Demetrius Chalcondyles

Who was Demetrius Chalcondyles?

Demetrios Chalkokondyles, Latinized as Demetrius Chalcocondyles and found variously as Demetricocondyles, Chalcocondylas or Chalcondyles, was a Greek humanist, scholar and Professor who taught the Greek language in Italy for over forty years; at Padua, Perugia, Milan and Florence. Among his pupils were Janus Lascaris, Poliziano, Leo X, Castiglione, Giglio Gregorio Giraldi, Stefano Negri, and Giovanni Maria Cattaneo, he was associated with Marsilius Ficinus, Angelus Politianus, and Theodorus Gaza in the revival of letters in the Western world. One of his pupils at Florence was the famous Johann Reuchlin. Chalkokondyles published the first printed publications of Homer, of Isocrates, and of the Suda lexicon. In 1463 Chalkokondyles delivered an exhortation for crusade and the recovery and liberation of his homeland Greece from the invading Ottoman Turks. He was one of the most eminent Greek scholars in the West and also contributed to Italian Renaissance literature and was the last of the Greek humanists who taught Greek literature at the great universities of the Italian Renaissance.