Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/340

 A R G E N S. ly tinflured with libertinifm, and the'worft fort of free- thinking. His (tile is very difFufe, and void of nerves. ARGYROPYLUS (JOANNES), one of the firft of thofe learned perlons, who fled into Italy upon the taking of Con- ftantinope by Mahomet II. in 1453, anc ^ contributed to the revival of the Greek learning in the weft. Cofmo de Medi- cis, Duke of Tufcany, made him profeflbr of Greek at Flo- rence, and appointed him preceptor to his Ton Peter, and to FTodius de his grandfon Laurence. He had feveral illuftrious pupils at Graecis Florence, to whom he read letfures in the Greek language JllulinbuS, j L.-I / L i n o t> &c. 1742, and philoiophy ; and among the reft Angelus Pclitianus. Svo. In 1456, he went into France, to implore the afliftance of Charles Vil. in behalf of fome friends and relations, whom he wanted to redeem from Turkifh flavery* He continued inany years in his profeflTorfhip at Florence ; but the plague at length obliging him to quit it, he went to Rome, where he publicly read lectures upon the Greek text of Ariftotle. He was carried off by an autumnal fever, which he got by an in- temperate eating of melons, in the joth year of his age, and (as is believed) foon after his fettlement in Rome; but the time of his death is uncertain, only that it muft have been after 1478, becaufe he furvived Theodorus Gaza, who died in that year. He was allowed to be prodigioufly learned, but it does not feem to have civilized or foftened his manners ; for he is reprefented as having been very capricious and very morofe. He affirmed, that Cicero underftood neither the Greek language nor philofophy : he is fuppofed to have con- ceived a peculiar prejudice againft Cicero for faying, that the Greek was a language verborum inops^ poor and fcanty in words. He was a great epicure, and fpent all his falaries, though very confiderable, in good eating and drinking. He was not fo ferious about his latter end, but that he bequeathed his debts in form to his richer friends, almoft in the very at of dying. He tranflated feveral pieces of Ariftotle into La- tin, which language he alfo underftood very well. He left fome learned fons. i ARIANS. See ARIUS. ARIOSTO (LoDOVico, or LEV/IS), a celebrated Italian poet, defcendtd of a good family, and born at the caftle of Ke^io, in Lombardy, in 1474. He foon gave marks of his great genius j for when very young, he compofcd feveral I excellent