Gaza

Gaza, THEODORUS, Greek scholar, was born at Thessalonica in 1398, fled about 1444 before the Turks to Italy, where he became teacher of Greek at Ferrara, next of philosophy at Rome. After the death of Pope Nicholas V., King Alfonso invited him to Naples; but the death of this new patron two years later drove him back to Rome, where he was befriended by Cardinal Bessarion, who obtained for him a small benefice in Calabria. There he died in 1478. Gaza has been warmly praised by subsequent scholars, such as Politian, Erasmus, Scaliger, and Melanchthon. His principal work was a Greek grammar in four books, first published by Aldus Manutius at Venice in 1495. He translated into Latin portions of Aristotle, Theophrastus, St Chrysostom, Hippocrates, and other Greek writers.