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{{Short description|Greek scholar}}{{Infobox person
| name               = Janus Lascaris
| image              = Ianos Laskaris.JPG
| alt                = 
| caption            = 
| birth_date         = 1445
| birth_place        = [[Constantinople]], [[Byzantine Empire]]
| death_date         = 1534
| death_place        = [[Rome]], [[Papal States]]
| nationality        = [[Greeks|Greek]]
| occupation         = Scholar 
| known_for          = 
| years_active       = 
| notable_works      = 
}}
'''Janus Lascaris''' ({{Langx|el|Ἰανὸς Λάσκαρις}}, ''Ianos Láskaris''; c. 1445, [[Constantinople]] – 7 December 1535, [[Rome]]), also called '''John Rhyndacenus''' (from [[Rhyndacus]], a country town in Asia Minor), was a noted [[Greek scholars in the Renaissance|Greek scholar in the Renaissance]].

==Biography==
After the [[Fall of Constantinople]] Lascaris was taken to the [[Peloponnese]] and to [[Crete]]. When still quite young he came to [[Venice]], where [[Bessarion]] became his patron, and sent him to learn Latin at the [[University of Padua]].{{sfn|Lejay|1910}}<ref>Jonathan Woolfson, ''Padua and the Tudors: English Students in Italy, 1485-1603'', James Clarke & Co, 1998, p. 4.</ref>

On the death of Bessarion, [[Lorenzo de' Medici]] welcomed him to [[Florence]], where Lascaris gave Greek lectures on [[Thucydides]], [[Demosthenes]], [[Sophocles]], and the [[Greek Anthology]]. Lorenzo sent him twice to Greece in quest of manuscripts. When he returned the second time (1492) he brought back about two hundred from [[Mount Athos]].{{sfn|Lejay|1910}}

Meanwhile, Lorenzo had died. Lascaris entered the service of the [[Kingdom of France]] and was ambassador at Venice from 1503 to 1508, at which time he became a member of the New Academy of [[Aldus Manutius]]; but if the printer had the benefit of his advice, no Aldine work bears his name. He resided at Rome under [[Leo X]], the first pope of the Medici family, from 1513 to 1518, returned under [[Clement VII]] in 1523, and [[Paul III]] in 1534.{{sfn|Lejay|1910}}

In the meantime he had assisted [[Louis XII]] in forming the library of [[Blois]], and when [[Francis I of France|Francis I]] had it removed to [[Fontainebleau]], Lascaris and [[Guillaume Budé]] had charge of its organization.{{sfn|Lejay|1910}}

Lascaris prepared a number of ''[[editiones principes]]'', among them the [[Anthology of Planudes|Anthologia Graeca]] (1494), four plays of [[Euripides]], [[Callimachus]] (about 1495), [[Apollonius Rhodius]], [[Lucian]] (1496), printed in Florence in Greek capitals with accents, the D-''[[scholia]]'' (Rome 1517), the scholia of [[Porphyry (philosopher)|Porphyrius]] (1518) on [[Homer]] (Rome 1518), and the scholia vetera on [[Sophocles]] (Rome 1518).{{sfn|Lejay|1910}}

Among his pupils were [[Alessandra Scala]], [[Marco Musuro]], [[Germain de Brie]], [[Dimitrije Ljubavić]], and [[Jacques Dubois]].

He was buried in the gothic church of ''[[Sant'Agata de' Goti, Rome]]''. On his memorial the following epigram is inscribed, composed by himself:<ref>John P.A. Ioannidis (MD, DSc), Η φυγή των Ελλήνων επιστημόνων. Μια μετα-ανάλυση [The leaving of the Greek scientists. A meta-analysis],  ''Αρχεία Ελλην. Ιατρικής, [Archives of Greek Medicine]'' '''33'''(3), 2016, p. 305. In Greek language.</ref>

{{Text and translation
| {{lang|el|ΛΑΣΚΑΡΙΣ ΑΛΛΟΔΑΠΗ ΓΑΙΗ ΕΝΙΚΑΤΘΕΤΟ ΓΑΙΗΝ, ΟΥΤΙ ΛΙΗΝ ΞΕΙΝΗΝ, Ω ΞΕΝΕ, ΜΕΜΦΟΜΕΝΟΣ. ΕΥΡΕΤΟ ΜΕΙΛΙΧΙΗΝ. ΑΛΛ' ΑΧΘΕΤΑΙ ΕΙΠΕΡ ΑΧΑΙΟΙΣ. ΟΥΔ' ΕΤΙ ΧΟΥΝ ΧΕΥΕΙ ΠΑΤΡΙΣ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΟΝ}}
| Lascaris in foreign land deposited his earth [his body], and he does not blame her [the land] that she is very foreign, oh stranger. He found her sweet. But he is worried about the Achaeans [the Greeks], because their country does not cover them with free soil.
}}

==See also==
*[[French humanism]]
*[[Greek scholars in the Renaissance]]
*[[Laskaris family]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
*{{CE1913|wstitle=Janus Lascaris|first=Paul|last= Lejay|volume=9}}
*{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Lascaris, Joannes|volume=16}}
* Jonathan Harris, ''Greek Émigrés in the West, 1400-1520'' (Camberley: Porphyrogenitus, 1995). {{ISBN|1-871328-11-X}}
*Kovtun, George J. “John Lascaris and the Byzantine Connection.” ''The Journal of Library History.''  12, no. 1 (1977): 17–26.
* [[Graham Speake]], ‘Janus Lascaris’ visit to Mount Athos in 1491’, ''Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies'' 34 (1993), 325–30.
* Francis Walton, ‘Janus Laskaris’, ''The Griffon'' 10 (1984), 8-35
* J. Whittaker, ‘Janus Laskaris at the court of Charles V’, ''Thesaurismata'' 14 (1977), 76-109
* N.G. Wilson, ''From Byzantium to Italy. Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance'' (London, 1992). {{ISBN|0-7156-2418-0}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Janus Lascaris}}
* {{MathGenealogy|id=128300}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lascaris, Janus}}
[[Category:1440s births]]
[[Category:1535 deaths]]
[[Category:Greek Renaissance humanists]]
[[Category:Constantinopolitan Greeks]]

[[Category:16th-century Greek writers]]
[[Category:16th-century Greek educators]]
[[Category:15th-century Greek educators]]
[[Category:People from Constantinople]]
[[Category:Republic of Venice writers]]