Greek scholars in the Renaissance - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The migration of Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

scholars and other émigrés from southern Italy and Byzantium

Byzantium

Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

during the decline of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

(1203–1453) and mainly after the fall of Constantinople

Fall of Constantinople

The Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire, which occurred after a siege by the Ottoman Empire, under the command of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, against the defending army commanded by Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI...

in 1453 until the 16th century, is considered by some scholars as key to the revival of Greek

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

and Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

studies and subsequently in the development of the Renaissance humanism

Renaissance humanism

Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...

and science

History of science in the Renaissance

During the Renaissance, great advances occurred in geography, astronomy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, manufacturing, and engineering. The rediscovery of ancient scientific texts was accelerated after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the invention of printing which would democratize...

. These emigres were grammarians, humanists, poets, writers, printers, lecturers, musicians, astronomers, architects, academics, artists, scribes, philosophers, scientists, politicians and theologians. They brought to Western Europe the far greater preserved and accumulated knowledge of their own (Greek) civilization.

Their main role within the Renaissance humanism was the teaching of the Greek language

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

to their western counterparts in universities or privately together with the spread of ancient texts. Their forerunners were the southern Italians Barlaam of Calabria

Barlaam of Calabria

Barlaam of Seminara , ca. 1290-1348, or Barlaam of Calabria was a southern Italian scholar and clergyman of the 14th century. Humanist, philologist, and theologian. He brought an accusation of heresy against Gregory Palamas for the latter's defence of Hesychasm...

(Bernardo Massari) and Leonzio Pilato, whose impact on the very first Renaissance humanists was indisputable.

Collegio Pontifico Greco was a foundation of Gregory XIII, who established a college in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

to receive young Greeks belonging to any nation in which the Greek Rite was used, and consequently for Greek refugees in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

as well as the Ruthenians

Ruthenians

The name Ruthenian |Rus']]) is a culturally loaded term and has different meanings according to the context in which it is used. Initially, it was the ethnonym used for the East Slavic peoples who lived in Rus'. Later it was used predominantly for Ukrainians...

and Malchites of Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

and Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

. These young men had to study the sacred sciences, in order to spread later sacred and profane learning among their fellow-countrymen and facilitate the reunion of the schismatical churches. The construction of the College and Church of S. Atanasio, joined by a bridge over the Via dei Greci, was begun at once. The same year (1577) the first students arrived, and until the completion of the college were housed elsewhere.

Besides the southern Italians who inhabited ex-Byzantine territories of the peninsula which, in part, were still Greek-speaking and connected with the Byzantine culture, by 1500 there was a Greek community of about 5,000 in Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

. The Venetians also ruled Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

and Dalmatia

Dalmatia

Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....

, where many refugees also settled. Crete was especially notable for the Cretan School

Cretan School

The term Cretan School describes an important school of icon painting, also known as Post-Byzantine art, which flourished while Crete was under Venetian rule during the late Middle Ages, reaching its climax after the Fall of Constantinople, becoming the central force in Greek painting during the...

of icon

Icon

An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

-painting, which after 1453 became the most important in the Greek world.

Contribution of Greek scholars to the Italian Renaissance

Although ideas from ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

already enjoyed popularity with the scholars of the 14th century and their importance to the Renaissance was undeniable, the lessons of Greek learning brought by Byzantine intellectuals changed the course of humanism

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

and the Renaissance itself. While Greek learning affected all the subjects of the studia humanitatis, history and philosophy in particular were profoundly affected by the texts and ideas brought from Byzantium

Byzantium

Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

. History was changed by the re-discovery and spread of Greek historians’ writings, and this knowledge of Greek historical treatises helped the subject of history become a guide to virtuous living based on the study of past events and people. The effects of this renewed knowledge of Greek history can be seen in the writings of humanists on virtue, which was a popular topic. Specifically, these effects are shown in the examples provided from Greek antiquity that displayed virtue as well as vice. The philosophy of not only Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

but also Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

affected the Renaissance by causing debates over man’s place in the universe, the immortality of the soul, and the ability of man to improve himself through virtue. The flourishing of philosophical writings in the 15th century revealed the impact of Greek philosophy

Greek philosophy

Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BCE and continued through the Hellenistic period, at which point Ancient Greece was incorporated in the Roman Empire...

and science on the Renaissance. The resonance of these changes lasted through the centuries following the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

not only in the writing of humanists, but also in the education and values of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

and western society even to the present day.

Deno Geanakopoulos in his work on the contribution of Byzantine scholars to Renaissance has summarised their input into three major shifts to Renaissance thought: 1) In early 14th century Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

from the early, central emphasis on rhetoric to one on metaphysical philophy by means of introducing and reinterpretation of the Platonic texts, 2) In Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

-Padua

Padua

Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

by reducing the dominance of Averroist Aristotle

Aristotle

in science and philosophy by supplementing but not completely replacing it with Byzantine traditions which utilised ancient and Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

commentators on Aristotle, 3) and earlier in the mid 15th century in Rome, through emphasis not on any philosophical school but through the production of more authentic and reliable versions of Greek texts relevant to all fields of humanism and science and with respect to the Greek fathers of the church. Hardly less important was their direct or indirect influence on exegesis

Exegesis

Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...

of the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

itself through Bessarion's inspiration of Lorenzo Valla

Lorenzo Valla

Lorenzo Valla was an Italian humanist, rhetorician, and educator. His family was from Piacenza; his father, Luciave della Valla, was a lawyer....

's biblical emendations of the Latin vulgate

Vulgate

The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...

in the light of the Greek text.

List of notable Greek scholars

Alexander Helladius
Alexander Helladius
Alexander Helladius was an 18th century Greek scholar and humanist from Larissa in Greece, who studied at the Greek College of Oxford University and published several works on the Greek language and tradition.- Life and work:...

-Oxford, Nurenberg
Manuel Chrysoloras
Manuel Chrysoloras
Manuel Chrysoloras was a pioneer in the introduction of Greek literature to Western Europe during the late middle ages....

-Florence, Pavia, Rome, Venice, Milan
George Gemistos Plethon -Teacher of Bessarion
Bessarion
George of Trebizond
George of Trebizond
George of Trebizond was a Greek philosopher and scholar, one of the pioneers of the Renaissance.-Life:He was born on the island of Crete, and derived his surname Trapezuntius from the fact that his ancestors were from Trebizond.At what period he came to Italy is not certain; according to some...

-Venice, Florence, Rome
Theodorus Gaza
Theodorus Gaza
Theodorus Gaza or Theodore Gazis also called by the epithet Thessalonicensis and Thessalonikeus was a Greek humanist and translator of Aristotle, one of the Greek scholars who were the leaders of the...

-First dean of the University of Ferrara, Naples and Rome
John Argyropoulos
John Argyropoulos
John Argyropoulos was a Greek lecturer, philosopher and humanist, one of the émigré scholars who pioneered the revival of Classical learning in Western Europe in the 15th century...

-Universities of Florence, Rome
Laonicus Chalcocondyles
Demetrius Chalcondyles
Demetrius Chalcondyles
Demetrios Chalkokondyles, latinized as Demetrius Chalcocondyles and found variously as Demetricocondyles, Chalcocondylas or Chalcondyles , was a Greek humanist, scholar and Professor who taught the Greek language in Italy for over forty years; at Padua, Perugia, Milan and Florence...

-Milan
Theofilos Chalcocondylis
Chalcocondylis
Chalkokondyles or Chalcocondyles , also seen as Chalkokandeles or Charchandeles , was a Byzantine Greek noble family of Athens which was elected during the Florentine possession of the city. The family can be traced back to the 11th century. The most important members of this family are:* George...

-Florence
Constantine Lascaris
Constantine Lascaris
Constantine Lascaris was a Greek scholar and grammarian, one of the promoters of the revival of Greek learning in the Italian peninsula, born at Constantinople....

-University of Messina
University of Messina
The University of Messina is a public university located in Messina, Italy, and founded in 1548. The university is organized in 11 Faculties.-History:...
Henry Aristippus
Henry Aristippus
Henry Aristippus of Calabria, sometimes known as Enericus or Henricus Aristippus, was the archdeacon of Catania and later chief familiaris of the triumvirate of familiares who replaced the Emir Maio of Bari as chief functionaries of the kingdom of Sicily in 1161...
Michael Apostolius
Michael Apostolius
Michael Apostolius was a Greek theologian and rhetorician of the 15th century.- Life :...

-Rome
Aristobulus Apostolius
Aristobulus Apostolius
Aristobulus Apostolius was a son of Michael Apostolius and brother of Arsenius Apostolius. The time of his birth and death is not known. He became an archdeacon of Rome. He edited with a Greek preface the first edition of the Galeomyomachia, an imitation of the Batrachomyomachia. His work was...
Arsenius Apostolius
Arsenius Apostolius
Arsenius Apostolius was a Greek scholar who lived for a long time in Venice. He was also bishop of Monemvasia in the Peloponnese.-Life:Arsenius Apostolius was a son of Michael Apostolius and brother of Aristobulus Apostolius...
Demetrius Cydones
Demetrius Cydones
Demetrios Kydones, latinized as Demetrius Cydones or Demetrius Cydonius , was a Byzantine theologian, translator, writer and influential statesman, who served an unprecedented three terms as Mesazon of the Byzantine Empire under three successive emperors: John VI Kantakouzenos, John V Palaiologos...
Janus Lascaris
Janus Lascaris
Janus Lascaris , also called John Rhyndacenus , was a noted Greek scholar in the Renaissance.After the fall of Constantinople he was taken to the Peloponnese and to Crete...

or Rhyndacenus -Rome
Maximus the Greek
Maximus the Greek
Maximus the Greek, also known as Maximos the Greek or Maksim Grek , was a Greek monk, publicist, writer, scholar, humanist, and translator active in Russia...

studied in Italy before moving to Russia
Ioannis Kottounios
Ioannis Kottounios
Ioannis Kottounios, was an eminent Greek scholar who studied Philosophy, Theology and Medicine, taught Greek from 1617 and Philosophy from 1630 in Bologna, Italy becoming professor of philosophy in 1632 he also founded a college for unwealthy Greeks at Padua in 1653.- Biography :Ioannis...

-Padua
Konstantinos Kallokratos
Konstantinos Kallokratos
Konstantinos Kallokratos was a teacher and a poet.He was born in Veroia in 1589. He was a student at the Greek College of Ayios Athanasios in Rome between 1600 and 1610. There, he studied philosophy and theology. Later he taught at a school in Calabria for Greek-speaking Albanians. His bosom...
Barlaam of Seminara - He taught Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...

some rudiments of Greek language
Marcus Musurus
Marcus Musurus
Marcus Musurus was a Greek scholar and philosopher born in Retimo, Castello, Venetian Crete . The son of a rich merchant, he became at an early age a pupil of John Lascaris in Venice....

-University of Padua
Michael Tarchaniota Marullus
Michael Tarchaniota Marullus
Michael Tarchaniota Marullus or Michael Marullus was a Greek Renaissance scholar, poet of Neolatin, humanist and soldier.-Life:Michael Tarchaniota Marullus was born to a family of Greek ancestry. His biography is rather obscure, he was born in either Constantinople or near the site of ancient...

-Ancona and Florence, friend and pupil of Jovianus Pontanus
Jovianus Pontanus
Iovianus Pontanus was an Italian humanist and poet.-Biography:Pontanus was born at Cerreto in the Duchy of Spoleto, where his father was murdered in one of the frequent civil brawls which then disturbed the peace of Italian towns.His mother escaped with the boy to Perugia, and it was here that...
Leo Allatius
Leo Allatius
Leo Allatius was a Greek scholar, theologian and keeper of the Vatican library....

-Rome, librarian of the library of Vatican
Vatican Library
The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...
Demetrios Ducas
Leozio Pilatus
Leozio Pilatus
Leontius Pilatus, or Leontius , was a Calabrian scholar and was one of the earliest promoters of Greek studies in Western Europe...

- He taught Boccacio some rudiments of Greek language
Maximus Planudes
Maximus Planudes
Maximus Planudes, less often Maximos Planoudes , Byzantine grammarian and theologian, flourished during the reigns of Michael VIII Palaeologus and Andronicus II Palaeologus. He was born at Nicomedia in Bithynia, but the greater part of his life was spent in Constantinople, where as a monk he...

-Rome, Venice
Leonard of Chios
Leonard of Chios
Leonard of Chios was a Greek-born Roman Catholic prelate.-Biography:Leonard's birth is of an uncertain date on the Island of Chios, then under Genoese domination and died in either Chios or in Italy in 1482. He himself says he was of humble parents, and he entered the Dominican Order in Chios....

-Greek-born Roman Catholic prelate
Simon Atumano
Simon Atumano
Simon Atumano was the Bishop of Gerace in Calabria from 23 June 1348 until 1366 and the Latin Archbishop of Thebes thereafter until 1380. Born in Constantinople, Atumano was of Greco-Turkish stock, his surname deriving from the word "Ottoman." He was a famous humanist and an influential Greek...

-Bishop of Gerace in Calabria
Isidore of Kiev
Isidore of Kiev
Isidore of Kiev, also known as Isidore of Thessalonica was a Greek Metropolitan of Kiev, cardinal, humanist, and theologian. He was one of the chief Eastern defenders of reunion at the time of the Council of Florence.-Early life:...
Elia del Medigo
Elia del Medigo
Elias del Medigo, born under the name Elijah Mi-Qandia or Elijah mi-Qandia ben Moise del Medigo, also called in mauscripts as Elijah Delmedigo or Elias ben Moise del Medigo....

-Venice
George Hermonymus
George Hermonymus
George Hermonymus or Hermonymus of Sparta was a 15th century Greek scribe, diplomat, scholar and lecturer. He was the first person to teach Greek at the Collège de Sorbonne in Paris.- Life :...

-University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

, teacher of Erasmus, Reuchlin, Budaeus and Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples
Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples
Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples or Jacob Faber Stapulensis was a French theologian and humanist. He was a precursor of the Protestant movement in France. The "d’Étaples" was not part of his name as such, but used to distinguish him from Jacques Lefèvre of Deventer, a less significant contemporary, a...
John Chrysoloras
John Chrysoloras
John Chrysoloras was a relative of Manuel Chrysoloras, who like him had studied and taught at Constantinople and then migrated to Italy. There he was influential in spreading Greek letters in the West. He was a patron and teacher of fellow Renaissance humanist Francesco Filelfo whom his daughter...

-scholar and diplomat: relative of Manuel Chrysoloras
Manuel Chrysoloras
Manuel Chrysoloras was a pioneer in the introduction of Greek literature to Western Europe during the late middle ages....

, patron of Francesco Filelfo
Francesco Filelfo
Francesco Filelfo was an Italian Renaissance humanist.-Biography:Filelfo was born at Tolentino, in the March of Ancona. He is believed to be a third cousin of Leonardo Da Vinci. At the time of his birth, Petrarch and the students of Florence had already brought the first act in the recovery of...
Andronicus Contoblacas
Andronicus Contoblacas
Andronicus Contoblacas was a Greek Renaissance humanist and scholar. He was a lecturer at the University of Basel in Switzerland. He is noted for having been a teacher to Johann Reuchlin.-References:...

-Basel, teacher of Johann Reuchlin
Johann Reuchlin
Johann Reuchlin was a German humanist and a scholar of Greek and Hebrew. For much of his life, he was the real centre of all Greek and Hebrew teaching in Germany.-Early life:...
John Servopoulos
John Servopoulos
John Servopoulos was a Greek scribe and scholar. Few details are known of his life. He was originally from Constantinople but from at least 1484 he was living in England where he copied Greek manuscripts for a living. From 1489 he was apparently working from the abbey of Reading and he was active...

-Reading, Oxford; scholar, professor
Johannes Crastonis
Johannes Crastonis
Johannes Crastonis was a Greek renaissance humanist and scholar. He studied in Constantinople but migrated to Modena in Italy. There he published a Greek-Latin dictionary c.1480 -See also:*Greek scholars in the Renaissance...

Modena, Greek-Latin dictionary
Andronicus Callistus
Andronicus Callistus
Andronicus Callistus was one of the most able Greek scholars of the 15th century and cousin of the distinguished scholar Theodorus Gaza.- Life :...

-Rome
Ioannis Kigalas
Ioannis Kigalas
Ioannis Kigalas , , was a Greek scholar and professor of Philosophy and Logic who was largely active in Padova and Venice in the 17th century Italian Renaissance.- Biography :...

(ca. 1622 – 1687) Greek scholar and professor of Philosophy and Logic
Georgios Kalafatis (professor)
Georgios Kalafatis (professor)
Georgios Kalafatis was a Greek professor of theoretical and practical medicine who was largely active in Padua and Venice in the 17th century Italian Renaissance.- Biography :...

(ca. 1652 – ca. 1720) Greek professor of theoretical and practical medicine
Andreas Musalus
Andreas Musalus
Andreas Musalus was a Greek professor of mathematics, philosopher and architectural theorist who was largely active in Venice during the 17th-century Italian Renaissance.- Biography :...

(ca. 1665/6 – ca. 1721) Greek professor of Mathematics, Philosopher and Architectural theorist
Gerasimos Vlachos
Gerasimos Vlachos
Gerasimos Vlachos was a Greek scholar of the Renaissance.He was born in Heraklion, Crete but migrated to Venice early on and was a student and associate of fellow Greek scholar Theophilos Korydaleus. He specialised in Greek philosophy and among his many writings was The Definitive Harmony of...

-Venice
George Amiroutzes
George Amiroutzes
George Amiroutzes was a Pontic Greek Renaissance scholar and philosopher.He was born in Trebizond, lived and taught in Italy and eventually died in Constantinople. He is considered as a controversial figure of the late Byzantine era...

-Florence, Aristotelian
Gregory Tifernas
Gregory Tifernas
Gregory Tifernas was a Greek renaissance humanist from the Italian city of Città di Castello .He studied the Greek Classics under Manuel Chrysoloras and was the first teacher of Greek in France at the University of Paris...

-Paris teacher of Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples
Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples
Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples or Jacob Faber Stapulensis was a French theologian and humanist. He was a precursor of the Protestant movement in France. The "d’Étaples" was not part of his name as such, but used to distinguish him from Jacques Lefèvre of Deventer, a less significant contemporary, a...

and Robert Gaguin
Robert Gaguin
Robert Gaguin was a French Renaissance humanist and philosopher.He was an influential humanist, who was a friend of Publio Fausto Andrelini from Forlì, an associate of Erasmus and a student of Gregory Tifernas.-See also:*French Renaissance...
Nikolaos Sophianos
Nikolaos Sophianos
Nikolaos Sophianos was a Greek Renaissance humanist and cartographer chiefly noted for his Totius Graeciae Descriptio map and his grammar of Greek...

-Rome, Venice: scholar and geographer, creator of the Totius Graeciae Descriptio
Totius Graeciae Descriptio
Totius Graeciae Descriptio refers to an early regional map of Greece drawn by Renaissance humanist Nikolaos Sophianos that became a cartographical bestseller of the late 16th century.-Lost Editions:...
Zacharias Calliergi
Zacharias Calliergi
Zacharias Calliergi was a Greek Renaissance humanist and scholar. He was born in Crete but emigrated to Rome at a young age. In 1499 by helped to bring out the Etymologicum Magnum at Venice and in 1515 he set up a printing press where he published exclusively Greek volumes, among them the first...

-Rome
Mathew Devaris
Mathew Devaris
Mathew Devaris was a Greek scholar during the Renaissance.He was born in Corfu but migrated to Rome Italy at a young age. He was a student of Janus Lascaris and is known to have published Eustathius of Thessalonica's scholia or commentary on Homer between 1542-1550.-See also:*Greek scholars in the...

-Rome
Antonios Eparchos
Antonios Eparchos
Antonios Eparchos was a Greek Renaissance humanist, soldier and poet.He was born in Corfu and migrated to Venice in 1537. Later he was placed in charge of the Greek college of Milan.-See also:*Greek scholars in the Renaissance...

-Venice, scholar and poet
Maximos Margunios
Maximos Margunios
Maximos Margunios Bishop of Cyrigo , was a Greek Renaissance humanist. He was a teacher at the Greek school in Venice and noted Patriarch Cyril Lucaris was among his students, Margunios was a supporter of ecclesiastical Union with Rome and wrote on the theology of the procession of the Holy Spirit...

-Venice
Mathaeos Kamariotis
Mathaeos Kamariotis
Mathaeos Kamariotis was a Greek scholar of the Renaissance era.He was a lecturer at the University of Constantinople and the first director of the Patriarchal Academy of Constantinople founded by the Patriarch Gennadius as a continuation of the university after the Fall of Constantinople.-See...
Nikolaos Loukanis
Nikolaos Loukanis
Nikolaos Loukanis was a 16th-century Greek Renaissance humanist. He worked in Venice where in 1526 he produced a translation of Homer's Iliad into modern Greek which is credited as one of the first literary texts published in Modern Greek .-See also:*Greek scholars in the Renaissance...

-Venice
Iakovos Trivolis
Iakovos Trivolis
Iakovos Trivolis was a 16th century Greek Renaissance humanist and historian. He published a historical work titled History of Tayiaperas and histories of the King of Scotia and the Queen of England in modern Greek, works sometimes credited as among the first to be published in that language since...

-Venice
Janus Plousiadenos
Janus Plousiadenos
Janus Plousiadenos was a 15th century Greek Renaissance scholar, hymnographer and composer born in Crete. Plousiadenos was in favor of the Union of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches and wrote extensively on the subject. The 1455 Defensio synodi Florentinae, often misattributed to Gennadius...

-Venice, hymnographer and composer
Nicholas Leonicus Thomaeus
Nicholas Leonicus Thomaeus
Nicholas Leonicus Thomaeus or Tomaeus was a lesser known Albanian Renaissance humanist and Aristotelic scholar and teacher who lived in Padua and Venice until 1497. He taught Greek philosophy and especially the texts of Aristotle and Plato...

- Venice- Padua
Leonardos Philaras (1595–1673)-an early advocate for Greek independence
Greek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...
Nicholas Kalliakis
Nicholas Kalliakis
Nicholas Kalliakis was a Greek scholar and philosopher who flourished in Italy in the 17th century. He was appointed doctor of philosophy and theology in Rome, university professor of Greek and Latin and Aristotelian philosophy at Venice in 1666 and professor of belles-lettres and rhetoric at...

(Nicolai Calliachius) (1645–1707)-was a Greek scholar and philosopher who flourished in Italy.
Francesco Maurolico
Francesco Maurolico
Francesco Maurolico was a Greek mathematician and astronomer of Sicily. Throughout his lifetime, he made contributions to the fields of geometry, optics, conics, mechanics, music, and astronomy...

Printers, Artists & Patrons

El Greco
El Greco
El Greco was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" was a nickname, a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος .El Greco was born on Crete, which was at...

-Cretan painter, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
Antonio Vassilacchi
Antonio Vassilacchi
Antonio Vassilacchi, also called L'Aliense, was a Greekpainter, who was active mostly in Venice and the Veneto.-Biography:...

- painter from Milos
Milos
Milos , is a volcanic Greek island in the Aegean Sea, just north of the Sea of Crete...

worked in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

with Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi...
Michael Damaskenos -Venice, Cretan painter
Francisco Leontaritis
Francisco Leontaritis
Francisco Leontaritis or Francesco Londarit or Francesco Londarit, Franciscus Londariti, Leondaryti, Londaretus, Londaratus or Londaritus was a Greek composer, singer and hymnographer from today's Heraklion of the Venetian-dominated Crete at the Renaissance age...

-Italy, Bavaria: singer and composer
Anna Notaras
Anna Notaras
Anna Notaras was the daughter of Loukas Notaras, the last Megas Doux of the Byzantine Empire. She left Constantinople between 1440 and 1449 and went to Rome with her two sisters, so she avoided the fall of Constantinople and the massacre of her family...

-Venice, first Greek typing press
Thomas Flanginis
Thomas Flanginis
Thomas Flanginis was a wealthy Greek lawyer and merchant in Venice, who founded the Flanginian School, a Greek college where many teachers were trained. His family were originally from the island of Corfu.-See also:...

-Venice, funded the establishment of the Flanginian Greek school
Flanginian School
The Flanginian School was a Greek educational institution that operated in Venice, Italy, from 1664-1665 to 1905. The Flanginian produced several teachers that contributed to the modern Greek Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries.-Background:...

for teachers
Angelos Pitzamanos
Angelos Pitzamanos
Angelos Pitzamanos was a Greek Renaissance painter.He was born in Crete and migrated to Otranto, South Italy where he did most of his work. -See also:*Greek scholars in the Renaissance...

(1467–1535) Cretan painter Otranto
Otranto
Otranto is a town and comune in the province of Lecce , in a fertile region once famous for its breed of horses.It is located on the east coast of the Salento peninsula. The Strait of Otranto, to which the city gives its name, connects the Adriatic Sea with the Ionian Sea and Italy with Albania...

, South Italy
South Italy
South Italy is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics , a first level NUTS region and a European Parliament constituency. South Italy encompasses six of the country's 20 regions:*Abruzzo...
Emmanuel Tzanes
Emmanuel Tzanes
Emmanuel Tzanes was a Greek Renaissance painter.He was born in Crete and migrated to Venice where he did most of his work. He was one of the most respected Greek painters of his day. Tzanes was a member of the Cretan School and contemporary of another Cretan painter of Venice, Theodore...

-Venice, Cretan painter
Theodore Poulakis
Theodore Poulakis
Theodore Poulakis was a Greek Renaissance painter. He was born in Crete and migrated to Venice where he did most of his work. Poulakis was a member of the Cretan School and contemporary of another Cretan painter of Venice, Emmanuel Tzanes....

-Venice, painter
John Rhosos
John Rhosos
John Rhosos was a Greek Cretan scribe and calligraphist who lived and worked in 15th century Renaissance Italy. He copied and translated works of Classical literature in Venice, Florence, Rome and other cities of Italy. He worked for Bessarion and is considered by some to be one of the most...

-Rome, Venice well-known scribe

Sources

Deno J. Geanakoplos, Byzantine East and Latin West: Two worlds of Christendom in Middle Ages and renaissance. The Academy Library Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1966.
Deno J. Geanakoplos, (1958) A Byzantine looks at the renaissance, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 1 (2);pp:157-62.
Jonathan Harris, Greek Émigrés in the West, 1400-1520, Camberley: Porphyrogenitus, 1995.
Louise Ropes Loomis (1908) The Greek Renaissance in Italy The American Historical Review, 13(2);pp:246-258.
John Monfasani Byzantine Scholars in Renaissance Italy: Cardinal Bessarion and Other Émigrés: Selected Essays, Aldershot, Hampshire: Variorum, 1995.
Steven Runciman, The fall of Constantinople, 1453. Cambridge University press, Cambridge 1965.
Fotis Vassileiou & Barbara Saribalidou, Short Biographical Lexicon of Byzantine Academics Immigrants to Western Europe, 2007.
Dimitri Tselos (1956) A Greco-Italian School of Illuminators and Fresco Painters: Its Relation to the Principal Reims
Nigel G. Wilson. From Byzantium to Italy: Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

External links

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Contribution of Greek scholars to the Italian Renaissance

List of notable Greek scholars

Printers, Artists & Patrons

See also

Sources

External links