Michael Apostolius (Greek: Μιχαὴλ Ἀποστόλιος or Μιχαὴλ Ἀποστόλης; c. 1420 in Constantinople – after 1474 or 1486, possibly in Venetian Crete)[1] or Apostolius Paroemiographus, i.e. Apostolius the proverb-writer, was a Greek teacher, writer and copyist who lived in the fifteenth century.

Life

Apostolius, a student of John Argyropoulos, taught for a short time at the Monastery of St. John of Petra in Constantinople.[1] Taken prisoner by the Turks during the fall of Constantinople in 1453, he was later released and fled to Crete, then a Venetian colony.[1] There he earned a scanty living by teaching and by copying manuscripts for Italian humanists, including his patron, Cardinal Bessarion.[2][1] He often complained about his poverty: one of his manuscripts, a copy of the Eikones of Philostratus, now in Bologna, bears the inscription: "The king of the poor of this world has written this book for his living."[2]

Apostolius died about 1480, leaving a son, Arsenius Apostolius, who became bishop of Malvasia (Monemvasia) in the Morea.[2]

Selected works

  • Παροιμίαι (Paroemiae, Greek for "proverbs"), a collection of proverbs in Greek
    • an edition published in Basel in 1538[3]
    • a fuller edition edited by Daniel Heinsius ("Curante Heinsio") and published in Leiden in 1619[4]
    • a critical edition edited by E. L. a Leutsch and published in Gottingen in 1851[5]
  • "Oratio Panegyrica ad Fredericum III." in Freher's Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, vol. ii. (Frankfort, 1624)
  • Georgii Gemisthi Plethonis et Mich. Apostolii Orationes funebres duae in quibus de Immortalitate Animae exponitur (Leipzig, 1793)
  • a work against the Latin Church and the council of Florence in Le Moine's Varia Sacra.

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1991. pp. 140–141, s.v. Apostoles, Michael. ISBN 0195046528.
  2. 1 2 3 Chisholm 1911.
  3. ↑ Apostolii Bisantii Paroemiae, Basel, 1538.
  4. ↑ Michaelis Apostolii Paroemiae, ed. Daniel Heinsius, Leiden, 1619.
  5. ↑ E. L. a Leutsch, ed., Corpus paroeimiographorum Graecorum, Gottingen, 1851, vol. 2, pp. 233–744.

References

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