ALLATIUS, LEO, one of the most voluminous wri ters of the seventeenth century, was born in 1586, in the island of Scio, from which lie was removed, at the age of nine years, to Calabria. Some years after, he entered the Greek College at Ronie, and applied with assiduity to the study of philosophy, divinity, and polite literature. From Rome he proceeded to Naples, where he was appointed great vicar to Bernard Justiniani, bishop of Anglona. After this appointment he returned to his native island ; but, regretting the interruption of his literary pursuits, and the loss of his literary com panions, lie soon revisited Rome, and fixed in that city his residence for life. On returning to this seat of the muses, he engaged with fresh ardour in the elegant and liberal occupations from which he had been precluded in his own country. After applying for some time to the study of medicine, and taking out his degree as doctor in that science, he devoted his whole attention to the Belles Lettres, and soon distinguished himself by the elegance and the extent of his accomplishments. He was appointed Greek Professor in the college of his nation at Rome; he was intrusted by Gregory XV. with the charge of removing the library of the elector pala tine to that city ; and, after the death of that pontiff, he lived, first with cardinal Bichi, and then with cardinal Francis Barberini, till he was appointed by pope Alex ander VII. keeper of the Vatican Library. For this employment, his unwearied industry, his fondness for manuscripts, and his excellent memory, rendered him peculiarly qualified. lie lived to the advanced age of
83, and died at Rome in January 1669.
The character of Allatius is by no means amiable. Though educated in the bosom of the Greek church, he became such an extravagant bigot to the Roman Catholic religion, that he maintains the necessity of obeying the commands of the pope, even when he go verns with injustice; and asserts, that as the Roman pontiff is armed with the authority of Christ, not even an angel from heaven could make him alter his opinion, or deviate from truth. Nor was his temper less into lerant, than his bigotry was extravagant and absurd. Fire and sword are the weapons with which he proposes to reduce schismatics and heretics, who, to use his own words, ought to be proscribed, punished, and extirpated.
In his controversial writings, he brands his antagonists with the most opprobrious epithets which malice could invent ; and indulges his rancour particularly against his countrymen the Greeks, whom he reproaches as schismatics. He gave great assistance to the gentlemen of Port Royal, in the controversy which they carried on with Mr Claude concerning the belief of the Greeks, with regard to the eucharist. His compositions display erudition rather than judgment. Among his Greek poems there is one upon the birth of Louis X1V., which he afterwards reprinted and dedicated to that prince. A ridiculous story is told of a pen of Allatius, with which he wrote Greek for forty years, and the loss of which he lamented with tears. (k)