Nikolaos Sophianos

Who was Nikolaos Sophianos?

Nikolaos Sophianos was a Greek Renaissance humanist and cartographer chiefly noted for his Totius Graeciae Descriptio map and his grammar of Greek. He was born into the local nobility of Corfu at the beginning of the 16th century and was educated at the Greek Quirinal College in Rome, co-founded by another Greek scholar, Janus Lascaris, who also became his teacher along with Arsenius Apostolius. Sophianos did not return to live in Greece; only briefly visiting in 1543. He spent the rest of his life in Rome where he became a librarian, and Venice where he worked as a copyist. His cartographical work was published in 1540.