Demetrius Chalcondyles

Demetrios Chalkokondyles Δημήτριος Χαλκοκονδύλης
Demetrios Chalkokondyles, detail of Zachariah in the Temple by Domenico Ghirlandaio. Fresco. Santa Maria Novella, Cappella Tornabuoni, Florence, Italy. 1486–1490.
Born	August 1423 Athens, Duchy of Athens
Died	9 January 1511 Milan, Duchy of Milan
Occupation	Scholar, politician, diplomat, philosopher
Nationality	Greek
Literary movement	Renaissance

Demetrios Chalkokondyles (Greek: Δημήτριος Χαλκοκονδύλης), Latinized as Demetrius Chalcocondyles and found variously as Demetricocondyles, Chalcocondylas or Chalcondyles (1423 – 9 January 1511) was one of the most eminent Greek scholars in the West. He taught in Italy for over forty years; his colleagues included Marsilius Ficinus, Angelus Politianus, and Theodorus Gaza in the revival of letters in the Western world, and Chalkokondyles was the last of the Greek humanists who taught Greek literature at the great universities of the Italian Renaissance (Padua, Florence, Milan). One of his pupils at Florence was the famous Johann Reuchlin. Chalkokondyles published the first printed publications of Homer (in 1488), of Isocrates (in 1493), and of the Suda lexicon (in 1499).

Demetrios Chalkokondyles was born in Athens in 1423 to one of the noblest Athenian families and was the brother of the chronicler of the fall of Constantinople, Laonicus Chalcocondyles. He soon moved to the Peloponnese, with his Athenian family who had migrated after its persecution by the Florentine dukes. He migrated to Italy in 1447 and arrived at Rome in 1449 where Cardinal Bessarion became his patron. He became the student of Theodorus Gaza and later gained the patronage of 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: