Theodorus Gaza Theodorus Gaza (Greek: Θεόδωρος Γαζής, Theodoros Gazes) (1400-1475) was one of the Greek scholars who were the leaders of the rehearsal of the doctrine of the 15th century. He was born in Thessaloniki.
At the time of his birth by the Turks in 1430, he fled to Italy. During a three-year stay in Mantua, he quickly acquired good knowledge of Latin, thanks to Vittorino da Feltre's education, supporting him with Greek lessons, and copying manuscripts of ancient writers.
In 1447, he became professor of Greek at the newly established University of Ferrara, to which the students in large numbers from all parts of Italy were attracted by his fame as a teacher. He also participated in the conciliations in Siena (1423), Ferrara (1438) and Florence (1439), with the aim of achieving a reconciliation between the Greek and Roman churches. In 1450 he arrived at Pope Nicolaas V's invitation to Rome, where he spent several years devoted to making translations of Aristotle and other Greek authors.
After the death of Nicolaas (1455), which made it impossible to live longer in Rome, Gaza moved to Naples, where he received protection from Alphonso Magnanimous. Shortly after his departure there, with the help of Cardinal Bessarion he acquired a premiere in Calabria, where he spent his last years, and where he died in 1475.
Gaza was highly regarded by most of his contemporaries, but he still stood higher with the next generation scholars. His Greek grammar (in four books), written in Greek, was first printed in Venice in 1495, and afterwards partly translated by Erasmus in 1521. Although inadequate, especially in the syntax, it has long been an important handbook. His translations in Latin were very numerous, including:
He also translated Cicero's The Senectute and Somnium Scipionis in Greek, with success according to Erasmus, with more elegance than accuracy, according to the colder judgment of modern scholars. He was also the author of two small dissertations, entitled The Mensibus and The Origin Turcarum
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