Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/161

Rh  In narrating the history of this literature, we have at the earliest stage to treat separately those who used the classical i ari g ua g e an( } those who used the vulgar. In both cases we cannot draw a fast line at the date of the fall of Con- stantinople, for, though that event is of great importance in the history of the Greeks as a people, it does not constitute a b rea i c i n the literary history. It is often imagined that the dispersion of the Greeks in 1453 stood in close con nexion with the revival of literature in Western Europe. But the fact is that the Greeks had come into contact with the Westerns long before, and their influence had become decided before the Turks seized the capital of the Greek empire. The crusades had brought Greeks and Latins together. The Latin empire in Constantinople had made the contact still more frequent. Greeks and Latins had entered into keen discussion on the truth of the dogmas in regard to which they differed. Some of the Greeks had become converts to Roman Catholicism, or at least desired the union of the Eastern and Western Churches. In these circumstances they often left their native land to seek pre ferment in the church in which they could labour with greater sympathy. Many of them also had become connected by marriage or other ties with the Italian nobles who ruled in theJ^gean, and circumstances led them to settle in Italy. Of the Greeks who thus found their way to the West before the taking of Constantinople, the most prominent were Leon or Leontios Pilatos, Georgios Gemistos Plethon, Manuel and John Chrysoloras, Theodores Gazis, Georgios Trapc- zuntios, and Cardinal Bessarion. Hody has given a full account of most of these men in his work De Greeds illus- tribns Linr/uce Grcecce Literarumque Humaniorum Instaura- toribus (London, 1742). Pilatos was a native of Thessalo- nica and a pupil of Barlaam, a Calabrian monk who taught Petrarch Greek. Pilatos himself taught Boccaccio his native language, and expounded Homer in Florence. He died in 1364. Gemistos was a native of Lacedsemon. He taught in Constantinople, Athens, and Florence, and had in all places a large number of pupils who eagerly imbibed his Platonic teachings. His works were numerous, but most of them still lie hid in the great libraries of Europe unpub lished. Manuel Chrysoloras was one of the pupils of Gemistos, and is famous as the translator of Homer and Plato. Both he and his brother John had many illustrious men as their pupils in Greek. Manuel taught in Milan, Venice, Padua, and Rome. He has the merit of composing the first Greek grammar that appeared in the West (epcoTr//xara), published for the first time in Venice (1484). He made his first visit to Italy in 1393 in the capacity of ambassador from the Greek emperor to seek aid against the Turks, and he returned to Italy on the accomplishment of his mission that he might spread the knowledge of Greek literature. He was sent as deputy to the council of Con stance, and he died in Italy in 1415. Theodores Gazis, a native of Thessalonica, fled from his native place in 1430, and became a teacher of Greek in Ferrara, Rome, and Florence. He prepared a Greek grammar in four books (first published in Venice 1495), which continued for a long time to be a text-book in Greece and other countries. He translated many of the classical writers, and wrote on the ancient history of the Turks and on theological subjects. He died in 1478 in Calabria, where he had settled in his old age. Georgios Trapezuntios was born in Crete in 1396. He Deceived the appellation of Trapezuntios because his family had come from Trebizond. A Venetian noble took him to Venice to teach Greek in 1428. He removed to Rome in 1440, where he remained till 1450, at first highly honoured, but subsequently, through the bitterness of his temper, falling into disgrace. After that he led a wandering and miserable life, and died in 1486. He translated many of the Greek writers into Latin, and wrote a treatise in which he com pared Plato with Aristotle. Cardinal Bessarion was a native of Trebizond. He received his education in Constantinople. In 1425 he went to the Peloponnesus to hear Gemistos expound the philosophy of Plato. In 1439 he removed to Italy, after he had been made archbishop of Nicaea, because the Greeks bitterly resented his attachment to the party which saw no difficulty in a union between the Western and Eastern Churches. He rose to great honour in the West, obtaining the cardinal s hat. He died in Ravenna in 1472. He was passionately attached to the classical literature of his country, and took a profound interest in the education of his fellow-countrymen. He aided in the most liberal manner all the men of ability who came from Greece. He made a large collection of manuscripts. He translated portions of Xenophon, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and other Greek writers, and he wrote on the theological questions of the day.

The Greeks who were most prominent in spreading a The knowledge of Greek in Europe after the fall of Constant!- Greel nople are Joannes Argyropoulos, Demetrios Chalcocondyles, j^ 1 Constantine and John Lascaris, and Marcus Musuros. Con- Argyropoulos was a native of Constantinople, and there slant: taught Constantine Lascari?. In the West he taught at nople various times in Padua (1434), Florence (1456), and Rome (1471), and had amongst his scholars Angelus Politianus and Reuchlin. He translated many of the works of Aristotle. Chalcocondyks was a native of Athens and became teacher of Greek in Florence in 1471 ; after some time he removed to Milan, where he died in 1511. He edited very many of the Greek authors. Constantine Lascaris, descended from a noble Bithynian family, taught Greek in various Italian cities, and finally settled in Sicily, where he died about 1500. He wrote a large number of works, most of them still unpublished. His best known work is his Grammar. He also transcribed manuscripts, and made a large collection of them. His name is well known to modern readers through the romance of Villemain (Lascaris ou Ics Grecs du XV me siecle). John was probably the younger brother of Constantine. He was principally employed in collecting manuscripts for the great men of the day, wrote several works, and edited several Greek books for the first time. He died at Rome in 1535.

Almost all these men were rather employed about literature than engaged in producing it. They taught Greek ; several of them wrote Greek grammars ; they transcribed and edited Greek classical writers ; and they collected manuscripts. Bessarion laid the foundation of the library of St Mark in Venice. The collections of Constantine Lascaris formed the nucleus of the Escorial library ; John Lascaris and his pupil Budieus gathered the first stores for the national library in Paris ; and Pope ^Nicholas V. employed the services of Bessarion, Gazis, and C. Lascaris in establishing the Vatican library. But almost none of these men accomplished much in literature strictly so-called. The question which most deeply interested them was the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Somehow or other the championship of Plato was undertaken by those Greeks who eagerly desired the union of the Greek and Latin churches, and the philosophy of Aristotle was uj held by the opposite party. Gennadios, whom Mahomet II. appointed as patriarch of Constantinople after the capture of the city, showed himself a keen partisan of the Stagirite, and hurled his thunderbolts against the Platonists. Gemistos Plethon was the chief defender of the Platonic philosophy, and received unmeasured abuse from George of Trebizond for his heterodox opinions. The works on these subjects were numerous, but beyond these theological questions (for they were theological rather than philosophical) there is not much. Scholarship continued to survive in Greece or among the Greeks for a long time after the 