From Byzantium to Italy: Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance

by N.G. Wilson

Having all but disappeared from western literacy during the Middle Ages, classical Greek would recover a position of importance--eventually equal to that of classical Latin--only after a series of surprising failures, chance encounters, and false starts. Continuing the story he began in his acclaimed study Scholars of Byzantium, N. G. Wilson describes how the classical heritage preserved by the Byzantines was transmitted to a vigorous culture, first in fourteenth-century Florence and then throughout Italy.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Renaissance, Classics

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Sometimes published as Nigel G. Wilson.

Reviews

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was shaping up to be a four star book for me, until I hit the penultimate chapter on Venice. Pow, zoom, right to the moon! This is an excellent reference on various Greek scholars and practices during the Italian Renaissance. Each chapter covers a particular scholar or location of scholars, the works they studied, taught, translated, and/or published, and the impact of their activities. There are entertaining tidbits buried in with the facts and histories, making this a fun as well as informative read.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wilson's overview of the transmission and translation of Greek texts in 15th-century Italy takes a largely biographical approach, outlining the careers of those scholars responsible for making the literary legacy of Hellenic antiquity and early Byzantium available to the Latin-speaking world. In doing so, the author is able not only to isolate when, where, and by whom particular texts were acquired, translated, and/or printed, but also to pass - often rather frank - judgment upon their quality and the skills of those individuals responsible for producing them. At the same time, Wilson makes clear that the selection of texts for import was not solely a matter of personal idiosyncrasy and the historical vagaries of manuscript preservation, but also strongly shaped by shifting philosophical tastes, historiographic (mis)perceptions, as well as the norms of the Byzantine pedagogical curriculum.