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Education, learning, literature, and art
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Page 6
Favoring education, he was, like his father, interested in school matters. In one of his letters concerning the pupils who had finished school and been sent to the Emperor for examination, Theodore wrote: Nothing else rejoices so much the soul of the gardener as to see his meadow in full blossom; if, from the beautiful and flourishing view, he may judge of the bloom of plants, he may, upon the same basis, conjecture that in proper time he will enjoy the fruits of charm and beauty... Although I was terribly oppressed with a great want of leisure on account of my duties as commander, while my mind was distracted by revolts, battles, oppositions, resistance, cunning, changes, menaces... nevertheless I have never withdrawn my chief thought from the beauty of the spiritual meadow.
A circle of educated, literary, and scholarly men gathered around Theodore II, who himself was deeply interested in science, art, music, poetry, and the like. He opened many schools, and in one of his letters, he discusses the problem of school organization, programs, and purposes.
Theodore Lascaris wrote several treatises on philosophic and religious subjects, and some panegyrics, and left the large collection of letters mentioned above (over two hundred) addressed to various prominent people of his epoch, especially to his tutors, Nicephorus Blemmydes and George Acropolita. In Theodore's writings may be also pointed out his vast knowledge of the natural and mathematical sciences. A more attentive and detailed study of the literary inheritance of Theodore Lascaris, published as well as unpublished, would undoubtedly provide the basis for appreciating the personality of the author, a sort of Oriental parallel to his great contemporary Frederick II, as well as for a more profound understanding of the cultural interests of the Christian East in the thirteenth century.
To the second half of the twelfth century and to the first period of the Empires of Nicaea and Constantinople belongs the activity of the two enlightened brothers, John and Nicholas Mesaritai, whose very existence came to light only at the beginning of the twentieth century, owing to A. Heisenberg. For this reason, these two names were not mentioned in Krumbacher's famous History of Byzantine Literature. The funeral oration delivered by Nicholas Mesarites on the death of his elder brother shows that John had a careful education, held some office under the last two Comneni, and later, under the Angeli, became a professor of the exegesis of the Psalmbook. He wrote a commentary on the Psalms, the authoritative copy of which perished at the capture and sack of Constantinople by the Franks in 1204. John took an active part in the disputes with the papal representatives at Constantinople in the first years of the Latin Empire, and held firmly to the Orthodox standpoint. He died in 1207. His younger brother, Nicholas, who also held some office about court under the Angeli and agreed with his brother concerning the papal pretensions, went to Nicaea after his brother's death, where he was kindly received by the patriarch and afterwards made bishop of Ephesus. Later he took a leading part in the negotiations for a religious understanding between Nicaea and Rome, about which he left a detailed narrative. Some of the works of Nicholas, though far from all, have been published.
A History of the Byzantine Empire - Table of Contents
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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/literature-education-learning-art-7.asp?pg=6
