Leontius Pilatus

Leontius Pilatus (Greek: Λεόντιος Πιλάτος, Leontios Pilatos, Italian: Leonzio Pilato; died 1366) was an Italian scholar from Calabria and was one of the earliest promoters of Greek studies in Western Europe. Leontius translated and commented upon works of Euripides, Aristotle and Homer[1] including the Odyssey and the Iliad[2] into Latin and was the first professor of Greek in western Europe.[3]

Leontius Pilatus
BornLeontius Pilatus (Leonzio Pilato)
Seminara, Reggio Calabria, Calabria.
Died1366
Gulf of Venice
OccupationGreek literature, Latin literature, Theology and Philosophy
Literary movementItalian Renaissance

Biography

Leontius Pilatus was of Greek origin, born in Calabria.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] He was a disciple of Barlaam of Seminara.[11] Giovanni Boccaccio and Petrarch persuaded Leontius to produce a complete translation of the Homeric poems. For more than two years, from 1360 to 1362, Leontius lived in Boccaccio’s house in Florence, worked with him on Homer, and taught Greek. Boccaccio's mythological works, and especially, The Genealogy of the Pagan Gods were influenced by Leontius and his knowledge;[12] according to Edward Gibbon: "a work, in that age, of stupendous erudition, and which he ostentatiously sprinkled with Greek characters and passages, to excite the wonder and applause of his more ignorant readers."[13] Petrarch received copies of Leontius' translations around 1367, from Boccaccio. It is through this connection with Petrarch and Boccaccio, that the important contribution of Pilatus to the revival of Greek in Western scholarship was effected.[13] Petrarch's manuscripts contain a number of notes which show that he, like Boccaccio, gathered information on Greek mythology from Leontius. However, unlike Boccacio, Petrarch seems to have been disappointed with Leontius' translations.[12] Leontius had followed the word-for-word method used for translation from Greek into Latin in the West during the Middle Ages, which guarantees that the factual contents of the original are kept intact, but which does not entirely grasp the text's literary and stylistic qualities.[12] Collucio Salutati also owned copies of Leontius' translations of the Homeric poems, but like Petrarch, he was critical of them.[12] Marquis de Sade praised the "lively and dramatic manner" of Leontius' translations.[11] Pilatus was killed when lightning struck a ship's mast while he was standing against it, on a voyage from Constantinople.[14] He and his translations were made known in modern times through the writings and acknowledgments of Humphrey Hody and Marquis de Sade.[11]

See also

References
  1. Larner, John (1971). Culture and society in Italy, 1290-1420. Scribner. p. 247. ISBN 0-684-12367-3. His pupil, Leonzio Pilato, another Calabrian Greek, was persuaded by Boccaccio to go to Florence between 1360 and 1362, and there in the university he translated and commented upon Homer, Euripides, and Aristotle.
  2. Manguel, Alberto (2007). Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey: Books That Shook the World. Allen & Unwin. p. 94. ISBN 978-1-74114-900-5. Leonzio Pilato, a Calabrian monk of Greek origin, translated the Odyssey and the Iliad into Latin
  3. Highet, Gilbert (1985). The classical tradition: Greek and Roman influences on western literature. Oxford University Press US. p. 16. ISBN 0-19-500206-7. Leontius Pilatus, made the first professor of Greek in western Europe— at Florence, which long remained the centre of this activity.
  4. Holton David (1991). Literature and society in Renaissance Crete. Cambridge University Press. p. 3. ISBN 0-521-32579-X. Most significant is the information that around 1350 a Greek from Calabria by the name of Leontius Pilatus spent several years in Crete
  5. Grendler, Paul F. (2004). The universities of the Italian Renaissance. JHU Press. p. 78. ISBN 0-8018-8055-6. Boccaccio persuaded the commune to appoint Leonzio Pilato, a Greek from Calabria, to teach Greek, the first such professorship in western Europe.
  6. Larner, John (1971). Culture and society in Italy, 1290-1420. Scribner. p. 247. ISBN 0-684-12367-3. His pupil, Leonzio Pilato, another Calabrian Greek, was persuaded by Boccaccio to go to Florence between 1360 and 1362, and there in the university he translated and commented upon Homer, Euripides, and Aristotle.
  7. Witt, Ronald G. (2001). Italian humanism and medieval rhetoric. Ashgate. p. 99. ISBN 0-86078-875-X. Much has recently been learned of the scope of the work of Leonzio Pilato, the unpleasant Calabrian Greek, who held the first chair of Greek in the Florentine Studio in 1360/2.
  8. Foley, John Miles (2005). A companion to ancient epic. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 185. ISBN 1-4051-0524-0. interlinear translation by a highly disagreeable Calabrian Greek, Leonzio Pilato, who later died after being struck by lightning (the precedent did not inhibit later translators).
  9. Jayne, Sears Reynolds (1995). Plato in Renaissance England. Springer. pp. 3–4. ISBN 0-7923-3060-9. Like Petrarch, Boccaccio did not read Greek; the translator whom he planned to use was a visiting Greek named Leonzio Pilato whom he had hired out of his own pocket to teach Greek and to translate Homer.
  10. Manguel, Alberto (2007). Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey: Books That Shook the World. Allen & Unwin. p. 94. ISBN 978-1-74114-900-5. Leonzio Pilato, a Calabrian monk of Greek origin, translated the Odyssey and the Iliad into Latin
  11. Gibbon, Edward (1830). The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. By Edward Gibbon, Esq. Printed From The Edition In Twelve Volumes. With An Introductory Memoir Of The Author, By William Youngman. Joseph Ogle Robinson. p. 1209.
  12. Coulson, Frank; Babcock, Robert (2020). The Oxford Handbook of Latin Palaeography. Oxford University Press. pp. 556–557. ISBN 978-0-19-971425-4.
  13. Part 4, Ch. 66 online text
  14. Cronin, Vincent (1967). The Florentine Renaissance. Random House. ISBN 0-7126-9874-4.
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