1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Musurus, Marcus

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22137101911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 19 — Musurus, Marcus

MUSURUS, MARCUS (c. 1474–1517), Greek scholar, was born at Rhithymna (Retimo) in Crete. At an early age he became a pupil of John Lascaris at Venice. In 1505 he was made professor of Greek at Padua, but when the university was closed in 1509 during the war of the league of Cambrai he returned to Venice, where he filled a similar post. In 1516 he was summoned to Rome by Leo X., who appointed him archbishop of Monemvasia (Malvasia) in the Peloponnese, but he died before he left Italy. Since 1493 Musurus had been associated with the famous printer Aldus Manutius, and belonged to the “Neacademia,” a society founded by Manutius and other learned men for the promotion of Greek studies. Many of the Aldine classics were brought out under Musurus’s supervision, and he is credited with the first editions of the scholia of Aristophanes (1498), Athenaeus (1514), Hesychius (1514), Pausanias (1516).

See R. Menge’s De M. Musuri vita studiis ingenio, in vol. 5 of M. Schmidt's edition of Hesychius (1868).