Lascaris, John

, called Rhyndacenus, as Constantine was called Byzantinus, was a learned Greek of the same family with the preceding, who came either from Greece or Sicily to Italy, on the ruin of his country. He was indebted to cardinal Bessarion for his education at Padua, where he obtained a high reputation for his knowledge in the learned languages, and received the patronage of Lorenzo de Medici, who sent him into Greece with recommendatory letters to the sultan Bajazet, in order to collect ancient manuscripts: for this purpose he took two journeys, in the latter of which he appears to have been very successful. After the expulsion of the Medic, family from Florence, in 1494, he was carried to France by Charles VIII. alter which he was patronized by Louis XII. who sent him, in 1503, as his ambassador to Venice, in which oroce he remained till 1508. He ioined the pursuit of literature with his public employment, and held a correspondence with many learned men. After the termination of hi. embassy, he“remained some yeaa‘ Venice, as an mstructor in the Greek language. On the election of pope Leo X. to the popedom in 1513, he set | out for Rome, where, at his instigation, Leo founded a college for noble Grecian youths at Rome, at the head of which he placed the author of the plan, and likewise made him superintendant of the Greek press; his abilities as a corrector and editor, had been already sufficiently evinced by his magnificent edition of the Greek” Anthologia,“printed in capital letters at Florence in 1494, and by that of” Callimachus,“printed in the same form. Maittaire thinks he was also editor of four of the tragedies of” Euripides,“of the” Gnorase Monastichoi,“and the” Argonautics“of Apollonius Rhodius. He now printed the Greek” Scholia“on Homer, in 1517; and in 1518 the” Scholia“on Sophocles. Having in this last-mentioned year quitted Rome for France, whither he was invited by Francis I. he was employed by that monarch in forming the royal library. He was also sent as his ambassador to Venice, with a view of procuring Greek youths for the purpose of founding a college at Paris similar to that of Rome. After the accomplishment of other important missions, he died at Rome in 1535, at an advanced age. He translated into the Latin language, a work extracted from Polybius, on the military constitutions of the Romans; and composed epigrams in Greek and Latin; this rare volume is entitled” Lascaris Rhydaceni epigrammata, Gr. Lat. edente Jac. Tossano,“printed at Paris, 1527, 8vo. There is another Paris edition of 1544, 4to. Mr. Dibdin has given an ample and interesting account of his” Anthologia" from lord Spencer’s splendid vellum copy. ¹