Nicholas Leonicus Thomaeus or Tomaeus was a lesser known Albanian

Albanians

Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...

 Renaissance humanist and Aristotelic scholar and teacher who lived in 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...

 and 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...

 until 1497. He taught Greek philosophy and especially the texts of 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...

 and 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...

. He held the post for Aristotelian philosophy at the University of Padua

University of Padua

The University of Padua is a premier Italian university located in the city of Padua, Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 as a school of law and was one of the most prominent universities in early modern Europe. It is among the earliest universities of the world and the second...

.

Work

Tomaeus is known among philologists for his contribution to the translation of Plato's work Moralia

Moralia

The Moralia of the 1st-century Greek scholar Plutarch of Chaeronea is an eclectic collection of 78 essays and transcribed speeches. They give an insight into Roman and Greek life, but often are also fascinating timeless observations in their own right...

. There are letters written by Erasmus that attest to his respect for Tomaeus's personality and extraordinary scholarship. Among the editions that Tomaeus published were many of literary importance. He translated the work of the Greek traveller Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

 and also of the physician Galen

Galen

Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...

.

Sources

• Edwin E. Jacques, The Albanians : http://books.google.ca/books?id=IJ2s9sQ9bGkC&pg=PA196&lpg=PA196&dq=leonik+tomeu+copernicus&source=bl&ots=YIHUUhlWGI&sig=DqwLJtcITTCJgXy-gOcIYZgmSPM&hl=en&ei=OORxStjbGY_wsQPRwMDZCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
• A. Serena, Niccolò Leonico Tomeo, 1902;
• D. de Bellis, La vita e l'ambiente di Niccolo Leonico Tomeo, in: Quaderni per la storia dell'Universita di Padova 13, 1980; D. de Bellis, I veicoli dell'anima nell'analisi di Niccolo Leonico Tomeo, in: Universita di Firenze. Annali dell'Istituto di filosofia 3, 1981;
• D. J. Geanakoplos, The career of the little-known Renaissance Greek scholar Nicholas Leonicus Tomaeus and the ascendancy of Greco-Byzantine Aristotelianism at Padua University, in: Dorema ston 1. Karagiannopoulo, Byzantina. 13, 1985 (griech.).