GAZA, THEODORE OF

(ca. 1415-ca. 1476)

Greekhumanistand author. Born and educated atConstantinople, Gaza favored the union of the Latin and Greek churches negotiated at theCouncil of Ferrara-Florenceand in 1440 emigrated to Italy, where he found employment as a Greek copyist atMilanand then as an assistant teacher at the school ofVittorino da FeltreinMantua.In this period he worked to acquire fluency in Latin, the international language of learning in Western Europe. In 1446 he became teacher ofGreekat the University ofFerraraand also studied medicine there. The emigré Greek scholar and cardinalJohannes Bessarionhelped him win the patronage of PopeNicholas V, who hoped to sponsor the translation of all of Greek literature into Latin. After thepope'sdeath in 1455, Gaza continued working as a translator, atRomeunder the patronage of Bessarion and then at the court of the King ofNaples,Alfonso I. His most important work as a translator was his new version of works ofAristotle, especially the zoological treatises, and of Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus.

Renaissance humanists dissatisfied with the inelegant and sometimes mistranslated medieval versions of Aristotle hailed his new translations and agitated for their use in place of the traditional ones, since they were prepared directly from the Greek. Also important was Gaza's grammar of the Greek language (first printed atVenicein 1495). The Dutch humanistErasmusregarded this as the best Greek grammar available and published his own translation of the first two books into Latin (1516). In the philosophical controversies of the later 15th century, Gaza supported theplatonizinginterpretation of Aristotle put forward by his patron Bessarion against the defense of medieval Aristotelianism by his fellow Greek exileGeorge of Trebizond. Gaza also translated several ancient Latin authors, notably Caesar and Cicero, into Greek, and wrote several treatises, letters, and orations in both Greek and Latin.