Theodosios Zygomalas

Theodosios Zygomalas ( Greek Θεοδόσιος Ζυγομαλάς , * 1544 in Nauplion ; † 1607 ) was a scholar, philologist, manuscript copyist and dignitary or official of the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople .

Life

Theodosios was born as the son of John Zygomalas in Nauplion . He was trained by his father, who in turn was a scholar and had studied in Italy. In 1555 the family moved to Constantinople , where the father was already a lay dignitary, worked as a speaker for the ecumenical patriarchate and at the same time taught classical Greek. In 1564 Theodosios is attested for the first time as a notary of the patriarchate and as a manuscript copyist. In 1574 he was promoted to protonotary (chief notary). In 1591 he was finally appointed "Dikaiophylax" (guardian of rights), a high office in the patriarchal hierarchy. Already during his lifetime he became relatively well known thanks to his long-term correspondence and 25-year friendship with the German humanist Martinus Crusius (Martin Kraus), Professor of Greek and Latin Philology at the University of Tübingen . The latter noted in his diary all the information that Theodosios wrote to him about the Greeks of his time, their habits, their everyday life, their past and their vernacular. A large number of them were printed in his books, especially in the "Turcograeciae libri octo" ( Basel , 1584). Zygomala's friend Crusius also had a Turco-Graecia published in 1584 .

Thanks also to this information from Theodosios and its publication by Crusius, the interest of Europeans for the Greeks began to develop at this time. They increasingly viewed themselves as descendants of the ancient Greeks and Byzantines: the intellectual and ideological current known as " Philhellenism " developed. At the suggestion of Crusius, Theodosios translated some texts from folk Greek, which made spoken Greek known in Europe. While visiting some Western humanists in Constantinople, he met the Germans Johannes Löwenklau (or Leunclavius), the pastors Stephan Gerlach and Salomon Schweigger as well as the French Philippe du Fresne-Canaye , the Dutch George Douza and the Polish Andrea Taranowski . His share in the exchange of theological theses and in the attempts at rapprochement between the evangelical theologians from Tübingen and the Patriarch Jeremias II. Tranos , like that of his father, does not seem to have been decisive and in any case remained limited.

Theodosios probably died in Constantinople during the plague epidemic of 1607. His numerous children were scattered in areas some of which were far from Constantinople. In the 20th century there were still descendants on Chios and even today they are everywhere in Greece , Europe and America .

His real writings

• a political history of Constantinople from 1391 to 1578;
• a long letter of April 7, 1581 to Crusius ( digitized version );
• Thematoepistolae , (bilingual letters or exercises, standard language and folk Greek);
• a paraphrasis of the Byzantine novel Stefanites et Ichnelates in vernacular;
• a paraphrasis of the Byzantine legal compendium Synopsis minor (between 1586 and 1590);
• a paraphrasis of the Hexabiblos by Konstantinos Harmenopoulos (collection of Byzantine laws, around 1605; first edition in preparation in Athens);
• a list of the dignities ("offikia") of the patriarchate;
• Manuscript catalogs of public and private libraries of Constantinople;
• numerous letters (edition in preparation in Vienna);
• a travelogue of the Aegean Sea ;
• a description of Mount Sinai and one of Mount Athos (with maps that he himself drew).

literature

• Georgios Fatouros :  Zygomalas, Theodosios. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 14, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-073-5 , Sp. 675-676.
• Émile Legrand : Notice biographique sur Jean et Théodose Zygomalas (Paris, 1889).
• Alexander Turyn : De Ælii Aristidis codice varsoviensi atque de Andrea Taranowski et Theodosio Zygomala (Krakow, 1929).
• Stavros Perentidis: Théodose Zygomalas et sa Paraphrase de la Synopsis minor (Athènes, Éditions AN Sakkoulas, 1994), ISBN 960-232-091-5 .
• Stavros Perentidis and G. Steiris: Ιωάννης και Θεοδόσιος Ζυγομαλάς. Πατριαρχείο - Θεσμοί - Χειρόγραφα = Ioannes et Theodosios Zygomalas. Patriarchatus - Institutiones - Codices (Athens, Daedalos Verlag, 2009), ISBN 978-960-227-390-6 (anthology with contributions by H. Eideneier, Er. Gamillscheg, Chr. Host, A. Rhoby, DE Solti, G. Steiris, DG Apostolopulos, A. Karathanassis, V. Katsaros, GD Metallinos, M. Paize-Apostolopulu, S. Perentidis, CG Pitsakis, N. Toufexis, A. Falangas).
• Loukia Stefou: The modern Greek metaphrase of Stephanites and Ichnelates by Theodosios Zygomalas , Inaugural dissertation, Free University of Berlin, 2011, PDF (2.53 MB) .

Web links

• Theodosios' vernacular paraphrases of legal texts (PDF; 206 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans Widmann : Author trouble of a scholar in the 16th century. In: Börsenblatt for the German book trade - Frankfurt edition. No. 89, (November 5) 1968, pp. 2929-2940, here: pp. 2930 and 2932.