CALCONDYLA. - I. DEMETRIUS. Greek humanist, grammarian and philologist, b. in Constantinople, of an Athenian family, in 1423 and d. in Milan in 1511. From Athens, where he spent his youth, he went to Rome in 1447. Theodore Gaza was his protector and teacher of Latin and introduced him to Cardinal Bessarion. C. taught Greek at Perugia from 1450 and took part in the polemics between Platonists and Aristotelians. He was called from Venice to teach Greek at Padua in 1463. There he had as pupils Janus Lascaris, Varino Favorino Camerte, Antonio Campano and Giovanni Lorenzi, later librarian of Innocent VIII, who preserved for us eight letters of C. In 1466 C. was engaged in transcribing and emending the Planudean Anthology. Having finished in 1472 his Paduan appointment, he returned to Rome and, after hardships and difficulties, recommended by Filelfo, in 1475 he obtained in Florence the chair already held by Argyropoulos. C.'s most significant work in this period was the editio princeps of Homer (1488); C. also cooperated in the revision of Ficino's Platonic version. Among his pupils he had Poliziano, the sons of Lorenzo de' Medici, Pietro and Giovanni, the future Pope, Bernardo Nerli and Reuchlin, who preserved for us two letters of his. Called by Ludovico Sforza, in 1491 he moved to Milan, where among others he had as pupils Castiglione and Trissino.

In 1494 he published the Erotémata, a Greek grammar in dialogue form, in 1493 he edited the editio princeps of Isocrates and in 1499 that of the Suda; posthumously there appeared the Latin version of opuscules of Galen. He had the virtues and the defects of the humanists; in the emendation of texts, « penetrating, as Sandys defines him, not free from arbitrariness ».

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: A. Badini-Confalonieri and F. Gabotto, Notizie bibliografiche di D. C., in Giornale Ligustico, 19 (1882), pp. 241-98 and 321-36; E. Legrand, Bibliographie hellénique des XVᵉ et XVIᵉ siècles, Paris 1885, pp. xcv-ct and 304-11; H. Noiret, Huit lettres de D. C., in Mélanges d'archéol. et d'hist., 7 (1887), pp. 472-500; E. Motta, D. C. editore, in Archivio storico lombardo, 20 (1893), pp. 143-66; G. Cammelli, Manuele Crisoloro, Florence 1941; id., Giovanni Argiropulo, ibid. 1941; P. Paschini, Un ellenista veneziano del Quattrocento: Giov. Lorenzi, in Archivio veneto, 73 (1943), p. 141 ff.

Raffaello Prati

CALCONDÌLA, DEMETRIO - Portrait in the fresco by Zaccaria at the Temple of Ghirlandaio (1490) - Florence, church of S. M. Novella.(phot. Alinari)

II. LAONICUS. Historian, a relative of the preceding, b. in Athens ca. 1430 to George C. and d. after 1480. Following the Turkish conquest of the Peloponnese (1461), C. took refuge in Crete, becoming a priest and protopapa of Chania, as well as teaching and reworking his history entitled Historical Demonstrations in ten books.

In it, which covers the period between the year 1298 and 1464, L. C., imitating with affectation the style of Herodotus and Thucydides, describes the reasons for the triumph of the Turks, enemies of Greece, and extends the narrative also beyond the borders of his homeland, especially to Italy.

The work, not free from chronological and factual errors, often proves obscure, heavy and monotonous.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: E. Darkò, Laonici Chalcondylae historiarum demonstrationes, Budapest 1922-27; Krumbacher, pp. 219, 228 f., 302 ff., 306; W. Miller, The last Athenian Historian: Laonihos Chalcondyles, in Journal of Hellenic studies, 42 (1922), pp. 36-49; E. Darkò, Zum Leben des L. C., in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 24 (1913), pp. 29-39; id., Neue Beiträge zur Biographie des L. C., ibid., 27 (1927), pp. 276-85.

Alberto Galleti

@incollection{ec3_calcondila, author = {Galieti, Alberto and Prati, Raffaello}, title = {Calcondìla}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {330--331}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/calcondila} }

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Calcondyla

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