Humanist Greek refers to a field of study focusing on the usage of the ancient Greek language during the Renaissance and later in connection with the humanistic movement.Päll – Volt 2018, p. 9. Perhaps more broadly, New Ancient Greek (also known as Humanist Greek, Neo-Greek and Neo-Paleo Greek, German: Neualtgriechisch) is used to describe the form of Ancient Greek used by authors from the Renaissance onwards to compose literary texts of various sorts and genres.
The revival of Ancient Greek in Western Europe was closely connected to the arrival of Byzantine scholars and migrants after the Fall of Constantinople (1453), who helped transmit Greek manuscripts, language, and learning to Italy and the rest of Europe. Its use flourished alongside Humanistic Latin (though not on the same extent), creating a form of learned bilingualism that gradually became anchored in early modern intellectual culture on a European scale.
The study of ancient Greek, initially practised by only a few of the early humanists, became a formative element of humanistic education.Päll – Volt 2018, p. 10; Pontani – Weise 2022, p. 1. Near the end of 15th century, a tradition of composing verses in ancient Greek was begun in Italy, whence it spread to the rest of Western Europe. The heyday of the movement took place in Germany, the Low Countries, and parts of France during the 16th and early 17th centuries BC.Pontani – Weise 2022, p. 1. Humanist Greek texts were also composed in Britain, central Europe, the Baltic and the Nordic countries as well as Russia.
Research into Humanist Greek has been developing rapidly since the 2010s. Since then, there have been international conferences dedicated to the field,Weise 2017, p. 7; Päll – Volt 2018, p. 9; Korhonen 2020, p. ii; Pontani – Weise 2022, p. 18. and several volumes have been published,Weise (ed.) 2017; Päll – Volt (eds.) 2018; Kajava – Korhonen – Vesterinen (eds.) 2020; Korhonen 2022; Pontani – Weise (eds.) 2022. as well as a database comprising texts from Sweden, Finland, Estonia, and Latvia.HUMGRAECA: https://humgraeca.utlib.ut.ee/.
Definition The term "Humanist Greek" was coined in the 1970s. In a broad sense, it can refer not only to the usage of ancient Greek by western scholars but by Byzantine Greeks as well. The term "Renaissance Greek" has sometimes been used but is poorly suited for describing post-Renaissance usage.Päll – Volt 2018, pp. 9–10. In German, the term "Neualtgriechisch" ("new ancient Greek") is sometimes used.Päll – Volt 2018, p. 10; Pontani – Weise 2022, p. 16. It is a sister field to Neo-Latin studies.
On the other hand, others have suggested limiting the term "Humanist Greek" to the early Modern period before the 19th-century Neohumanismus, which led to considerable changes in classical education. With the rise of classical philology, composing in Greek was no longer a part of general Greek instruction and was practised only by a few of the most learned.Korhonen 2022, pp. 19–20.
In the broadest sense, however, Humanist Greek covers texts written in ancient Greek from the early Renaissance until the present day. The present article will focus mostly on verse compositions written before the 19th century.
History and notable practitioners Beginnings in Italy The early 15th century in Italy was marked by a renewed interest in antiquity. At the same time, Byzantine émigrés were recruited in various universities to teach ancient Greek, beginning with Manuel Chrysoloras' appointment in Florence in 1397. This made ancient Greek texts available to an Italian audience and led to the first attempts by Italian humanists to compose verses in Greek.Pontani 2022, p. 83.
Francesco Filelfo (1398–1481), who stayed in Constantinople in the 1420s, wanted to create a "poetic bilingualism" by introducing Greek as a language of versification alongside Latin in Western culture. His De psychagogia, a collection of elegies and Sapphic odes, remained largely unknown until its publication in 1997.Pontani 2022, pp. 83–84.
A younger contemporary of Filelfo, the Florentine Angelo Poliziano (1454–1494) surpassed his predecessor in poetic skill and influentiality. His Liber epigrammatum graecorum, published posthumously as part of his collected Opera (1498), was the first book of original "ancient" Greek poetry printed in Western Europe. The epigrams were influenced by various ancient poets from Homer to the late antique Nonnus as well as the Greek Anthology, edited by Ianos Laskaris in Florence in 1494. They bear witness to Poliziano's extensive learning and proficiency in Greek versification.Pontani 2022, pp. 84–85.
In the aftermath of Poliziano's influence and the publication of the Greek Anthology, several intellectuals in Tuscany and other regions tried their hand at composing Greek verse and prose. They included Poliziano's student Scipione Forteguerri Carteromaco (1466–1515) and Aldo Manuzio (1449–1515), who published Poliziano's collected works. Among other genres, Tuscan humanists composed encomiastic and epideictic epigrams as well as book-epigrams. In the region of Veneto and Friuli, a distinct tradition arose, presented, for example, by Lazaro Bonamico (1477–1552), Francesco Robortello (1516–1567), and Giovan Battista Amalteo (1525–1573). Robortello went on to develop a theory of the epigram, and both he and Amalteo composed Pindaric odes. Their contemporary Pietro Cortona (died ca. 1598) published an entire volume titled Varia carmina Graeca (1555) that included poems dedicated to his Italian and Bavarian friends, who included Joachim Camerarius (see below).Pontani 2022, pp. 85–86.
By the mid-16th century, the heyday of Italian humanism was over, and the epicentre of classical studies had shifted to France, Germany, and the Low Countries. In Italy, the religious environment of the Counter-Reformation and the association of Greek poetry with pagan and licentious topics led to a decline in Greek studies. The Benedictine monk Tito Prospero Martinengo (died 1594), however, composed an erudite book of Christian Greek odes (1582), which display his familiarity with Hellenistic and Imperial hexametre. Another exception to the general decline was Maffeo Barberini (later Pope Urban VIII) (1568–1644) and his circle of intellectuals, who composed encomiastic, ekphrastic, and paraphrastic poetry in various metres.Pontani 2022, pp. 86–87.
The 18th century saw an antiquarian revival in several cities, but an interest in Greek versification was not properly revived until the end of the century under foreign influence. The most important centre of Greek studies at the time was Naples, which had a lively Greek community. The local Hellenist scholar and revolutionary Pasquale Baffi (1749–1799) composed a Pindaric ode for Catherine the Great. He was also in correspondence with European colleagues, with whom he discussed the newly-discovered Herculaneum papyri. His contemporary Clotilde Tambroni (1758–1817), professor of Greek at the University of Bologna, was probably inspired by her teacher, the Spanish Manuel Aponte, to write conventional and encomiastic odes.Pontani 2022, p. 88.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, erudite versification in ancient Greek continued to be practised, although unsystematically. The Romantic poet and classical scholar Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837) composed an Anacreontic Hymn to the Moon (1817). A few lines are extant of a Greek epic on Giuseppe Garibaldi's deeds by a young Giovanni Pascoli (1855–1912), who later became a famed Latin poet. By his time, Greek had been established as an integral part of the humanistic curriculum.Pontani 2022, p. 89.
Since the early 19th century, Greek epigrams have mainly been written by university professors in Italy and elsewhere in Europe with varying results. Among them are Luigi Illuminati (1881–1962) and Girolamo Vitelli (1849–1935), whose Subsiciva (1927), a collection of Greek and Latin poems, displays his philological and linguistic knowledge and literary skill. More recently, Alvaro Rissa, a pseudonym for a professor of Greek at the University of Genoa, has published poems in ancient Greek that combine ancient and modern topics and draw influence from epic, lyric, as well as tragedy.Pontani 2022, pp. 89–90.
Germany In the area of modern Germany, the prominence of Greek studies led to its leading role in the field during the 16th century. This resulted partly from the high esteem of Greek language and literature within the Protestant movement in contrast with Roman Catholicism.Weise 2022a, p. 147.
The first period of heightened interest in writing in ancient Greek began with the Renaissance in the 16th century and lasted until the first half of the 18th century. Greek was introduced in Germany around the year 1500. During the first three decades of the century, there were isolated attempts at composing epigrams by such scholars as Nicolaus Marschalk (1460s–1525), Conrad Celtis (1459–1508), Willibald Pirckheimer (1470–1530), and Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522). They were influenced by editions published by Aldo Manuzio, especially the volume containing Poliziano's collected works. After a modest beginning, the gradual institution of Greek professorships at German universities combined with Italian influence provided the background for an increasing learning in Greek.Weise 2022a, pp. 147–149.
The earliest humanists who took to composing in ancient Greek on a larger scale were Reuchlin's protégé Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560) and his student Joachim Camerarius (1500–1574). Camerarius published a collection of poems by him and Jacob Micyllus (1503–1558) titled Epigrammata veterum poetarum (1538). These scholars successfully encouraged others to write in ancient Greek, and, since the 1540s, an increasing number of poetic texts were published. The most eminent poets of the time were Paul Dolscius (1526–1589), Johannes Caselius (1533–1613), Johannes Posselius (1528–1591), and Michael Neander (1525–1595), who was headmaster of the monasterial school of Ilfeld. The most famous pupil of his school was Laurentius Rhodoman (1545/6–1606), philologist and one of the most eminent composers of Greek poetry during the Renaissance. He wrote epics on Christian topics and Greek mythology as well as an epyllion in the Doric dialect titled Arion.Weise 2022a, p. 149.
Apart from Rhodoman, the apogée of the era of Greek composition in Germany was represented by Nikolaus Reusner (1545–1602) and Martin Crusius (1526–1607), who tried various poetic forms, including Pindaric ode. Among their contemporaries was the Italian poet Olympia Fulvia Morata (1526–1555), who moved to Germany due to her Protestant convictions and composed in Greek, Latin, and Italian.Weise 2022a, p. 150.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, Greek versification exhibited playful experimentation and Baroque tastes. Productions of the era included polyglot and figurative poems. On the other hand, as Greek lost its status as an independent discipline and became part of the study of Oriental languages, its importance was diminished. During this time, there were few outstanding poets who practised Greek versification. An exception was Johann Gottfried Herrichen (1629–1705), who composed Theocritean and Anacreontic verses that were published posthumously in 1717. In the Saxon Fürstenschulen, especially Schulpforta, Greek composition continued.Weise 2022a, pp. 150–151.