Marullus, Michael Tarchaniota
MARULLUS, MICHAEL TARCHANIOTA (d. 1500), Greek scholar, poet, and soldier, was born at Constantinople. In 1453) when the Turks captured Constantinople, he was taken to Ancona in Italy, where he became the friend and pupil of J. J. Pontanus, with whom his name is associated by Ariosto (Orl. Fur. xxxvii. 8). He received his education at Florence, where he obtained the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici. He was the author of epigrams and hymni naturales, in which he happily imitated Lucretius. He took no part in the work of translation, then the favourite exercise of scholars, but he was understood to be planning some great work when he was drowned, on the 1cth of April 1500, in the river Cecina near Volterra. He was a bitter enemy of Politian, whose successful rival he had been in the affections of the beautiful and learned Alessandra Scala. He is remembered chiefly for the brilliant emendations on Lucretius which he left unpublished; these were used for the Juntine edition (Munro's Lucretius, Introduction).
The hymns, some of the epigrams, and a fragment, De Principum institutione, were reprinted in Paris by C. M. Sathas in Documents inedits relatifs a fhistoire de la Grece au moyen Age, vol. vii. (1888).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
