Theodoros Metochites

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Theodoros Metochites presents the model of the renovated Chora Church to Christ Pantocrator

Theodoros Metochites ( Middle Greek Θεόδωρος Μετοχίτης ; * 1270 in Constantinople ; † March 13, 1332 ibid) was a Byzantine diplomat , high government official, theologian, philosopher, historian, astronomer, poet and patron of the arts . From about 1305 to 1328 he was chancellor and personal advisor (mesaxōn) to the emperor Andronikos II. Palaiologos .

Life

Metochites was the son of Archdeacon Georgios Metochites, a passionate advocate of church union . After the Second Synod of Blachernae , his father was sentenced and exiled. Metochites seems to have spent his youth in the monastic milieus of Bithynia in Asia Minor . He devoted himself to the studies of secular and religious authors. When Andronikos II. 1290/1291 Nicaea attended, made Metochites apparently such an impression on him that he appointed him to the court immediately and Logothete appointed. About a year later he was appointed senator. In addition to performing his political duties (diplomatic missions in Cilicia in 1295 and in Serbia in 1299), Metochites continued to study and write. In 1312/1313 he began studying astronomy with Manuel Bryennios , and later he became a teacher of Nikephoros Gregoras himself . Theodoros Metochites was married and had five sons and a daughter, Irene, who was married to Johannes Palaiologos the governor of Thessalonica, a nephew of Andronikos II.

The high point of Metochite's political career was his appointment as Grand Logothete in 1321. He was then one of the richest men of his time. He used part of his fortune to restore and equip the church of the Chora monastery in the north-west of Constantinople, where Metochites, represented as the donor, can still be seen today on a mosaic in the narthex above the entrance to the nave.

Metochite's fate was closely related to that of his emperor. After several years of civil war, Andronikos II. Was on May 24, 1328 by his grandson Andronikos III. Palaiologos overthrown. Metochites and the other leaders of the old regime fell from grace. Metochites was stripped of his property and exiled in Didymoteichon . In 1330 he was allowed to return to Constantinople. He retired to the Chora monastery and took the name Theoleptus. Theodoros Metochites died in the monastery on March 13, 1332.

Works

Metochites' work includes 20 poems in dactylic hexameters , 18 speeches (Logoi), commentaries on Aristotle 's writings on natural philosophy, an introduction to the study of Ptolemaic astronomy (Stoicheiosis astronomike) and 120 essays on various topics, the Semeioseis gnomikai . Many of these works have not yet been edited.

Text editions and translations

  • Theodorus Metochites: Paraphrasis in Aristotelis universam naturalem philosophiam (= Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca . Vol. 3). Translated by Gentianus Hervetus. Reprint of the 1st edition, Basel 1559, with an introduction by Charles Lohr. Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt u. a. 1992, ISBN 3-7728-1223-6 .
  • Jeffrey M. Featherstone (Ed.): Theodore Metochites's Poems “To Himself”. Introduction, Text, and Translation (= Byzantina Vindobonensia. Volume 23). Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-7001-2853-3
  • Karin Hult (Ed.): Theodore Metochites on Ancient Authors and Philosophy. Semeioseis gnomikai 1–26 & 71 (= Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia. Vol. 65). Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, Göteborg 2002, ISBN 91-7346-434-1 (critical edition with English translation)
  • Hendrik Joan Drossaart Lulofs : Aristotle De somno et vigilia liber. Adiectis veteribus translationibus et Theodori Metochitae commentario. Burgersdijk & Niermans u. a., Leiden 1943 (also: Utrecht, University, dissertation, 1943).

literature

Overview display

Investigations

  • Hans-Georg Beck : Theodoros Metochites. The crisis of the Byzantine worldview in the 14th century. Beck, Munich 1952 (also: Munich, University, habilitation thesis, 1949).
  • Börje Bydén: Theodore Metochites' Stoicheiosis astronomike and the Study of Natural Philosophy and Mathematics in Early Palaiologan Byzantium (= Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia. Vol. 66). Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, Göteborg 2003, ISBN 91-7346-459-7 .
  • Ihor Ševčenko: Études sur la polémique entre Théodore Métochite et Nicéphore Choumnos. La vie intellectuelle et politique à Byzance sous les premiers Paléologues (= Corpus Bruxellense historiae Byzantinae. Subsidia 3). Éditions de Byzantion, Brussels 1962 (Leuven, University, dissertation 1949).
  • Ihor Ševčenko: Theodore Metochites, the Chora, and the Intellectual Trends of His Time. In: Paul A. Underwood (Ed.): The Kariye Djami. Volume 4: Studies in the Art of the Kariye Djami and Its Intellectual Background (= Bollingen series. Vol. 70). Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1975, ISBN 0-691-99778-X , ISBN 0-691-99778-0 corrected , pp. 19-91.
  • Eva de Vries-van der Velden: Théodore Métochite. Une réévaluation. Gieben, Amsterdam 1987, ISBN 90-70265-58-3 (also: Leiden, University, dissertation, 1987).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ K. Staikos: The History of the Library in Western Civilization: From Constantine the Great to Cardinal Bessarion. Oak Knoll Press, 2007, p. 427.
personal data
SURNAME Metochites, Theodoros
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Μετοχίτης, Θεόδωρος (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Byzantine philosopher and patron of the arts
DATE OF BIRTH 1270
PLACE OF BIRTH Constantinople
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1332
Place of death Constantinople