GAZA, THEODORUS A famous teacher of the Greek language and literature in the West, the successor of Emmanuel Chrysoloras. He was born in Thessalonica, and came to Italy between the years 1435 and 1440, apparently from Constantinople. The Latin language he learned under Vittorino da Feltre at Mantua, and studied so assiduously that in three years he was a master of the tongue; soon after 1441 he was appointed professor of Greek in the newly established school at Ferrara. About 1450 Pope Nicholas V. invited him, along with other learned Greeks, to Rome, where he was appointed to the chair of philosophy. At this time he made a Latin translation of Aristotle's Problemata in mechanics and of his History of Animals. Later he made translations of many other Greek works. After the death of Pope Nicholas, King Alfonso gave him an invitation to remove to Naples in 1455; but the death of this monarch in 1458 necessitated his return to Rome, where he found a patron in Cardinal Bessarion, who obtained for him a small benefice in Southern Italy. But
the learned Greek longed for Rome, to which he returned for a time under the Popes Paul II. and Sixtus IV. He died in Calabria about 1475.
Gaza has been warmly praised by subsequent scholars, such as Politian, Erasmus, Scaliger, and Melanehthon. His principal writings are his Introductio Grammatica Libri IV. (a work on the elements of Greek grammar, first published by Aldus Manutius, at Venice, A.D. 1495, and long held in high repute), a number of epistles to different persons on various literary subjects, and a variety of important translations into Latin, besides those already mentioned, portions of Aristotle, Allan, Theophrastus, Saint Chry sostom, Hippocrates, and other.. Greek writers. Consult: Hodius, De Grcecis Illus'tribus (London, 1742) ; also 1Viederbelebung des klag sischen Altertums, vol. ii. (Berlin, 1893).