Počátky rozkvětu řeckých studií v kontextu italského raného humanismu: Barlaam ze Seminary, Francesco Petrarca, Leontios Pilatos, Giovanni Boccaccio
The Beginnings of the Flowering of Greek Studies in the Context of Early Italian Humanism: Barlaam of Seminara, Francesco Petrarch, Leontios Pilatos, Giovanni Boccaccio

Summary/Abstract: At the beginning of the 1340s Barlaam of Seminara (ca. 1290–1348), a Calabrian monk, theologian and philosopher met Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374) at the court of pope Benedict XII (1334–1342) in Avignon. This encounter meant the very first step in the revival of Greek studies within the Early Renaissance Italian milieu. This paper tries to delineate the ideological presuppositions of Petrarch’s motives for reviving the knowledge of Greek language and literature. Leaving aside the Petrarch’s own meagre progress in learning Greek it is necessary to point out his inspirational influence on his younger friend Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) who was able to organise public lectures of Greek language in Florence around 1360 for another Calabrian, Leontios Pilatos (ca.1300–1366), former Barlaam’s pupil. Appart from the pedagogical work Pilato’s tasks included translations of selected ancient Greek classical texts: Homer’s poems Odyssey and Iliad, entering parts of Euripides’ Hecube (Hecabe), fragments from Plutarch’s Lives, Pseudo-Aristotelean corpus De mirabilibus auscultationibus (On Marvelous Things Heard). Pilatos also tried to translate the Greek parts of the so-called Pandectae, the digest of Roman law promulgated by Justinian in 530–533. Despite a short time span (from 1359 until 1362) Pilatos’ multiple Florentine activities, largely supported by both Petrarch and Boccaccio, were a turning point in the reception of the legacy of Ancient Greece within the intellectual Italian milieu of the Early Renaissance. Except for Giovanni Boccaccio and Domenico Silvestri (ca. 1335–1411), identity of Pilatos’ other students (if there have been any) is surrounded by silence. Although the continuity of Greek studies was interrupted for another three decades, Pilatos’ pedagogical and translation work laid the intellectual and mental groundwork for the cultural mission of Manuel Chrysoloras in 1397. As to the revival of Greek studies in Italy the concerned period (from 1358 until 1363) was fruitful, though timely limited, and raised interest among Italian humanists in original texts of the period of Ancient Greece. Despite being clumsy and inadequate the word-for-word translations by Pilatos did not lack stimulating power and inspired the next generation of Italian humanists to produce more proper Latin versions. Homeric poems were translated into Latin after many centuries of oblivion in Western Europe. Copies of Pilatos’ Latin translations (written by Donato Degli Albanzani or Giovanni Malpaghini da Ravenna) spread very quickly in a relatively short time span. This fact proves a high degree of impatience with which Early Italian humanists expected translation of Homeric work. We can easily trace Pilatos’ influence in another earlier Latin version of Odyssey written by Francesco Zabarella (1360–1417), which was created before the end of the 14th century (in 1398). Almost at the same time (about 1392) Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406) tried to persuade the poet Antonio Loschi (1365–1441) to use Pilatos’ prosaic version to transform the text into a more approriate poetic version closer to Homeric poems. In the next century Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457) probably secretly used Pilatos’ translation when composing his own prosaic version of Iliad (Books I–XVI) between 1442–1444.

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