Sixteenth-Century Greek Editions at Iowa

Abstract

The printing of Greek authors began late in the fifteenth century. The West had completely lost contact with this half of the GrecoRoman tradition by the fourteenth century, but the importation of the first Greek teacher of the Renaissance, Manuel Chrysoloras, from the East in 1397 permitted a few Florentines to become familiar with Hellenic literature again. This group hosted the Orthodox hierarchy at the Union Council in the second quarter of the fifteenth century and thereby opened new horizons in Greek literature for itself. The Turkish threat to Constantinople which prompted the Council soon sent great numbers of Greeks westward. By the time the city fell (1453) sizeable Greek colonies were established in most Italian urban areas. The largest by far was in Venice, which had itself maintained a colony of several thousand persons in Constantinople for many years. The Greeks apparently felt most comfortable among “Franks” they knew. These expatriates generally supported themselves by instructing young Italians in the Greek language and by scribal work for Italian bibliophiles. Their common interests led to the establishment of acade­ mies and, again, the most outstanding was located in Venice. Its founder was Aldus Manutius, a Roman who had set up a press at Venice in 1490. He wished to enjoy the relative security from politi­ cal strife available there and to avail himself of the wealth of schol­ arly talent in Venice and at the university in Padua. In the next twen­ ty-five years the Aldine Academy numbered among its members, at one time or another, most of the great Greek teachers of the period and most of the learned Italian hellenophiles. It even attracted schol­ ars from northern Europe, including Erasmus of Rotterdam. Aldus learned Greek while living with Pico della Mirandola in 1482, later being entrusted with the education of his nephew, Alberto