The Intellectual Life of Fifteenth-Century Rhodes
Some time ago, while I was working on the life of William Lily, the Grammarian, my attention was directed to the state of letters and learning in the Rhodes of early Renaissance times. George Lily, William's son, tells us that his father, when a young man, stayed at Rhodes a certain length of t...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1944
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| In: |
Traditio
Year: 1944, Volume: 2, Pages: 239-255 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Some time ago, while I was working on the life of William Lily, the Grammarian, my attention was directed to the state of letters and learning in the Rhodes of early Renaissance times. George Lily, William's son, tells us that his father, when a young man, stayed at Rhodes a certain length of time for the sake of letters, and that he learned there the elements of Greek and Latin. Objection may be made to the second part of this statement: since the senior Lily already had his B.A. from Oxford when he began his foreign travels, presumably he had learned there a fair amount of Latin, and quite possibly some Greek; the choice of the word “elements” was surely not a happy one. However, on the face of things, there would seem to be no good reason for doubting the main assertion: that William Lily went to Rhodes “for the sake of letters.” Later biographers of Lily incorporate George's statement in their own accounts, some of them adding a detail or two of their own. But we must wait until the eighteenth century before we are given a reason for believing in any noteworthy culture in Renaissance Rhodes. Philip Morant, in the article which he wrote on Lily for the Biographica Britannica, says: “At his [Lily's] return from thence [Jerusalem], he studied some time at Rhodes; where, after the taking of Constantinople, several learned men had taken refuge.” Bliss's edition of Anthony à Wood carries this statement about the learned men, quoting the Biographica Britannica as source. Morant, although he did take occasion to drive home the point in correcting an earlier biographer, Thomas Fuller, had offered no support for his assertion. |
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| ISSN: | 2166-5508 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Traditio
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0362152900017190 |