Antonios Eparchos (
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
: Αντώνιος Έπαρχος; 1491–1571) was a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
Renaissance humanist, teacher, poet, copyist, collector, soldier and translator of manuscripts.
He was born in
Corfu
Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...
and migrated to
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 li ...
in 1537. Later, he was placed in charge of the Greek college of
Milan
Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
.
[Michael Pratt, Britain's Greek Empire: Reflections on the History of the Ionian Islands, 1978, p.60, ]
Biography
Eparchos was the descendant of a noble
Corfiot
Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...
family and he was born in
Corfu
Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...
in 1491. His father was the scholar and doctor George Eparchos while his mother was from
Sparta
Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...
,
Laconia
Laconia or Lakonia (, , ) is a historical and Administrative regions of Greece, administrative region of Greece located on the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti (municipality), Sparta. The word ...
.
The collection of ancient codices and the studies in medical schools was a tradition in his family.
At the age of 15 he copied his first manuscripts, the
Gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
s. In 1536 Eparchos was elected as the Ambassador of the Community of Corfu, and represented the island before the
Venetian Senate
The Senate (), formally the ''Consiglio dei Pregadi'' or ''Rogati'' (, ), was the main deliberative and legislative body of the Republic of Venice.
Establishment
The Venetian Senate was founded in 1229, or less likely shortly before that date. ...
. It is also known that he took part in the Corfiot embassy that arrived from Corfu, which took the role of conveying the requests of its inhabitants to the Venetian Doge, in 1552 and 1570, one year before his death. A milestone in Eparchos's life was 1537: the
Great Siege of Corfu by the
Ottomans
Ottoman may refer to:
* Osman I, historically known in English as "Ottoman I", founder of the Ottoman Empire
* Osman II, historically known in English as "Ottoman II"
* Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empir ...
under
Hayreddin Barbarossa
Hayreddin Barbarossa (, original name: Khiḍr; ), also known as Hayreddin Pasha, Hızır Hayrettin Pasha, and simply Hızır Reis (c. 1466/1483 – 4 July 1546), was an Ottoman corsair and later admiral of the Ottoman Navy. Barbarossa's ...
, during the reign of
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I (; , ; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the Western world and as Suleiman the Lawgiver () in his own realm, was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman sultan between 1520 a ...
.
During the siege, savage slaughter, extensive looting and destruction of the island took place.
Eparchos was also made Baron of the Fief of the Gypsies, in the island of Corfu, which brought him considerable income.
After the end of the siege and the defeat of the Ottomans, Eparchos decided to take refuge in Venice with his family.
He arrived in Venice in 1537 and became a member of the Greek Brotherhood in 1540. In 1543, he is living in Venice knowing perfect
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
and being a great collector and copyist of ancient codices. This gave him the advantage of establishing himself as the most serious supplier of manuscripts in
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 li ...
.
The contribution of Eparchos in the spread of ancient and medieval
Greek literature
Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today.
Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving wri ...
was extremely important. He provided manuscripts of
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
authors to many important libraries around Europe such as the
Vatican Library
The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...
, the
Escorial Library in Spain, the
Laurentian Library
The Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana or BML) is a historic library in Florence, Italy, containing more than 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 early printed books. Built in a cloister of the Medicean Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze u ...
in Florence, the
Ambrosian Library
The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is a historic library in Milan, Italy, also housing the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the Ambrosian art gallery. Named after Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan, it was founded in 1609 by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, whose agen ...
in Milan, the
Berlin State Library
The Berlin State Library (; officially abbreviated as ''SBB'', colloquially ''Stabi'') is a universal library in Berlin, Germany, and a property of the German public cultural organization the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation ().
Founded in ...
and to some private-owned libraries as well.
Eparchos was known for writing many letters. Most of them refer to personal matters but others are letters-appeals to church personalities sent in order to deal with the
Ottoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks () were a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group in Anatolia. Originally from Central Asia, they migrated to Anatolia in the 13th century and founded the Ottoman Empire, in which they remained socio-politically dominant for the e ...
.
It's also known that Eparchos was writing letters and communicating with the famous German reformer
Philip Melanchthon
Philip Melanchthon (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, an intellectual leader of the L ...
.
It was from a letter, in 1568 when Eparchos was 77 years old, which we learn that he suffered from
gout
Gout ( ) is a form of inflammatory arthritis characterized by recurrent attacks of pain in a red, tender, hot, and Joint effusion, swollen joint, caused by the deposition of needle-like crystals of uric acid known as monosodium urate crysta ...
.
This was his final letter and the latest news from him. He died, most likely from the aforementioned disease, in 1571. He left one daughter and two sons, the eldest of whom was named Nikephoros.
Works
*''Ὑποτύπωσις τῆς Ὀτομάνων Τυραννίδος καὶ ποίω τρόπω ταύτην καταστρέψασθαι'' (''Depiction of the Ottoman Tyranny and the way to destroy it'')
The work was written in 1538-39 during the
3rd Ottoman-Venetian War. Eparchos suggests, that the struggle against the Ottomans must be waged within the Ottoman state itself with an attack from three different spots. It has been argued that, in his work, he tries to imitate the style of ancient writers and particularly of the ancient Greek orator
Demosthenes
Demosthenes (; ; ; 384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide insight into the politics and cu ...
.
*''Θρῆνος είς τὴν Ἑλλάδος καταστροφήν'' (''Lament for Greece's catastrophe'')
This work is a poem. It resulted in invocations to the leaders of the Christian West to unite and attack the common enemy, the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
. It was published in Venice in 1544, but it is possible that its writing had begun after the Siege of Corfu in 1537. It is written in
Homeric Greek
Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used in the ''Iliad'', ''Odyssey'', and ''Homeric Hymns''. It is a literary dialect of Ancient Greek consisting mainly of an archaic form of Ionic, with some Aeolic forms, a few from Ar ...
and it consists of 103 elegiac couplets.
See also
*
Greek scholars in the Renaissance
The migration waves of Byzantine Greeks, Byzantine Greek scholars and émigrés in the period following the fall of Constantinople, end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 are considered by many scholars key to the revival of Classics, Greek stu ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eparchos, Antonios
1491 births
1571 deaths
Writers from Corfu
Greek Renaissance humanists
16th-century Greek writers
16th-century Greek male writers
Military personnel from Corfu
16th-century Greek educators