy for over forty years; among his pupils were Ianus Lascaris, Poliziano, Leo X, Castaglione, Giraldi, Stefano Negri, and Giovanni Maria Cattaneo."  
  14. ^ "Demetrius Chalcondyles.". www.britannica.com. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/157045/Demetrius-Chalcondyles. Retrieved 2009-09-25. "One of his pupils at Florence was the German scholar Johann Reuchlin."  
  15. ^ "Demetrius Chalcondyles.". www.britannica.com. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/157045/Demetrius-Chalcondyles. Retrieved 2009-09-25. "Demetrius Chalcondyles published the first printed editions of Homer (1488), of Isocrates (1493), and of the Suda lexicon (1499), and a Greek grammar (Erotemata) in question-and-answer form."  
  16. ^ Bisaha, Nancy (1997). Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks. Cornell University. p. 29. OCLC 44529765. "Given their recent troubles at the hands of the Turks, many Greek humanists composed orations and treatises calling for the liberation of their homeland. Demetrius Chalcondyles and the already mentioned George of Trebizond and Cardinal Bessarion are just a few examples of many such scholars."  
  17. ^ Bisaha, Nancy (2006). Creating East and West: Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 113–115. ISBN 0812219767, 9780812219760. "Drawing on a different period of ancient, yet Christian, Greek history, the Athenian-born scholar Demetrius Chalcondyles (1423–1511) delivered an exhortation for crusade and the recovery of his homeland."  
  18. ^ Beckett, William à (1834). A universal biography: including scriptual, classical and mythological memoirs, together with accounts of many eminent living characters, Volume 1. Mayhew, Isaac and Co. p. 730. OCLC 15617538. "CHALCONDYLES (DEMETRIUS), a learned modern Greek, and a native of Athens, came over into Italy about 1447, and after a short abode at Rome"  
  19. ^ Valeriano, Pierio; Gaisser, Julia Haig (1999). Pierio Valeriano on the ill fortune of learned men: a Renaissance humanist and his world. University of Michigan Press. p. 281. ISBN 0472110551, 9780472110551. "Demetrius Chalcondyles was a prominent Greek humanist."  
  20. ^ Cubberley, Ellwood P. (2004). The History Of Education. Kessinger Publishing. p. 160. ISBN 1419166050, 9781419166051. "Another Greek of importance was Demetrius Chalcondyles"  
  21. ^ Hochman, Stanley (1984). McGraw-Hill encyclopedia of world drama: an international reference work in 5 volumes, Volume 5. Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG. p. 43. ISBN 0070791694, 9780070791695. "Finally, in 1505, he was able to go to Milan to study under the famous Greek scholar Demetrius Chalcondyles."  
  22. ^ Stanford University; Libraries. Dept. of Special Collections; Carolan, James M.; Watson, Robert (1984). Scholars, texts, traditions: the influence of classical antiquity in Western culture. Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries. p. 31. OCLC 11666932. "Greek grammar of another influential Greek immigrant, Demetrius Chalcondyles of Athens (1424–1511), who also worked as a textual critic on a variety of Greek texts including Isocrates (1493). Chrysolaras’ text was first published in 1484 and Chalcondyles’ in 1493. The value of these grammars cannot be over-emphasized."  
  23. ^ Cubberley, Ellwood Patterson (2008). The History of Education Volume 1. BiblioBazaar, LLC. p. 264. ISBN 0554225239, 9780554225234. "Another Greek of importance was Demetrius Chalcondyles of Athens (1424–1511), who reached Italy in 1447."  
  24. ^ Bisaha, Nancy (1997). Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks. Cornell University. p. 125. OCLC 44529765. "The Greek scholar Demetrius Chalcondyles (d. 1511), who taught Greek in Padua, Florence, and Milan"  
  25. ^ Hulme, Edward Maslin (2004). The Renaissance, the Protestant Revolution and the Catholic Reformation in Continental Europe. Kessinger Publishing. p. 91. ISBN 1417942231, 9781417942237. "Another Greek who taught in Italy before the fall of Constantinople was Chalcondyles (1424–1511) of Athens."  
  26. ^ Bèze, Théodore de; Summers, Kirk M. (2001). A view from the Palatine: the Iuvenilia of Théodore de Bèze. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. p. 442. ISBN 0866982795 9780866982795. "Demetrius Chalcondyles (1423–1511), a Greek refugee who taught Greek at Perugia, Padua, Florence, and Milan. Around 1493 he produced a Greek textbook for beginners."  
  27. ^ Beckett, William à (1834). A universal biography: including scriptual, classical and mythological memoirs, together with accounts of many eminent living characters, Volume 1. Mayhew, Isaac and Co. p. 730. OCLC 15617538. "CHALCONDYLES (DEMETRIUS), a learned modern Greek, and a native of Athens, came over into Italy about 1447, and after a short abode at Rome"  
  28. ^ Cubberley, Ellwood Patterson (2008). The History of Education Volume 1. BiblioBazaar, LLC. p. 264. ISBN 0554225239, 9780554225234. "Another Greek of importance was Demetrius Chalcondyles of Athens (1424–1511), who reached Italy in 1447. In 1450 he became professor of Greek at Perugia, and of his lectures there one of his enthusiastic pupils wrote: A Greek has just arrived, who has begun to teach me with great pains, and I to listen to his precepts with incredible pleasure, because he is Greek, because he is an Athenian, and because he is Demetrius. It seems to me that in him is figured all the wisdom, the civility, and the elegance of those so famous and illustrious ancients. Merely seeing him you fancy you are looking on Plato; far more when you hear him speak. In 1463 Demetrius transferred to Padua as professor of Greek and was the first professor of Greek in a western European university to be paid a fixed salary. He also taught for a long time at Milan, and from 1471 to 1491 was professor of Greek at Florence."  
  29. ^ Bisaha, Nancy (1997). Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks. Cornell University. p. 29. OCLC 44529765. "Given their recent troubles at the hands of the Turks, many Greek humanists composed orations and treatises calling for the liberation of their homeland. Demetrius Chalcondyles and the already mentioned George of Trebizond and Cardinal Bessarion are just a few examples of many such scholars."  
  30. ^ Bisaha, Nancy (2006). Creating East and West: Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 113–115. ISBN 0812219767, 9780812219760. "in 1463, Chalcondyles calls on Venice and “all of the Latins” to aid the Greeks against “the abominable, monstrous, and impious barbarian Turks.”"  
  31. ^ Bisaha, Nancy (2006). Creating East and West: Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 113–115. ISBN 0812219767, 9780812219760. "Chalcondyles seems not to be begging for help so much as calling in an overdue debt."  
  32. ^ Bisaha, Nancy (2006). Creating East and West: Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 113–115. ISBN 0812219767, 9780812219760. "in 1463, Chalcondyles calls on Venice and “all of the Latins” to aid the Greeks against “the abominable, monstrous, and impious barbarian Turks.” He does this by reminding the Latins how the Byzantine Greeks once came to Italy’s aid against their supposed oppressors in the Gothic Wars (535-53 C.E.):."  
  33. ^ Bisaha, Nancy (2006). Creating East and West: Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 113–115. ISBN 0812219767, 9780812219760. "Drawing on a different period of ancient, yet Christian, Greek history, the Athenian-born scholar Demetrius Chalcondyles (1423–1511) delivered an exhortation for crusade and the recovery of his homeland. At the end of the first of his “Discourses on the inauguration of Greek studies at Padua Iniverty” in 1463, Chalcondyles calls on Venice and “all of the Latins” to aid the Greeks against “the abominable, monstrous, and impious barbarian Turks.” He does this by reminding the Latins how the Byzantine Greeks once came to Italy’s aid against their supposed oppressors in the Gothic Wars (535-53 C.E.): just as she [Greece] had empended in their behalf [the Latins] all of her most precious and outstanding possessions liberally and without any parsimony, and had restored with her hand and force of arms the state of Italy, long ago oppressed by the Goths, they [the Latins] should in the same way now be willing to raise up prostrate and afflicted Greece and liberate it by arms from the hands of the barbarians. Calling attention to Greece’s glorious and magnanimous past while asking the Latins to come to its aid, Chalcondyles seems not to be begging for help so much as calling in an overdue debt. Moreover, like Bessarion, he reminds the Latins of the unity that once existed between Greek East and Latin West."  
  34. ^ Valeriano, Pierio; Gaisser, Julia Haig (1999). Pierio Valeriano on the ill fortune of learned men: a Renaissance humanist and his world. University of Michigan Press. p. 281. ISBN 0472110551, 9780472110551. "Demetrius Chalcondyles was a prominent Greek humanist. He married in 1484, at the age of sixty-one, and fathered ten children."  

References

  • Proctor, the Printing of Greek in the Fifteenth-Century, pp. 66–69.
  • Vassileiou, Fotis & Saribalidou, Barbara, Short Biographical Lexicon of Byzantine Academics Immigrants to Western Europe, 2007.
  • This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

See also








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