Maximos Planudes

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Cleomedes' astronomical textbook in a manuscript written by Maximos Planudes around 1290. Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, MS. Adv. 7/18/15, fol. 52v

Maximos Planudes (Greek Μάξιμος Πλανούδης, Latinized Maximus Planudes ; * around 1255 in Nicomedia in Bithynia ; † 1330 in Constantinople ) was a Byzantine grammarian and theologian who had his heyday under the emperors Michael VIII and Andronikos II . He spent most of his life in Constantinople, where he devoted himself to study and teaching as a monk. His baptismal name was Manuel; on entering the monastery he took the monk's name Maximos.

Planudes had a remarkable knowledge of the Latin language at a time when Rome and Italy were viewed with hatred and contempt by the Byzantines. It is thanks to this skill that Andronikos sent him to Venice as ambassador in 1327 to protest against the attack by the Venetians on the Genoese settlement in Pera . An important result of his trip was that Planudes prepared the way for the Greek language and literature in Western Europe , primarily with his translations .

He was the author of numerous works on classical philology, history and mathematics, including: a Greek grammar in the form of question and answer, similar to the Έρωτήματα ( Erotémata , "questions") of Manuel Moschopulos , with an appendix to the so-called political verses; a treatise on syntax ; a biography of Aesop and a prose version of his fables ; Scholia to some Greek works; two poems in hexameters , one in praise of Claudius Ptolemy , whose geography Planudes had rediscovered and mapped, the other about the sudden transformation of an ox into a mouse; a treatise on arithmetic among the Indians; Scholias for the first two books of arithmetic by Diophant of Alexandria ; Comments on Theocritus . He also left a collection of proverbs and numerous letters.

His diverse translations from Latin also include Ciceros Somnium Scipionis with a commentary by Macrobius , Ovid's Heroides and Metamorphosen , Boëthius ' De consolatione philosophiae , Augustinus ' De trinitate and the so-called Disticha Catonis . These translations became very popular as textbooks for Greek in the Middle Ages. Planudes is best known as the editor of the Greek Anthology , an important collection of Greek epigrams from antiquity and the Middle Ages, which in its version ( Anthologia Planudea ) were first printed and thus known to the learned world.

expenditure

Planudes' translations from Latin

  • Vincenzo Ortoleva (ed.): Maximus Planudes: Disticha Catonis in Graecum translata . Rome 1992
  • Annamaria Pavano (Ed.): Maximus Planudes: M. Tulli Ciceronis Somnium Scipionis in Graecum translatum . Rome 1992
  • Anastasios Ch. Megas (Ed.): Macrobii commentariorum in "Somnium Scipionis" libri duo in linguam Graecam translati . Thessaloniki 1995
  • Manolis Papathomopoulos (ed.): Anicii Manlii Severini Boethii De consolatione philosophiae. Traduction grecque de Maxime Planude . The Academy of Athens, Athens 1999, ISBN 2-7116-8333-8 (critical edition)

Other works

  • Jean-François Boissonade (Ed.): Anecdota Graeca , 6 volumes, 1829–1844, reprinted 1962
  • Carl Immanuel Gerhardt (ed.): Maximus Planudes: Das Rechenbuch. Based on the manuscripts of the Imperial Library in Paris . HW Schmidt, Halle 1865 ( online in the Google book search) (incomplete text)
  • Jacques Paul Migne (Ed.): Patrologiae cursus completus , Series Graeca , Volume 147, 1865 (theological writings)
  • Pietro Luigi M. Leone : Maximi Monachi Planudis Epistulae . Amsterdam 1991 (= Classical and Byzantine Monographs 18)
  • Kai Brodersen , Christiane Brodersen: Planudes, arithmetic book , Greek and German. Berlin 2020 (= Tusculum Collection ). ISBN 978-3-11-071192-9

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Planudes, Maximos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Byzantine grammarian and theologian
DATE OF BIRTH around 1260
PLACE OF BIRTH Nicomedia , Bithynia
DATE OF DEATH 1330
Place of death Constantinople