Nationality Venetian Died 1531, Padua, Italy Name Nicholas Thomaeus | Notable work Opuscula Ethnicity Greek | |
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Occupation Scholar, professor of philosophy at the University of Padua | ||
Nicholas Leonicus Thomaeus (Italian: Niccolò Leonico Tomeo, Greek: Νικόλαος Λεόνικος Θωμεύς; 1456–1531) was a Venetian scholar and professor of philosophy at the University of Padua. He was one of the first professors of Greek descent to teach Greek in Padua.
Biography
Thomaeus was born in Venice, Italy on February 1, 1456 to a Greek family from Epirus. While in Florence, he studied Greek philosophy and literature under the tutelage of Demetrios Chalcondyles. In 1497, the University of Padua appointed Thomaeus as its first official lecturer on the Greek text of Aristotle. In 1504, he was elected to succeed Giorgio Valla as chair of Greek in Venice, but because Thomaeus failed to take the post seriously, he was succeeded in 1512 by Marcus Musurus. In 1524, Thomaeus published a collection of philosophical dialogues in Latin, the first of which was titled "Trophonius, sive, De divinatione". He was admired by scholars such as Desiderius Erasmus for his philological capabilities. When the University of Padua was reopened after the wars of the League of Cambrai, Thomaeus taught at the university until his death on March 28, 1531.