Nicholas Leonicus Thomaeus

Nicholas Leonicus Thomaeus
Nicholas Leonicus Thomaeus
Born	February 1, 1456
Died	1531 (aged c. 75)
Nationality	Venetian (Greek parentage)
Occupation(s)	Scholar, professor of philosophy at the University of Padua
Notable work	Opuscula

Nicholas Leonicus Thomaeus (Italian: Niccolò Leonico Tomeo, Greek: Νικόλαος Λεόνικος Θωμεύς; 1456–1531) was a Greek teacher of philosophy at the University of Padua in the Republic of Venice.

Biography

Thomaeus was born to a Greek family in Venice, Italy on February 1, 1456. He studied Greek philosophy and literature under the guidance of Demetrios Chalkokondyles in Florence, Italy. In 1497, the University of Padua chose Thomaeus as its first official lecturer on the Greek text of Aristotle. In 1504, he was elected to succeed Giorgio Valla as headmaster of Greek in Venice but Thomaeus did not take the position seriously. He was succeeded as headmaster by Marcus Musurus in 1512. Beginning in 1524, Thomaeus published series of philosophical discussions in the Latin language. He was admired by scholars such as Desiderius Erasmus for his philology. When the University of Padua was reopened after the wars of the League of Cambrai, Thomaeus taught at the school until he died on March 28, 1531.

Works

Opuscula by Nicholas L. Thomaeus.

• Aristotelis Parva quae vocant Naturalia, Bernardino Vitali, Venice 1523.
• Trophonius, sive, De divinatione, 1524.
• Bembo sive de immortalitate animae, 1524.
• Opuscula. Ex Venetiis, Bernardino Vitali, Venice 1525.
• Conversio in Latinum atque explanatio primi libri Aristotelis de partibus animalium… nunc primum ex authoris archetypo in lucem aeditus. G. Farri, Venice 1540.

References

Sources

• Bietenholz, Peter G.; Deutscher, Thomas Brian (1995) [1985]. Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation (Volumes 1–3). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-80-208577-1.
• Copenhaver, Brian P.; Schmidt, Charles B. (1992). Renaissance Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-219203-5.
• Geanakoplos, Deno J. (1985). "The Career of the Little-known Renaissance Greek Scholar Nicholas Leonicus Tomaeus and the Ascendancy of Greco-Byzantine Aristotelianism at Padua University (1497)". Byzantina. 13 (1): 355–372.
• Ossa-Richardson, Anthony (2013). The Devil's Tabernacle: The Pagan Oracles in Early Modern Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-40-084659-7.
• Parkinson, G.H.R. (2003) [1993]. Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IV: The Renaissance and Seventeenth Century Rationalism. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-41-505378-5.
• Runciman, Steven (1985). The Great Church in Captivity: A Study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish Conquest to the Greek War of Independence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-31310-4.

Further reading

• De Bellis, Daniela (1975). "Niccolò Leonico Tomeo interprete di Aristotele naturalista". Physis: Rivista internazionale di storia della scienza (in Italian). 17 (1–2): 71–93.
• De Bellis, Daniela (1980). "La vita e l'ambiente di Niccolo Leonico Tomeo". Quaderni per la Storia dell'Universita di Padova (in Italian). 13: 37–75.
• De Bellis, Daniela (1981). "I veicoli dell'anima nell'analisi di Niccolo Leonico Tomeo". Annali dell'Istituto di Filosofia, Universita di Firenze (in Italian). 3: 1–21.
• Serena, A. (1903). "Niccolò Leonico Tomeo". Appunti Letterari (in Italian). Rome: 5–32.