LASCARIS, Andrew John, a learned Greek, of the same family with the preceding, and surnamed Rhyn dacenus, probably because he was originally from Rhyn dacus, a small town between the Hellespont and Phrygia. He abandoned his native country after the overthrow of the lower empire, and took refuge at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici. This great protector of letters sent him back to the East to collect such manuscripts as had escaped the fury of the Turks; and having obtained permission to examine the libraries, he derived from them a great number of valuable works. Some years afterwards,
he made a second voyage to Greece; but before his return Lorenzo died, and the troubles which broke out in Florence determined Lascaris to accept the offers made to him by Charles VIII. in order to draw him to France. He was at Paris in the year 1495; and it was he who taught the principles of the Greek language to Budé and to Danes. In 1503, Louis XII. appointed him to the embassy of Venice; a mission in which he must have acquitted himself in a satisfactory manner, since he was sent thither a second time in 1505. Nevertheless, Wicquefort pretends that Lascaris was but ill qualified for an employment which required a knowledge of the interests of princes, and great experience of the world; and he even asserts that the Venetians complained that France had sent them a pedant instead of an ambassador. His functions ceased in consequence of the rupture which took place between the republic and France; and Lascaris resumed the teaching of the Greek language. Leo X. having conceived the design of extending the knowledge of this language, called him to Rome, to put him at the head of the college of young Greeks which he had just founded; and at the same time confided to him the direction of a printing establishment destined to multiply impressions of Greek books. In 1515, the pope intrusted him with a mission to Francis I.; and this prince, sensible of his merits, endeavoured to retain him in France. Lascaris, however, returned to Rome the same year; but he revisited Paris in 1518, and, along with Budé, was employed to form the royal library of Fontainebleau. Francis I. then appointed Lascaris his ambassador to Venice, as his predecessor had done; and he remained in that city until Pope Paul III. testified a desire to have him at Rome. He yielded to the solicitations of the pontiff, though suffering from the gout, and immediately set out for the capital of the Christian world; but the fatigue of the journey augmented his sufferings, and he died, in 1535, a few months after his arrival, at the advanced age of nearly ninety. Lascaris did not deem it unworthy of him to act as corrector of the press, first in the office of F. Alopa at Florence, and next in the printing-house established by Pope Leo X. in Monte-Cavallo; and we are indebted to him for excellent editions of the following works, viz. 1. Anthologia Epigrammatum Græcorum, libri vii. Græce, Florence, 1494, in 4to; 2. Callimachi Hymni Græci, cum scholiis Græcis, ibid. in 4to, the editio princeps, executed with the same characters as the preceding work; 3. Scholia Græca in Iliadem, in integrum restituta, Rome, 1517, in folio, a very rare edition; 4. Homericarum Questionum, liber, et de Nympharum antro in Odyssea opusculum, ibid. 1518, in small 4to, the editio princeps; 5. Commentarii [Græci] in septem Tragedias Sophoclis, ibid. 1518, in small 4to. Lascaris wrote in Latin with equal facility and elegance; and he was entreated to undertake the translation of several Greek authors, but he has only rendered some treatises of Polybius on the military art. Several smaller works are also ascribed to him, viz. 1. Epigrammata Græca et Latina, Paris, 1527, in 8vo, and 1544, in 4to; 2. De veris Græcarum Litterarum formis ac causis apud Antiquos, Paris, 1536, in 8vo; 3. Orationes, Francfort, 1575. The Nuova Scelta di Lettere, by Bernardo Pino, contains one of Lascaris. (A.)