of his household. When he returned to Italy he brought with him about
fifty manuscripts, and before his death he had translated a number of them
into Latin. He also prepared a Greek grammar which superseded that of
Chrysoloras. In 1412 he was elected to the chair at Florence formerly held
by Chrysoloras, and later he established an important school at Ferrara,
based largely on instruction in the Latin and Greek classics, which will
be referred to again in the next chapter.

A rage for Greek learning and Greek books now for a time set in. Aurispa,
a Sicilian, went to Constantinople, learned Greek, and returned to Italy,
in 1422, with 238 Greek manuscripts. Messer Filelfo, of Padua, after seven
years at Constantinople, returned, in 1427, with forty manuscripts and
with the grand-niece of Chrysoloras as his wife. In 1448 Theodorus Gaza
(c. 1400-75), a learned Greek from the city of Thessalonica, who had fled
from his native city just before its capture by the Turks (1430), came to
Ferrara as the first professor of Greek in the university there. He made
many translations, prepared a very popular Greek grammar, and in 1451
became professor of philosophy at Rome.

Another Greek of importance was Demetrius Chalcondyles of Athens (1424-
1511), who reached Italy in 1447. In 1450 he became professor of Greek at
Perugia, and of his lectures there one of his enthusiastic pupils [11]
wrote:

A Greek has just arrived, who has begun to teach me with great pains,
and I to listen to his precepts with incredible pleasure, because he
is a Greek, because he is an Athenian, and because he is Demetrius. It
seems to me that in him is figured all the wisdom, the civility, and
the elegance of those so famous and illustrious ancients. Merely
seeing him you fancy you are looking on Plato; far more when you hear