(Πλανούδης), surnamed MAXIMUS, was one of the most learned of the Constantinopolitan monks of the last age of the Greek empire, and was greatly distinguished as a theologian, grammarian, and rhetorician; but his name is now chiefly interesting as that of the compiler of the latest of those collections of minor Greek poems, which were known by the names of Garlands or Anthologies (Στέφανοι, Ἀνθολογίαι). Planudes flourished at Constantinople in the first half of the fourteenth century, under the emperors Andronicus II. and III. Palaeologi. In A. D. 1327 he was sent by Andronicus II. as ambassador to Venice. Nothing more is known of his life with any certainty, except that he was somewhat disposed to the tenets of the Roman Church, which, however, a short imprisonment seems to have induced him to renounce. (See Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. xi. p. 682, and the authorities quoted in Harles's note.)
As the Anthology of Planudes was not only the latest compiled, but was also that which was recognised as The Greek Anthology, until the discovery of the Anthology of Constantinus Cephalas, this is chosen as the fittest place for an account of the