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chap. Calabrian churches were long attached to thethrone of Constantinople; and the monks of St.Basil pursued their studies in mount Athos andthe schools of the East. Calabria was the na-tive country of Barlaain, who has already ap-peared as a secretary and an ambassador; andLessons of Barlaam was the first who revived, beyond thea ' dITS. Alps, the memory, or at least the writings of Ho-mer . 5 He is described, by Petrarch and Boc-cace , 1 as a man of a diminutive stature, thoughtruly great in the measure of learning and ge-nius; of a piercing discernment, though of aslow and painful elocution. For many ages (asthey affirm) Greece had not produced his equalin the knowledge of history, grammar, and phi-losophy; and his merit was celebrated in the at-testations of the princes and doctors of Constan-tinople . One of these attestations is still ex-tant; and the emperor Cantacuzene, the protec-tor of his adversaries, is forced to allow, thatEuclid, Aristotle, and Plato , were familiar tothat profound and subtle logician. u In the courtof Avignon , he formed an intimate connectionwith Petrarch , 1 the first of the Latin scholars;and the desire of mutual instruction was theprinciple of their literary commerce. The Tus-

' Ii Barbari (says Petrarch, the French and Germans ) vix, non di-cam libros sed nornen Homeri audivenint. Perhaps, in that respect,the thirteenth century was less happy than the age of Charlemagne.

1 See the character of Barlaam , in Boccace de Genealog* Deorum.I. xv, c. 6.

0 Cantacuzene, 1. ii, c. 3G.

* For the connection of Petrarch and Barlaain, and tfie two inter-views, at Avignon in 1339, and at Naples in 1342, see the excellentMemoires sur la Vie de Petrarque. tom. i, p. 40G-410, tom. ii,p. 75-77,