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Letters Of Phalaris
The ''Epistles of Phalaris'' or ''Letters of Phalaris'' is a collection of 148 ancient Greek letters, all but one attributed to Phalaris, the Greek tyrant of Akragas in the 6th century BC. One is attributed to Abaris and addressed to Phalaris.. The letters are pseudepigrapha or forgeries composed sometime between the 4th century BC and the 4th century AD. They portray Phalaris as a friend of poets and philosophers rather than a cruel tyrant.. The unknown author or authors may be known as Pseudo-Phalaris.. Date and authorship The date and circumstances of composition of the letters are disputed. They may be the work of a single author, but most scholars consider them the product of many, "the collection ... having been formed progressively by the addition of letters from different origins and authors". It has been argued that the first letters were written in Sicily in the 4th century BC, with the collection being finalized in the Roman Empire. Another theory puts their compositio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francesco Filelfo
Francesco Filelfo (; 25 July 1398 – 31 July 1481) was an Italian Renaissance humanism, Renaissance humanist and author of the philosophic dialogue ''On Exile''. Biography Filelfo was born at Tolentino, in the March of Ancona. He is believed to be a third cousin of Leonardo da Vinci. At the time of his birth, Petrarch and the students of Florence had already begun to exalt the recovery of classic texts and culture. They had created an eager appetite for the antique, had rediscovered many important Ancient Rome, Roman authors, and had freed Latin language, Latin scholarship to some extent from the restrictions of earlier periods. Filelfo was destined to carry on their work in the field of Latin literature and as an agent in the still unaccomplished recovery of Greek culture. In Venice His earliest studies in grammar, rhetoric and the Latin language were conducted at University of Padua, Padua under the Renaissance humanism, Humanist educator Gasparinus de Bergamo, Gasparino Barz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Battle Of The Books
"The Battle of the Books" is a short satire written by Jonathan Swift and published as part of the prolegomena to his ''A Tale of a Tub'' in 1704. It depicts a literal battle between books in the King's Library (housed in St James's Palace at the time of the writing), as ideas and authors struggle for supremacy. Because of the satire, "The Battle of the Books" has become a term for the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns. It is one of Swift's earliest well-known works. Ancients vs. Moderns In France at the end of the seventeenth century, a minor furore arose over the question of whether contemporary learning had surpassed what was known by those in Classical Greece and Rome. The "moderns" (epitomised by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle) took the position that the modern age of science and reason was superior to the superstitious and limited world of Greece and Rome. In his opinion, modern man saw farther than the ancients ever could. The "ancients," for their part, argued t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swift". His trademark deadpan and ironic style of writing, particularly in works such as ''A Modest Proposal'' (1729), has led to such satire being subsequently termed as "Swiftian". He wrote the satirical book ''Gulliver's Travels'' (1726), which became his best-known publication and popularised the fictional island of Lilliput and Blefuscu, Lilliput. Following the remarkable success of his works, Swift came to be regarded by many as the greatest satirist of the Georgian era, and one of the foremost prose satirists in the history of English literature. Swift also authored works such as ''A Tale of a Tub'' (1704) and ''An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity'' (1712). He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—including L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Textual Criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may range in dates from the earliest writing in cuneiform, impressed on clay, for example, to multiple unpublished versions of a 21st-century author's work. Historically, scribes who were paid to copy documents may have been literate, but many were simply copyists, mimicking the shapes of letters without necessarily understanding what they meant. This means that unintentional alterations were common when copying manuscripts by hand. Intentional alterations may have been made as well, for example, the censoring of printed work for political, religious or cultural reasons. The objective of the textual critic's work is to provide a better understanding of the creation and historical transmission of the text and its variants. This understanding may ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Bentley
Richard Bentley FRS (; 27 January 1662 – 14 July 1742) was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian. Considered the "founder of historical philology", Bentley is widely credited with establishing the English school of Hellenism. In 1892, A. E. Housman called Bentley "the greatest scholar that England or perhaps that Europe ever bred". Bentley's ''Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris'', published in 1699, proved that the letters in question, supposedly written in the 6th century BCE by the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris, were actually a forgery produced by a Greek sophist in the 2nd century CE. Bentley's investigation of the subject is still regarded as a landmark of textual criticism. He also showed that the sound represented in transcriptions of some Greek dialects by the letter digamma appeared also in Homeric poetry, even though it was not represented there in writing by any letter. Bentley became Master of Trinity College, Cambridge in 1700. His autocrat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet
Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet (25 April 162827 January 1699) was an English diplomat, politician and writer. An important diplomat, he was recalled in 1679, and for a brief period was a leading advisor to Charles II of England, with whom he then fell out. Temple subsequently retired to the countryside, and thereafter occupied himself with gardening and writing. He is best remembered today for two aspects of his life after retirement: a passage on the designs of Chinese gardens, written without ever having seen one, and for employing a young Jonathan Swift as his secretary. The first is sometimes given as an early indication of the English landscape garden style, praising irregularity in design. Biography William Temple was the son of Sir John Temple of Dublin, an Irish judge and Master of the Rolls. Born in London, and educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Temple travelled across Europe, and was for some time a member of the Irish Parliament. He was a representative at t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Boyle, 4th Earl Of Orrery
Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery KT PC FRS (28 July 1674 – 28 August 1731) was an English nobleman, statesman and patron of the sciences. Early life The second son of Roger Boyle, 2nd Earl of Orrery, and his wife Lady Mary Sackville (1647–1710), daughter of Richard Sackville, 5th Earl of Dorset, he was born at Little Chelsea, London. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and soon distinguished himself by his learning and abilities. Career Like the first earl, he was an author, soldier and statesman. He translated Plutarch's life of Lysander, and published an edition of the epistles of Phalaris, which engaged him in the famous controversy with Bentley. He was a member of the Irish Parliament and sat for Charleville between 1695 and 1699. He was three times member for the town of Huntingdon; and on the death of his brother, Lionel, 3rd earl, in 1703, he succeeded to the title. In 1706, he married Lady Elizabeth Cecil, daughter of John Cecil, 5th Earl of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gilles Ménage
Gilles Ménage (; 15 August 1613 – 23 July 1692) was a French scholar. Biography He was born at Angers, the son of Guillaume Ménage, king's advocate at Angers. A good memory and enthusiasm for learning carried him quickly through his literary and professional studies, and he practised at the bar at Angers before he was twenty. In 1632, he pleaded several causes before the ''parlement'' of Paris. Illness caused him to abandon the legal profession for the church. He became prior of Montdidier without taking holy orders, and lived for some years in the household of Cardinal de Retz (then coadjutor to the Archbishop of Paris), where he had leisure for literary pursuits. Some time after 1648, he quarrelled with his patron and withdrew to a house in the cloister of Notre-Dame de Paris, where he gathered round him on Wednesday evenings those literary assemblies which he called "Mercuriales." Jean Chapelain, Paul Pellisson, Valentin Conrart, Jean François Sarrazin and Du B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcus Musurus
Marcus Musurus (; ; – 1517) was a Greek scholar and philosopher born in Candia, Venetian Crete (modern Heraklion, Crete). Life The son of a rich merchant, Musurus became at an early age a pupil of Janus Lascaris in Venice. In 1505, Musurus was made professor of Greek language at the University of Padua. Erasmus, who had attended his lectures there, testifies to his knowledge of Latin. However, when the university was closed in 1509 during the War of the League of Cambrai, he returned to Venice where he filled a similar post. In 1512 he was made professor of Greek language in Venice: during this time he published through Aldus Manutius, a contemporary printer and publisher, his edition on Plato. This was the first time that the Dialogues were printed in Greek. In 1516, Musurus was summoned to Rome by Pope Leo X, where he lectured in the pope's ('' Gymnasium'') and established a Greek printing-press. In recognition of a Greek poem prefixed to the ''editio princeps'' of Plato, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aldine Press
The Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics (Latin and Greek masterpieces, plus a few more modern works). The first book that was dated and printed under his name appeared in 1495. The Aldine Press is famous in the history of typography, among other things, for the introduction of italics. The press was the first to issue printed books in the small octavo size, similar to that of a modern paperback, and intended for portability and ease of reading. According to Curt F. Bühler, the press issued 132 books during twenty years of activity under Aldus Manutius. After Manutius' death in 1515, the press was continued by his wife Maria and her father Andrea Torresani (), until Manutius' son Paulus (1512–1574) took over. His grandson Aldus Manutius the Younger then ran the firm until his death in 1597. Today, the antique books printed by the Aldine Press in Venice are r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are linked by 438 bridges. The islands are in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay lying between the mouths of the Po River, Po and the Piave River, Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta (river), Brenta and the Sile (river), Sile). As of 2025, 249,466 people resided in greater Venice or the Comune of Venice, of whom about 51,000 live in the historical island city of Venice (''centro storico'') and the rest on the mainland (''terraferma''). Together with the cities of Padua, Italy, Padua and Treviso, Italy, Treviso, Venice is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million. The name is derived from the ancient Adr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
