LASCARIS, Constantine (? -1493), an eminent Greek scholar, was a member of the family which in the 13th century had furnished three emperors of Nicaea, and was born at Constantinople, but in what year is unknown. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, he took refuge in Italy, where Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, appointed him Greek tutor to his daughter Hippolyta, afterwards married to Alphonso, king of Naples. It was at Milan that Zarot published in 1476 the Grammatica Graeca, sive Compendium octo Orationis Partium, of Lascaris, remarkable as being the first book entirely in that language issued from the printing press. After leaving Milan, Lascaris taught for some time in Rome and in Naples, but ultimately, on the invitation of the inhabitants, settled in Messina, where he continued to teach publicly until his death in 1493. Among his numerous pupils here was the celebrated Pietro Bembo. Lascaris bequeathed his library of valuable MSS. to the senate of Messina; the collection was afterwards carried off to Spain and lodged in the Escorial.

Besides the Grαmmαticα, which has often been reprinted, Lascaris wrote little of any kind and nothing of any value apart from the importance which attaches to his position as one of the promoters of the revival of Greek learning in Italy. Two little treatises by him on Sicilians and Calabrians who had written in Greek were first published by Maurolico in 1562, and afterwards reprinted by Zaccaria in the Biblioteca di Storia Letteraria. His dissertation on Orpheus is to be found in the first volume of the Marmora Taurinensia. Iriarte gives some letters of Lascaris in the Regiae Bibliothccae Matritensis Codices Graeci manuscripti. See Villemain, Lascaris, ou les Grecs du quinzième siècle, Paris, 1825....