Maximus Planudes | |
|---|---|
| Byzantine Empire Ambassador tothe Republic of Venice | |
| In office 1295–1296 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1260 (1260) |
| Died | 1305 (aged 44–45) |
| Citizenship | Byzantine Empire |
| Occupation | Monk, scholar, anthologist, translator, mathematician, grammarian and theologian |
| Profession | Ambassador |
Maximus Planudes (Ancient Greek:Μάξιμος Πλανούδης,Máximos Planoúdēs;c. 1260 – c. 1305[1][a]) was aByzantine Greek monk, scholar,anthologist, translator,mathematician,grammarian andtheologian atConstantinople. Through his translations from Latin into Greek and from Greek into Latin, he brought the Greek East and the Latin West into closer contact with one another. He is now best known as a compiler of theGreek Anthology.[3]
Maximus Planudes lived during the reigns of theByzantine emperorsMichael VIII andAndronikos II. He was born atNicomedia inBithynia in 1260, but the greater part of his life was spent inConstantinople, where as amonk he devoted himself to study and teaching. On entering the monastery he changed his original name Manuel to Maximus.
Planudes possessed a knowledge ofLatin remarkable at a time whenRome andItaly were regarded with some hostility by the Greeks of the Byzantine Empire. To this accomplishment he probably owed his selection as one of the ambassadors sent by emperor Andronikos II in 1295–96 to remonstrate with theVenetians for their attack upon theGenoese settlement inGalata near Constantinople. A more important result was that Planudes, especially by his translations, paved the way for the revival of the study ofGreek language and literature in western Europe.
He was the author of numerous works, including: a Greekgrammar in the form of question and answer, like theErotemata ofManuel Moschopulus, with an appendix on the so-called "Political verse"; a treatise onsyntax; a biography ofAesop and aprose version of thefables;scholia on certain Greek authors; twohexameter poems, one a eulogy ofClaudius Ptolemaeus— whoseGeography was rediscovered by Planudes,[5] who translated it into Latin— the other an account of the sudden change of anox into amouse; a treatise on the method of calculating in use amongst the Indians;[6] andscholia to the first two books of theArithmetic ofDiophantus.
His numerous translations from the Latin includedCicero'sSomnium Scipionis with the commentary ofMacrobius;Ovid'sHeroides andMetamorphoses;Boethius'De consolatione philosophiae; andAugustine'sDe trinitate. Traditionally, a translation of Julius Caesar'sDe Bello Gallico has been attributed to Planudes, but this is a much repeated mistake.[7][8] These translations were not only useful to Greek speakers but were also widely used in western Europe as textbooks for the study of Greek.
It is, however, for his edition of theGreek Anthology that he is best known. This edition, theAnthology of Planudes or Planudean Anthology, is shorter than the Heidelberg text (thePalatine Anthology), and largely overlaps it, but contains 380 epigrams not present in it, normally published with the others, either as a sixteenth book or as an appendix.[2]
J. W. Mackail in his bookSelect Epigrams from the Greek Anthology, has this to add of him:[9]
He is recorded as one of the first people to use the word "million".[10]
According to Berggren & Jones (2000)[11] and Mittenhuber (2010)[12] many of the extant manuscripts ofPtolemy's Geography can be connected with the activities of Planudes. Within thestemma, manuscript groups UKFN and RVWC both descend from a recension by Planudes; only manuscript X (Vat.gr.191) is independent.
Regarding Planudes' work in rediscovering the Geography, anhexameter poem survives titled: "ου σοφωτάτου κυρου Μαξίμου μονάχου του Πλανούδου στίχοι ηρωικοί εις τήνΓεωγραφίανΠτολεμαίου χρόνοις πολ λοίς άφανισιΜσαν, είτα δέ παρ' αύτοΰ πόνοις πολλοίς εύρεύεΐσαν."[13] which can be translated as "Heroic verses by the most wise monk Maximos Planudes on the Geography of Ptolemy, which had vanished for many years and then had been discovered by him through many toils."[14] The summary of the poem by Berggen & Jones (2010) is as follows:
"What a great wonder, the way that Ptolemy has brought the whole world into view, just like someone making a map showing just a little city. I never saw anything so skillful, colorful, and elegant as this lovely geographia. This work lay hidden for countless years and found no one to bring it to light. But the emperorAndronikos exhorted thebishop of Alexandria, who took great troubles that a certain free-spirited friend of the Byzantines should restore a likeness of the picture worthy of a king."
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Planudes, Maximus".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. GreekWikisource has original text related to this article:Ἀνθολογία διαφόρων ἐπιγραμμάτων