one of the latest of the scholars and writers of the Byzantine empire, was a native, not of Athens, as some have erroneously supposed, but of Thessalonica; and on the capture of that city by the Turks (A. D. 1430), he fled into Italy. He appears to have gone first to Mantua, where he studied the Latin tongue, under Victorinus of Feltre, who was then teaching at Mantua. In A. D. 1439 he was at the council of Florence ; and in 1440 he was at Sienna. He afterwards settled at Ferrara, where he was appointed rector and professor of Greek in the Gymnasium on its establishment (which took place under duke Lionel, who occupied the duchy from 1441 to 1450); and, by his talents and reputation, attracted students thither from all parts of Italy. At Ferrara he composed his elements of grammar. It has been said that before this appointment he was reduced to the greatest destitution; but this is doubtful, though he has himself recorded that he gained his subsistence at one time by transcribing books; and a copy of the Politica of Aristotle and of the Iliad of Homer, transcribed by him, were, a century since, and perhaps still are, extant at Venice.
In 1450 he was, with several other Greeks, invited to Rome by Pope Nicholas V., and was employed in translating the works of Greek authors into Latin. After the death of Nicholas, Theodore went (A. D. 1456) to Naples, where he obtained an honourable appointment from the king, Alfonso the Magnanimous, to whose favour he was recommended by Panonnita, the king's secretary. On the death of Alfonso (A. D. 1458), he returned to Rome, where he remained, under the patronage of Cardinal Bessarion, by whose recommendation he was provided with a benefice in the southern part of the kingdom of Naples; according to some statements, in Apulia, according to others in the country of the Bruttii, i. e. in Calabria. The benefice was itself small; and the fraud or carelessness of those who received the in come for him (as he continued to reside at Rome), made it still less. Disappointed in the hope of a reward for his literary labours (especially for his translations of Aristotle's De Historia Animalium) from the Pope (Sixtus IV.), whose niggardly recompense he is said to have thrown indignantly into the Tiber, he retired (according to the account most commonly received) to his benefice, and there ended his days. He was certainly buried there. Hody has, however, shown reason to doubt the truth of the story of his indignation at the Pope's niggardliness (although this niggardliness is made the subject of an indignant remonstrance by Melancthon, and of some bitter verses by Jul. Caes. Scaliger); and several authorities of the period in which he lived state that he died at Rome. It is remarkable that the place of the death of a man so eminent should be thus doubtful. Melchior Adam (Vitae Germanor. Philosoph., ed. 3d, p. 7) states that Rudolphus Agricola heard him (A. D. 1476 or 1477) " Aristotelis scripta enarrantem ;" an obscure expression, but which, if founded in fact, shows that he must have at least paid a visit to Ferrara during or after his second residence at Rome. His death occurred A. D. 1478, when he must have been far advanced in years.
[J.C.M]