Filelfo, Francesco (1398-1481)

Italian scholar, teacher, and rhetorician. Born at Tolentino, he studied at Padua, where he was appointed professor at the age of 18. In 1419 he travelled to Constantinople to learn the language and acquire Greek manuscripts. There he married Theodora, daughter of his teacher John Chrysoloras. He returned to Venice in 1427 with over 40 manuscripts, and during the next 50 years established a reputation as one of the finest Greek scholars of his age.

He returned to Venice in 1427 but was dissatisfied with his reception and moved on, first to Bologna, then to Florence. He quarrelled with the Florentine humanists and Cosimo de' Medici and in 1434 had to leave the city for Siena. Eventually he reached Milan in 1440, where he remained, apart from a visit to Rome in 1475, for the rest of his life. In 1481 he was invited back to Florence, but died there soon afterwards.