John Argyropoulos

John Argyropoulos (c. 1415-1487) was a Greek lecturer, philosopher and humanist, one of the émigré Byzantine scholars who helped launch the revival of classical learning in fifteenth-century Italy. His importance lies in making a large part of Aristotle available to Latin readers through translations that remained in use for generations.

Born in Constantinople, he studied theology and philosophy there and later taught in the city, counting Constantine Lascaris among his pupils. He served as an official under one of the rulers of the Byzantine Morea. In 1439 he was part of the delegation to the Council of Florence, which accepted union with Rome and saw the Greek delegates renounce Orthodoxy. Before returning to Constantinople, he received a doctorate in theology from the University of Padua in 1443 or 1444.

After Constantinople fell in 1453, he withdrew to the Peloponnese and in 1456 settled in Italy. He taught at Padua, Florence and Rome, and headed the Greek department of the Florentine Studium. When plague broke out in 1471 he moved to Rome, where he continued teaching Greek until his death.

His central work was rendering Aristotle into Latin: the Categories, On Interpretation, the Posterior Analytics, the Physics, On the Heavens, On the Soul, the Metaphysics, the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics, along with an exposition of the Ethics. He also wrote rhetorical and theological works of his own, many of which survive. Through this labour he helped carry Greek philosophy into Western Europe.

His pupils included Piero and Lorenzo de' Medici, Angelo Poliziano and Johann Reuchlin and, allegedly, Leonardo da Vinci, though no primary source confirms the latter. He died in Florence on 26 June 1487.