# Demetrios Chalkokondyles

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Greek scholar (1423–1511)

Demetrios Chalkokondyles Δημήτριος Χαλκοκονδύλης Chalkokondyles,[1][2][3][4][5] detail of Zachariah in the Temple by Domenico Ghirlandaio. Fresco. Santa Maria Novella, Cappella Tornabuoni, Florence, Italy. 1486–1490. Born August 1423 (1423-08) Athens, Duchy of Athens Died 9 January 1511(1511-01-09) (aged 87) Milan, Duchy of Milan Occupation Scholar, politician, diplomat, philosopher Nationality Greek[6] Literary movement Renaissance Relatives Laonikos Chalkokondyles

**Demetrios Chalkokondyles** ([Greek](/source/Greek_language): Δημήτριος Χαλκοκονδύλης *Dēmḗtrios Chalkokondýlēs*), [Latinized](/source/Latinisation_of_names) as **Demetrius Chalcocondyles** and found variously as **Demetricocondyles**, **Chalcocondylas** or **Chalcondyles** (1423 – 9 January 1511),[7] was one of the most eminent [Greek](/source/Greek_people) scholars in the West. He taught in Italy for over forty years; his colleagues included [Marsilio Ficino](/source/Marsilio_Ficino), [Poliziano](/source/Poliziano), and [Theodorus Gaza](/source/Theodorus_Gaza) in the revival of letters in the Western world, and Chalkokondyles was the last of the Greek [humanists](/source/Renaissance_humanism) who taught Greek literature at the great universities of the Italian Renaissance ([Padua](/source/University_of_Padua), [Florence](/source/University_of_Florence), [Milan](/source/University_of_Milan)). One of his pupils at Florence was the famous [Johann Reuchlin](/source/Johann_Reuchlin). Chalkokondyles published the first printed publications of [Homer](/source/Homer) (in 1488), of [Isocrates](/source/Isocrates) (in 1493), and of the [Suda](/source/Suda) lexicon (in 1499).[8]

## Life

Demetrios Chalkokondyles at the *Academie des sciences et des arts*, 1682

Demetrios Chalkokondyles was born in [Athens](/source/Athens) in 1423[6][9][10][11] to one of the noblest Athenian families; he was the cousin of [Laonicus Chalcocondyles](/source/Laonicus_Chalcocondyles), the chronicler of the [fall of Constantinople](/source/Fall_of_Constantinople). He soon moved to the [Peloponnese](/source/Peloponnese), with his Athenian family who had migrated after its persecution by the [Florentine](/source/Florence) dukes. He migrated to Italy in 1447[12] and arrived at [Rome](/source/Rome) in 1449 where [Cardinal Bessarion](/source/Cardinal_Bessarion) became his patron.[13] He became the student of [Theodorus Gaza](/source/Theodorus_Gaza) and later gained the patronage of [Lorenzo de Medici](/source/Lorenzo_de_Medici), serving as a tutor to his sons. Afterwards Chalkokondyles lived the rest of his life in Italy, as a teacher of Greek and philosophy. One of Chalkokondyles' Italian pupils described his lectures at Perugia, where he taught in 1450:

A Greek has just arrived, who has begun to teach me with great pains, and I to listen to his precepts with incredible pleasure, because he is Greek, because he is an Athenian, and because he is Demetrius. It seems to me that in him is figured all the wisdom, the civility, and the elegance of those so famous and illustrious ancients. Merely seeing him you fancy you are looking on Plato; far more when you hear him speak.[12]

Among his pupils were [Janus Lascaris](/source/Janus_Lascaris), [Poliziano](/source/Poliziano), [Leo X](/source/Leo_X), [Castiglione](/source/Baldassare_Castiglione), [Giglio Gregorio Giraldi](/source/Giglio_Gregorio_Giraldi), [Stefano Negri](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stefano_Negri&action=edit&redlink=1), and [Giovanni Maria Cattaneo](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Giovanni_Maria_Cattaneo&action=edit&redlink=1).[9]

In 1463 Chalkokondyles was made professor at [Padua](/source/University_of_Padua), and later, at [Francesco Philelpho](/source/Francesco_Philelpho)'s suggestion, in 1479 he took over the place of [Ioannis Argyropoulos](/source/Ioannis_Argyropoulos), as the head of the Greek Literature department and was summoned by [Lorenzo de Medici](/source/Lorenzo_de_Medici) to [Florence](/source/Florence).[13] Chalkokondyles composed several orations and treatises calling for the liberation of his homeland [Greece](/source/Greece)[14] from what he called “the abominable, monstrous, and impious barbarian Turks.”[15] In 1463 Chalkokondyles called on [Venice](/source/Republic_of_Venice) and "all of the [Latins](/source/Catholic_Church)" to aid the Greeks against the [Ottomans](/source/Ottoman_Empire), he identified this as an overdue debt[15] and reminded the Latins how the [Byzantine Greeks](/source/Byzantine_Greeks) once came to Italy's aid against the [Goths](/source/Goths) in the [Gothic Wars](/source/Gothic_War_(535%E2%80%93554)) (535–554 AD)

Just as she [Greece] had empended in their behalf [the Latins] all of her most precious and outstanding possessions liberally and without any parsimony, and had restored with her hand and force of arms the state of Italy, long ago oppressed by the Goths, they [the Latins] should in the same way now be willing to raise up prostrate and afflicted Greece and liberate it by arms from the hands of the barbarians.[15]

Gravestone in Milan.

It was during his tenure at the Studium in Florence that Chalkokondyles edited [Homer](/source/Homer) for publication, which, dedicated to [Lorenzo de' Medici](/source/Lorenzo_de'_Medici), is his major accomplishment. He assisted Marsilio Ficino with his Latin translation of [Plato](/source/Plato). During his tenure at Florence, the German classical scholar [Johannes Reuchlin](/source/Johannes_Reuchlin) was one of his pupils.[13] He also taught [Alessandra Scala](/source/Alessandra_Scala), the Florentine Greek and Latin poet.[16]

Chalkokondyles married in 1484 at the age of sixty-one and fathered ten children.[9] Finally, invited by [Ludovico Sforza](/source/Ludovico_Sforza), he moved to Milan (1491/1492), where he taught until he died.

## Works

He wrote in [Ancient Greek](/source/Ancient_Greek) the grammar handbook *Summarized Questions on the Eight Parts of Speech with Some Rules* (Ἐρωτήματα συνοπτικὰ τῶν ὀκτὼ τοῦ λόγου μερῶν μετὰ τινῶν κανόνων).[17] He translated [Galen](/source/Galen)'s *Anatomy* into Latin.[18]

As a scholar, Chalkokondyles published the *[editio princeps](/source/List_of_editiones_principes_in_Greek)* of Homer (Florence 1488), [Isocrates](/source/Isocrates) (Milan 1493) and the [Byzantine](/source/Byzantine) *[Suda](/source/Suda)* lexicon (1499).

- *Greek Grammar*, edited 1546 by [Melchior Volmar](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Melchior_Volmar&action=edit&redlink=1) in [Basel](/source/Basel)

- Latin translation of the *Anatomical Procedures* of [Galen](/source/Galen), edited and published in 1529 by [Jacopo Berengario da Carpi](/source/Jacopo_Berengario_da_Carpi)

- [Ἡ τοῦ Ὁμήρου ποίησις ἅπασα](https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10722775p/f5.image.r=DEMETRIUS%20Chalcondylas/), 1488, *[editio princeps](/source/Editio_princeps)* of Homer's *Iliad* and *Odyssey*, edited by [Bernardus Nerlius](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bernardus_Nerlius&action=edit&redlink=1) and Chalkokondyles, appeared in Florence, not before 13 January 1489, in two folio volumes. It was the first Greek book to be printed in Florence.[19] The Greek type used to print the 1488–1489 Homer is believed to have been cast by the [Cretan](/source/Crete) [Demetrius Damilas](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demetrius_Damilas&action=edit&redlink=1) from the type that he had used to print [Constantine Lascaris](/source/Constantine_Lascaris)' *[Erotemata](/source/Erotemata)* (Milan, 1476), the first book to be printed entirely in Greek, based upon the hand of Damilas's fellow scribe [Michael Apostolis](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Apostolis&action=edit&redlink=1).[20]

Page from the first printed edition ([editio princeps](/source/Editio_princeps)) of collected works by [Homer](/source/Homer) edited by Demetrios Chalkokondyles. Florence, 1489. [Bibliothèque Nationale de France](/source/Biblioth%C3%A8que_Nationale_de_France)

## See also

- [Chalkokondyles family](/source/Chalkokondyles)

- [Greek scholars in the Renaissance](/source/Greek_scholars_in_the_Renaissance)

## Citations

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Sandys, John Edwin (1908). *A History of Classical Scholarship ...: From the revival of learning to the end of the eighteenth century (in Italy, France, England, and the Netherlands)*. Cambridge : Univ. Pr. pp. 62–64. [OCLC](/source/OCLC_(identifier)) [312685884](https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/312685884). MARSILIO FICINO, CRISTOFORO LANDINO, ANGELO POLIZIANO, and DEMETRIUS CHALCOCONDYLES. Reproduced (by permission) from part of Alinari's photograph of Ghirlandaio's fresco on the south wall of the choir in Santa Maria Novella, Florence (ep. p.64 n.6)… A fresco in Santa Maria Novella painted by Ghirlandaio (d.1498) represents an apparently friendly group of scholars who have been identified as Ficino, Landino, Politian and Demetrius.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** Festa, Nicola (1935). *Umanesimo: Ventisette tavole fuouri testo*. U. Hoepli. p. 108. [OCLC](/source/OCLC_(identifier)) [3983429](https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/3983429).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Riccardi, Palazzo Medici (1939). *Mostra Medicea: Palazzo Medici, Firenze, 1939-XVII*. Casa Editrice Marzocco. p. 109. [OCLC](/source/OCLC_(identifier)) [7123855](https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/7123855). DEMETRIO CALCONDILA Ritratto: copia dall'originale di Domenico Ghirlandaio negli affreschi della cappella Tornabuoni in SM Novella (1490)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** Geanakoplos, Deno John (1979). *Medieval Western civilization and the Byzantine and Islamic worlds: interaction of three cultures*. D. C. Heath. p. 463. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-669-00868-5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-669-00868-5). This detail of a fresco by the painter Ghirlandaio in Santa Maria Novella, Florence.... Poliziano and Landino, and the Byzantine Demetrius Chalcocondyles, at the extreme right. The latter explained difficult passages in Plato to Ficino.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** Belloni, Gino; Fantoni, Marcello; Drusi, Riccardo (2007). *Il Rinascimento italiano e l'Europa, Volume 2*. [Fondazione Cassamarca](/source/Fondazione_Cassamarca). p. 596. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-88-89527-17-7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-88-89527-17-7). Demetrio Calcondila in un particolare dell'Apparizione dell'angelo a Zaccaria di Domenico Ghirlandaio, Firenze

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-Bisaha,_Nancy_1997_125_6-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-Bisaha,_Nancy_1997_125_6-1) Bisaha, Nancy (1997). *Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks*. Cornell University. p. 125. [OCLC](/source/OCLC_(identifier)) [44529765](https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/44529765).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** Petrucci, Armando (1973). ["CALCONDILA (Calcocondila, Χαλκονδύλης Χαλκοκανδύλης), Demetrio"](https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/demetrio-calcondila_(Dizionario-Biografico)/). *Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani* (in Italian). Vol. 16.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** ["Demetrius Chalcocondyles"](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/157045/Demetrius-Chalcocondyles). www.britannica.com. Retrieved 25 September 2009.

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-ValerianoGaisser_9-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-ValerianoGaisser_9-1) [***c***](#cite_ref-ValerianoGaisser_9-2) Valeriano, Pierio; Gaisser, Julia Haig (1999). *Pierio Valeriano on the ill fortune of learned men: a Renaissance humanist and his world*. University of Michigan Press. p. 281. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-472-11055-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-472-11055-1).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-10)** Stanford University; Libraries. Dept. of Special Collections; Carolan, James M.; Watson, Robert (1984). *Scholars, texts, traditions: the influence of classical antiquity in Western culture*. Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries. p. 31. [OCLC](/source/OCLC_(identifier)) [11666932](https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/11666932).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-11)** Hulme, Edward Maslin (2004). [*The Renaissance, the Protestant Revolution and the Catholic Reformation in Continental Europe*](https://archive.org/details/renaissanceprote00hulm_517). Kessinger Publishing. p. [91](https://archive.org/details/renaissanceprote00hulm_517/page/n98). [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-1-4179-4223-7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-4179-4223-7).

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-Cubberley-264_12-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-Cubberley-264_12-1) Cubberley, Ellwood Patterson (2008). *The History of Education Volume 1*. BiblioBazaar, LLC. p. 264. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-554-22523-4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-554-22523-4). Another Greek of importance was Demetrius Chalcocondyles of Athens (1424–1511), who reached Italy in 1447. In 1450 he became professor of Greek at Perugia.

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-EB1911_13-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-EB1911_13-1) [***c***](#cite_ref-EB1911_13-2) [Chisholm, Hugh](/source/Hugh_Chisholm), ed. (1911). ["Chalcondyles, Laonicus s.v. Demetrios Chalcondyles"](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Chalcondyles,_Laonicus). *[Encyclopædia Britannica](/source/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica_Eleventh_Edition)*. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 804.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-14)** Bisaha, Nancy (1997). *Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks*. Cornell University. p. 29. [OCLC](/source/OCLC_(identifier)) [44529765](https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/44529765).

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-Bisaha_15-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-Bisaha_15-1) [***c***](#cite_ref-Bisaha_15-2) Bisaha, Nancy (2006). *Creating East and West: Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks*. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 113–115. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-8122-1976-0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-8122-1976-0).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-:1_16-0)** Robin, Diana (2007). Robin, Diana; Larsen, Anne R.; Levin, Carole (eds.). *Encyclopedia of women in the Renaissance: Italy, France, and England*. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 332–333. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-1-85109-772-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-85109-772-2).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-17)** ["All Scholars: Chalkokondyles, Demetrius"](https://dbcs.rutgers.edu/all-scholars/chalkokondyles-demetrius). *Database of Classical Scholars*. Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-18)** Park, Katharine (2006). [*Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection*](https://books.google.com/books?id=bJvuAAAAMAAJ). Zone Books. p. 300. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-1-890951-67-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-890951-67-2).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-19)** ["Homer Editio Princeps"](https://library.chethams.com/collections/101-treasures-of-chethams/homer-editio-princeps/). *Chetham's Library*. Retrieved 7 January 2021.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-20)** Pache, Corinne Ondine, ed. (February 2020). ["Homer in Renaissance Europe (1488‒1649)"](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-guide-to-homer/homer-in-renaissance-europe-14881649/D1F4F1EB61E6F6B565B28EFEE8D5D341). [*The Cambridge Guide to Homer*](https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/8b665ada-1c19-4ebc-9183-f3e5c8753ee2). Cambridge University Press. pp. 490–504. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1017/9781139225649](https://doi.org/10.1017%2F9781139225649). [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9781139225649](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781139225649). [S2CID](/source/S2CID_(identifier)) [212932139](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:212932139).

## General and cited references

- Bisaha, Nancy. *Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks*, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006, pp. 113–15. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-8122-1976-0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-8122-1976-0).

- Geanakoplos, Deno J. "The Discourse of Demetrius Chalcocondyles on the Inauguration of Greek Studies at the University of Padua", *Studies in the Renaissance*, 21 (1974), 118–44 and in Deno J. Geanakoplos, *Interaction of the 'Sibling' Byzantine and Western Cultures in the Middle Ages and Italian Renaissance (330–1600)*, New Haven and London, 1976, pp. 296–304.

- Harris, Jonathan. *Greek Émigrés in the West, 1400–1520*, Camberley: Porphyrogenitus, 1995. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-1-871328-11-0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-871328-11-0).

- Proctor, Robert. *The Printing of Greek in the Fifteenth-Century*, London, 1930, pp. 66–9.

- Vassileiou, Fotis, & Barbara Saribalidou. *Short Biographical Lexicon of Byzantine Academics Immigrants to Western Europe*, 2007.

- Wilson, N. G. *From Byzantium to Italy: Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance*, London, 1992. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-7156-2418-0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-7156-2418-0).

## External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to [Demetrios Chalkondyles](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Demetrios_Chalkondyles).

- [Demetrios Chalkokondyles](https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=131576) at the [Mathematics Genealogy Project](/source/Mathematics_Genealogy_Project)

- "[The 'First Edition' of the *Iliad*](http://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/12/15/heres-where-you-can-buy-a-real-first-edition-copy-of-the-iliad/)", article about the textual history the *Iliad*

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