Greek Scholarship in the 15th Century

Bassarion• Cardinal Bessarion (1403-72)

born in Trebizond and educated in Constantinople

• He became a monk in 1423• He studied to a freethinker

George Gemistus Plethon.• Plethon introduced him to the

emperors, then he is employed on government business.

• In 1438 He became a cardinal and resided permanently in Italy

• His house in Rome was a centre of literary activity.

• Bessarion's own literary work included a Latin translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics, and a long book against the critics of Plato.

Politian • Politian (1454-94) is a Greek bishop who settled in Italy and whose scholarly activity was devoted mainly to theology and philosophy.

• He is famous as a poet in his vernacular language and in Latin, but was equally distinguished as a scholar.

• Politian has an interesting analogy in the Hellenistic world

• His works include several translations from the Greek. There is a fluent version of the late historian Herodian and some short essays by Epictetus and Plutarch.

The First Printed Greek Texts

Aldus Manutius• The new art of printing

in 15th to 17th century are difficult to design a suitable founts.

• Some of the early printers produce expensive and unsatisfactory in appearance.

• The lack of demand for Greek texts in sufficient numbers makes a difficulty.

• Aldus Manutius (1449-1515) had the idea of setting up a publishing house primarily for the printing of Greek texts.

• From 1494 to 1515 the Aldine press issued a great series of editions of classical texts.

Marcus Musurus

• Cretan Marcus Musurus (c. 1470-1517) was a great scholar.

• He helps Aldine in publishing many Greek books.

• He corrects many mistakes and errors in old manuscripts.

• He was very smart and had linguistic competence.

• Unfortunately, his contributions to classical scholarship were not easy to estimate because in most cases, the copies of the authors were lost.

Erasmus (c. 1469-1536)

Erasmus• Erasmus was also a figure who

commands attention.• In 1506, He went to Italy to

improve his knowledge. Then he made a contact with Aldus.

• They collaborated together in publishing Adagia, a collection of proverbs with accompanying comments and the Enchiridion militis Christiani, in which the blunt expression of his view of piety had caused some offence to ecclesiastical authorities.

• Much later in his career he wrote a pamphlet on the correct pronunciation of Greek, which led to the widespread adoption of what is called the Erasmian pronunciation.

• According to Erasmus, texts are to be studied in the original language rather than translation.

• His services to classical Greek are comparatively small.

• His contribution to Latin literature is much greater