After the
Fall of Constantinople Lascaris was taken to the
Peloponnese and to
Crete. When still quite young he came to
Venice, where
Bessarion became his patron, and sent him to learn Latin at the
University of Padua. On the death of Bessarion,
Lorenzo de' Medici welcomed him to
Florence, where Lascaris gave Greek lectures on
Thucydides,
Demosthenes,
Sophocles, and the
Greek Anthology. Lorenzo sent him twice to Greece in quest of manuscripts. When he returned the second time (1492) he brought back about two hundred from
Mount Athos. Meanwhile, Lorenzo had died. Lascaris entered the service of the
Kingdom of France and was ambassador of king
Louis XII at Venice from 1503 to 1509. Upon the conclusion of the anti-Venetian
League of Cambrai in December 1508, Lascaris was recalled from Venice and left the city in January 1509. During his stay in Venice, he became a member of the New Academy of
Aldus Manutius; but if the printer had the benefit of his advice, no Aldine work bears his name. He resided at Rome under
Leo X, the first pope of the Medici family, from 1513 to 1518, returned under
Clement VII in 1523, and
Paul III in 1534. In the meantime he had assisted
Louis XII in forming the library of
Blois, and when
Francis I had it removed to
Fontainebleau, Lascaris and
Guillaume Budé had charge of its organization. Lascaris prepared a number of
editiones principes, among them the
Anthologia Graeca (1494), four plays of
Euripides,
Callimachus (about 1495),
Apollonius Rhodius,
Lucian (1496), printed in Florence in Greek capitals with accents, the D-
scholia (Rome 1517), the scholia of
Porphyrius (1518) on
Homer (Rome 1518), and the scholia vetera on
Sophocles (Rome 1518). Among his pupils were
Alessandra Scala,
Marco Musuro,
Germain de Brie,
Dimitrije Ljubavić, and
Jacques Dubois. He was buried in the gothic church of ''
Sant'Agata de' Goti, Rome''. On his memorial the following epigram is inscribed, composed by himself: and he does not blame her [the land] that she is very foreign, oh stranger. He found her sweet. But he is worried about the Achaeans [the Greeks], because their country does not cover them with free soil. }} ==See also==