Michael Apostolius
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
- "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
- ^ a b c d The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1991. pp. 140–141, s.v. Apostoles, Michael. ISBN 0195046528.
- ^ a b c Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Apostolii Bisantii Paroemiae, Basel, 1538.
- ^ Michaelis Apostolii Paroemiae, ed. Daniel Heinsius, Leiden, 1619.
- ^ E. L. a Leutsch, ed., Corpus paroeimiographorum Graecorum, Gottingen, 1851, vol. 2, pp. 233–744.
References
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Apostolius, Michael". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
