Las'caris, CONSTANTINE,

Las'caris, CONSTANTINE, a Greek scholar, who, after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, fled to Italy, where he was instrumental in reviving the study of Greek. He was a descendant of the royal family of Nicæa. Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, made him tutor to his daughter Hippolyta. But more important scenes of Las'caris' labours were Rome (where he settled in the train of Bessarion), Naples, and Messina; at this last city he taught rhetoric and Greek letters until his death in 1493. His Greek grammar, entitled Erotemata, and dated 1476, was the earliest Greek book printed in Italy. His library, which is very valuable, is now in the Escorial.—JOHN or JANUS LASCARIS, a member of the same family, surnamed RHYNDACENUS, born about 1445, who also found an asylum in Italy after the fall of Constantinople, was employed by Lorenzo de Medici in the collection of ancient, especially Greek, classical authors. On the death of Lorenzo, Lascaris went to Paris, where he taught Greek with the countenance of Charles VIII. and Louis XII.; but he eventually settled in Rome, and was appointed by Leo X. superintendent of his Greek press and of a seminary for young Greeks. He was, moreover, employed as ambassador at the court of Francis I., and afterwards at Venice, and died in Rome in 1535. From Rome he edited several editiones principes of the Greek classics. His own works were chiefly grammatical, with a volume of letters and epigrams. See Villemain's Lascaris, ou les Grecs du 15^me Siècle (Paris, 1825).