A forgotten translation by Theodorus Gaza unveiled and its context

Guillermo Galán Vioque

doi:10.1515/bz-2020-0032

Abstract

Abstract The emigrant Byzantine humanist Theodorus Gaza (c. 1400 -1475) is well known as a teacher of Greek in various Italian cities, as a copyist of Greek manuscripts, and as a translator of Greek philosophical works into Latin. His undertakings as a translator of Latin works into Greek, among which his version of Cicero’s De senectute deserves mention, have gone relatively unnoticed. In this article we rediscover a largely forgotten translation of Cic. Fam. 1.1, despite it having been printed independently twice (Paris 1542 and 1548) and having been included as an example of translation in the oft reprinted manual of rhetorical exercises, Elementa rhetoricae (first printed in Basel in 1541), by the Lutheran Joachim Camerarius.

Highlights

The emigrant Byzantine humanist Theodorus Gaza (c. 1400 – 1475) is well known as a teacher of Greek in various Italian cities, as a copyist of Greek manuscripts, and as a translator of Greek philosophical works into Latin
Fam. 1.1, or perhaps there were other copies completely unbeknownst to us circulating among the humanists and libraries of Italy and beyond, but approximately fifty years later, this text found its way to Basel, where the German classical scholar and Lutheran theologian Joachim Camerarius included it as an example of translation from Latin into Greek in his Elementa rhetoricae siue capita exercitationum studii puerilis et stili ad comparandam utriusque linguae facultatem collecta
Since he belonged to a tradition that, starting from Byzantine times, began with Manuel Holobolos, Maximos Planudes, Georgios Pachymeres, and Sophonias, continued with authors such as Demetrios Kydones, his younger brother Prochoros Kydones, Manuel Kalekas, the contemporaries of Gaza Gennadios Scholarios and Konstantinos Laskaris, and persisted with later humanists, such as Denis Pétau and Adrien Turnèbe

Summary

Introduction

The emigrant Byzantine humanist Theodorus Gaza (c. 1400 – 1475) is well known as a teacher of Greek in various Italian cities, as a copyist of Greek manuscripts, and as a translator of Greek philosophical works into Latin. This manuscript contained three translations by Theodorus Gaza into Greek.

Results

Conclusion