GAZA, TEODORO. - Greek humanist, b. at Thessalonica around 1398, d. at the Abbey of S. Giovanni a Piro in 1475. He took part in the Council of Ferrara-Florence and adhered to the union of the Greek and Latin Churches. Remaining in Italy, he learned Latin under Vittorino da Feltre at Mantua (1442-46); then he taught Greek at the University of Ferrara; from 1449 to 1455 he held at Rome, from Nicholas V, the chair of philosophy and the task of translating Greek writers into Latin. After some years spent at the court of Naples, he returned to Rome and obtained, through the support of Card. Bessarion, the commendam of the abbey of S. Giovanni a Piro (diocese of Policastro), where he lived in retirement until his death.
He composed a Greek grammar that was the first in the West, remained the only one for a long time and had very numerous reprints. He translated with the utmost elegance into Latin treatises of Aristotle (De natura animalium), of Theophrastus (De historia plantarum), of Alexander of Aphrodisias (Problemata). A learned Aristotelian, he composed various philosophical writings against Plethon (Adversus Pletonem pro Aristotele de substantialis; Antirreticam) and took an active part in the controversy between Platonists and Aristotelians. His austerity of life and integrity of character made him one of the finest figures of humanists of his time.
Editions: Institutiones grammaticae libri IV (Basiles 1540); Laudatio canis (PG 161, 985-88); De origine Turcarum (ibid., 997-1006); Epistolae (ibid., 1005-1014); the treatises of the Platonic-Aristotelian controversy, speeches and letters in L. Molher, Am Bessarius Gelehstenkreis (Quellen und Forschungen aus dem Gebiete der Geschichte, 24), Paderborn 1942.
Bibliography
(the oldest bibl.); A. Gerske, Theodoros G., Greifswald 1903; J. W. Taylor, A misunderstood tract by Theodore G., in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 1921, pp. 150-155; id., More light on Theodore G., in Travancetons and proceedings of the amer. philol. Ass., 46 (1923); id., Theodor Gaza's De Pato, University of Toronto 1928; R. Kieszkowski, Studi ad altanamam del Riancamento in Italia, Florence 1936, ch. 7; G. Salim, Il pensiero italiano nell'Umanismo e nel Riancimento, I, L'Umanismo, Bologna 1940, see indiv.
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