Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The fall of Byzantium

Learning, literature, science, and art

Page 8

Demetrius Cydones belongs among the talented writers in theology and rhetoric of the Palaeologian epoch. He was born at Thessalonica at the very beginning of the fourteenth century and died at the beginning of the fifteenth century, so that his life lasted an entire century. At Milan he became thoroughly acquainted with Latin language and literature. He lived successively in Thessalonica, Constantinople, and Crete, was granted citizenship of Venice, and ended his days in a monastery. Cydones took an active part in the religious disputes of his time, favoring reconciliation with Rome. In his literary works he had the great advantage over the majority of his contemporaries of knowing Latin, and could make use of the most eminent western writers and scholars. He was the author of numerous essays on different problems in theology, rhetoric, and philosophy. A treatise on The Procession of the Holy Ghost, published among Cydones works, apparently does not belong to him, but to one of his disciples, Manuel Calecas. Cydones translated from Latin into Greek, among other things, the famous work of Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. This translation has not yet been published. A Catholic writer remarked: These laborious translations which make St. Thomas speak in the tongue of St. Jean Damascene have been buried for four centuries in the dust of libraries. Is this their destiny for the future? Will there not be found somewhere a theologian, an apostle, both Thomist and Hellenist, to spread and circulate in the Greek Church the doctrinal riches that Cydones has preserved for future times? May this translation not be the doctrinal guide to union?

Among Cydones' orations may be noted two deliberative orations (συμβουλευτικοί) which picture the depressed mood of the people of Constantinople before the Turkish danger, speak of the emigration to western Europe, and urge the Greeks and Latins to unite their forces against the common enemy.

But of greatest importance for the cultural history of the fourteenth century is Cydones' voluminous correspondence. Most of his letters are as yet unpublished; of 447 only 51 have been printed. Among his correspondents may be noted Manuel II (32 letters), John Cantacuzene, with whom he was on very friendly terms (11 letters), and a great many other eminent persons of his epoch.

Until all his letters are available for study neither Cydones biography nor a full list of his works can be attempted. Moreover, without attentive and detailed study of this new material the history of Greek civilization during the last centuries of Byzantium cannot be fully known or adequately appreciated. This study would not only concern Greek civilization, but also throw new light on the cultural relations between Byzantium and the Italian Renaissance, with which Cydones was so closely associated. One of the best representatives of the Italian Renaissance at the end of the fourteenth century, Coluccio Salutati, wrote Cydones a long and eulogistic letter.

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