10 Facts About Demetrios Chalkokondyles

Demetrios Chalkokondyles, Latinized as Demetrius Chalcocondyles and found variously as Demetricocondyles, Chalcocondylas or Chalcondyles, was one of the most eminent Greek scholars in the West.

Demetrios Chalkokondyles taught in Italy for over forty years; his colleagues included Marsilio Ficino, Poliziano, and Theodorus Gaza in the revival of letters in the Western world, and Chalkokondyles was the last of the Greek humanists who taught Greek literature at the great universities of the Italian Renaissance.

Demetrios Chalkokondyles was born in Athens in 1423 to one of the noblest Athenian families; he was the cousin of Laonicus Chalcocondyles, the chronicler of the fall of Constantinople.

Demetrios Chalkokondyles soon moved to the Peloponnese, with his Athenian family who had migrated after its persecution by the Florentine dukes.

Demetrios Chalkokondyles migrated to Italy in 1447 and arrived at Rome in 1449 where Cardinal Bessarion became his patron.

Demetrios Chalkokondyles became the student of Theodorus Gaza and later gained the patronage of Lorenzo de Medici, serving as a tutor to his sons.

In 1463 Demetrios Chalkokondyles was made professor at Padua, and later, at Francesco Philelpho's suggestion, in 1479 he took over the place of Ioannis Argyropoulos, as the head of the Greek Literature department and was summoned by Lorenzo de Medici to Florence.

Demetrios Chalkokondyles assisted Marsilio Ficino with his Latin translation of Plato.

Demetrios Chalkokondyles taught Alessandra Scala, the Florentine Greek and Latin poet.

Demetrios Chalkokondyles married in 1484 at the age of sixty-one and fathered ten children.