Michael Apostolius ( Greek: Μιχαὴλ Ἀποστόλιος or Μιχαὴλ Ἀποστόλης; c. 1420 in Constantinople – after 1474 or 1486, possibly in Venetian Crete) [1] or Apostolius Paroemiographus, i.e. Apostolius the proverb-writer, was a Greek teacher, writer and copyist who lived in the fifteenth century.
Apostolius, a student of John Argyropoulos, taught for a short time at the Monastery of St. John of Petra in Constantinople. [1] Taken prisoner by the Turks during the fall of Constantinople in 1453, he was later released and fled to Crete, then a Venetian colony. [1] There he earned a scanty living by teaching and by copying manuscripts for Italian humanists, including his patron, Cardinal Bessarion. [2] [1] He often complained about his poverty: one of his manuscripts, a copy of the Eikones of Philostratus, now in Bologna, bears the inscription: "The king of the poor of this world has written this book for his living." [2]
Apostolius died about 1480, leaving a son, Arsenius Apostolius, who became bishop of Malvasia ( Monemvasia) in the Morea. [2]
Michael Apostolius ( Greek: Μιχαὴλ Ἀποστόλιος or Μιχαὴλ Ἀποστόλης; c. 1420 in Constantinople – after 1474 or 1486, possibly in Venetian Crete) [1] or Apostolius Paroemiographus, i.e. Apostolius the proverb-writer, was a Greek teacher, writer and copyist who lived in the fifteenth century.
Apostolius, a student of John Argyropoulos, taught for a short time at the Monastery of St. John of Petra in Constantinople. [1] Taken prisoner by the Turks during the fall of Constantinople in 1453, he was later released and fled to Crete, then a Venetian colony. [1] There he earned a scanty living by teaching and by copying manuscripts for Italian humanists, including his patron, Cardinal Bessarion. [2] [1] He often complained about his poverty: one of his manuscripts, a copy of the Eikones of Philostratus, now in Bologna, bears the inscription: "The king of the poor of this world has written this book for his living." [2]
Apostolius died about 1480, leaving a son, Arsenius Apostolius, who became bishop of Malvasia ( Monemvasia) in the Morea. [2]