Demetrios Chalkokondyles (Greek: Δημήτριος Χαλκοκονδύλης Dēmḗtrios Chalkokondýlēs), Latinized as Demetrius Chalcocondyles and found variously as Demetricocondyles, Chalcocondylas or Chalcondyles (1423 – 9 January 1511), was one of the most eminent Greek scholars in the West. He taught in Italy for over forty years; his colleagues included Marsilio Ficino, Poliziano, and Theodorus Gaza in the revival of letters in the Western world, and Chalkokondyles was the last of the Greek humanists who taught Greek literature at the great universities of the Italian Renaissance (Padua, Florence, Milan). One of his pupils at Florence was the famous Johann Reuchlin. Chalkokondyles published the first printed publications of Homer (in 1488), of Isocrates (in 1493), and of the Suda lexicon (in 1499).
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Demetrios Chalkokondyles in the context of Editio princeps
In textual and classical scholarship, the editio princeps (Latin for first edition; plural: editiones principes) of a work is the first printed edition of a work that previously had existed only in manuscripts (which had to be copied by hand in order to circulate).
For example, the editio princeps of Homer is that of Demetrius Chalcondyles, now thought to be from 1488. The most important texts of classical Greek and Roman authors were for the most part produced in editiones principes in the years from 1465 to 1525, following the invention of the printing press around 1440.
Demetrios Chalkokondyles in the context of Greek scholars in the Renaissance
The migration waves of Byzantine Greek scholars and émigrés in the period following the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 are considered by many scholars key to the revival of Greek studies that led to the development of Renaissance humanism and science. These émigrés brought to Western Europe the relatively well-preserved remnants and accumulated knowledge of their own (Greek) civilization, which had mostly not survived the Early Middle Ages in the West. The Encyclopædia Britannica claims: "Many modern scholars also agree that the exodus of Greeks to Italy as a result of this event marked the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance," although few scholars date the start of the Italian Renaissance this late.