Constantine, an eminent Greek scholar of the fifteenth century, was a member of the royal house of Lascaris, and was born at Constantinople, but in what year is not known. When the Turks became masters of that city in 1453, he sought an asylum in Italy, where Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan entrusted him with the education of his daughter Hippolyta, afterwards married to Alfonso, King of Naples. On leaving Milan, he went first to Rome and afterwards to Naples, in both of which cities he taught Greek and rhetoric. A few years later, when on a visit to Messina, he was so cordially received by the inhabitants that he determined to settle there. The school which he established enjoyed a great reputation till his death in 1493. Among his pupils was the celebrated Bembo. Lascaris bequeathed his library and valuable MSS. to the senate of Messina. They were afterwards carried off to Spain, and are now preserved in the Royal Library of the Escorial. His published works are—*Grammatica Graeca, sive Compendium octo Orationis partium*, Milan, 1476, in 4to, being the first book printed in Greek; *Two Opuscula* on the Sicilians and Calabrese, who had written in Greek, published, for the first time, by Maurolico, in 1562. A Dissertation on Orpheus, printed in the first volume of the *Marmora Taurinensis*, from a manuscript in the library of the King of Sardinia. These works, though now of little value, were useful in their day, by reviving the study of the Greek tongue in countries where it had long been dead.

Andreas Joannes, a learned Greek, of the same family with the preceding; and surnamed Rhodaeus, because he was born on the banks of the Rhodacus, in Bithynia. On the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, he took refuge at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici, who sent him to Greece to collect valuable MSS. in that country. Lascaris returned with a large number, and a few years afterwards, made a second voyage to Greece for the same purpose. Before his return, Lorenzo died, and Lascaris, on the invitation of Charles VIII., removed in 1495 to Paris, and began to teach Greek publicly. Among his pupils were Budaeus and Danes. In 1503, and again in 1505, Louis XII. appointed him to the embassy of Venice; and at a later period Leo X. invited him to Rome, to take charge of the Greek college newly founded there. In 1515 the pope sent him on a mission to Francis I.; and this prince, Las Palmas 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 Buonacorsi, 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 urgently pressed him to settle at Rome. Though suffering seriously from bad health and the infirmities of old age, he immediately set out; but he only survived his arrival at Rome for a few months, dying in 1535, at the age of nearly ninety.

The principal works edited by Lascaris are—Anthologia Epigrammatum Graecorum, libri vii., Græce, Florence, 1494, in 4to.; Callimachi Hymni Gr., cum scholiis Graecis, ibid., in 4to., the editio princeps; Scholia Graeca in Iliadem, in integrum restituta, Rome, 1517, in folio, a very rare edition; Homericarum Questionum liber, et de Nympharum centro in Odyssea opusculum, ibid., 1518, in small 4to., the editio princeps; Commentarii [Graeci] in septem Tragoedias Sophoclis, ibid., 1618, in small 4to. He also translated into Latin some treatises of Polybius on the military art. The following smaller works are also ascribed to him—Epigrammata Graeca et Latina, Paris, 1627, in 8vo, and 1644, in 4to.; De veris Graecarum Litterarum formis ac causis apud Antiquos, Paris, 1536, in 8vo.; Orationes, Francfort, 1575. The Nuova Scelta di Lettere, by Bernardo Pino, contains one of Lascaris.

LAS PALMAS. See CANARY ISLANDS.