Copy 1, Volume 1

The travels of Theodore Ducas [pseud.] in various countries in Europe, at the revival of letters and art. Part 1, Italy / Edited by Charles Mills.

  • Charles Mills
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The travels of Theodore Ducas [pseud.] in various countries in Europe, at the revival of letters and art. Part 1, Italy / Edited by Charles Mills. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    barbarous conqueror. Each time John Lascaris returned to Florence, fraught with the learning of the ancient world. Two hundred was the number of manuscripts which he gathered in his second journey into Mount Athos, and other sacred recesses, whereto the Greeks had retired, when the Turkish power menaced Constantinople. Lorenzo died during the second voyage of his literary agent. lLascaris remained in lettered solitude for some years; but, though the in- vasion of Italy by the French did not divert him from his studies, yet the intreaties of Charles VIII. induced him to remove to Paris. His residence in France was neither long, nor, in a literary sense, important. Louis XII., the ‘successor of Charles VIII., appointed him his ambassador at Venice. Lascaris kept his abode in that city after the dissolution of its friend- ship with the monarch whom he had repre- sented, and occupied himself in the pleasing task of communicating to the Venetians the language and literature of his native country. ‘He always preserved the regard of the Medicean family ; and, when the Cardinal Giovanni, son of his patron Lorenzo, became Pope Leo X., Lascaris repaired to Rome, in order to give life and action to a well-concerted scheme for invigorat- ing the prevailing taste for ancient literature. 9
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