Simon Atumano was the Bishop of Gerace in
CalabriaCalabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian peninsula. It is bounded to the north by the region of Basilicata, to the south-west by the region of Sicily, to the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea, and to the east by the...
from 23 June 1348 until 1366 and the Latin Archbishop of Thebes thereafter until 1380. Born in
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
, Atumano was of Greco-
TurkishThe Turkish people , also known as the "Turks" are defined mainly as citizens of the Republic of Turkey. An early historic text provided the definition of being a Turk as "any individual within the Republic of Turkey; whatever his/her faith or racial/ethnic background; who speaks Turkish, grows up...
stock, his surname deriving from the word "Ottoman." He was a famous
humanistRenaissance Humanism was a European intellectual movement that was a crucial component of the Renaissance, beginning in Florence in the latter half of the 14th century. The humanist movement developed from the rediscovery by European scholars of Latin literary and Greek literary texts. Initially,...
and an influential
Greek scholarThe migration of Byzantine scholars and other émigrés from southern Italy and Byzantium during the decline of the Byzantine Empire and mainly after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the 16th century, is considered by some scholars as very important in the revival of Greek and Roman studies...
in the
Italian RenaissanceThe Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
.
On 17 April 1366,
Pope Urban VIPope Urban VI , born Bartolomeo Prignano, was Pope from 1378 to 1389.-Biography:Born in Naples, he was a devout monk and learned casuist, trained at Avignon. On March 21, 1364, he was consecrated Archbishop of Acerenza in the Kingdom of Naples...
transferred Atumano to the see of Thebes in reward for his "great integrity." Atumano did not begin well with the
Catalan CompanyThe Catalan Company of the East , officially the Company of the Army of the Franks in Romania, sometimes called the Grand Company and widely known as the Catalan Company, was a free company of mercenaries founded by Roger de Flor in the early 14th-century...
which ruled Thebes as part of the
Duchy of AthensThe Duchy of Athens was one of the Crusader States set up in Greece after the conquest of the Byzantine Empire during the Fourth Crusade, encompassing the regions of Attica and Boeotia, and surviving until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.-Establishment of the Duchy:The first...
at the time.
Simon Atumano was the Bishop of Gerace in
CalabriaCalabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian peninsula. It is bounded to the north by the region of Basilicata, to the south-west by the region of Sicily, to the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea, and to the east by the...
from 23 June 1348 until 1366 and the Latin Archbishop of Thebes thereafter until 1380. Born in
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
, Atumano was of Greco-
TurkishThe Turkish people , also known as the "Turks" are defined mainly as citizens of the Republic of Turkey. An early historic text provided the definition of being a Turk as "any individual within the Republic of Turkey; whatever his/her faith or racial/ethnic background; who speaks Turkish, grows up...
stock, his surname deriving from the word "Ottoman." He was a famous
humanistRenaissance Humanism was a European intellectual movement that was a crucial component of the Renaissance, beginning in Florence in the latter half of the 14th century. The humanist movement developed from the rediscovery by European scholars of Latin literary and Greek literary texts. Initially,...
and an influential
Greek scholarThe migration of Byzantine scholars and other émigrés from southern Italy and Byzantium during the decline of the Byzantine Empire and mainly after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the 16th century, is considered by some scholars as very important in the revival of Greek and Roman studies...
in the
Italian RenaissanceThe Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
.
Ecclesiastical and political career
On 17 April 1366,
Pope Urban VIPope Urban VI , born Bartolomeo Prignano, was Pope from 1378 to 1389.-Biography:Born in Naples, he was a devout monk and learned casuist, trained at Avignon. On March 21, 1364, he was consecrated Archbishop of Acerenza in the Kingdom of Naples...
transferred Atumano to the see of Thebes in reward for his "great integrity." Atumano did not begin well with the
Catalan CompanyThe Catalan Company of the East , officially the Company of the Army of the Franks in Romania, sometimes called the Grand Company and widely known as the Catalan Company, was a free company of mercenaries founded by Roger de Flor in the early 14th-century...
which ruled Thebes as part of the
Duchy of AthensThe Duchy of Athens was one of the Crusader States set up in Greece after the conquest of the Byzantine Empire during the Fourth Crusade, encompassing the regions of Attica and Boeotia, and surviving until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.-Establishment of the Duchy:The first...
at the time. He was described later as "a very lukewarm Catalan." While the Catalans supported the
Avignon PapacyThe Avignon Papacy, also known as the "Babylonian Captivity", was the period from 1305 to 1378 during which seven Popes resided in Avignon . The period was one of conflict and controversy during which French Kings held considerable sway over the Papacy and rulers across Europe felt sidelined by the...
during the
Western SchismThe Great Schism of Western Christianity or Papal Schism was a split within the Roman Catholic Church from 1378 to 1417. By its end, three men simultaneously claimed to be the true pope. Driven by politics rather than any real theological disagreement, the schism was ended by the Council of...
, Atumano remained faithful to Rome.
In 1379, Atumano assisted the
Navarrese CompanyThe Navarrese Company was a company of mercenaries, mostly from Navarre and Gascony, which fought in Greece during the late 14th century and early 15th century, in the twilight of Frankish power in the dwindling remnant of the Latin Empire...
under
Juan de UrtubiaJuan de Urtubia was a Navarrese royal squire who led first a contingent of fifty men-at-arms on an expedition...
to take Thebes. The details of the assistance he gave them are unknown, but it put him in further bad stead with the Catalans. However, Atumano got along no better with the Navarrese and sometime in 1380–1381 he fled to Italy, where he was at Rome in the winter of the latter year. He lost 1,500
florinsThe Italian florin was a coin struck from 1252 to 1523 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard. It had 54 grains of gold . The "fiorino d'oro" of the Republic of Florence was the first European gold coin struck in sufficient quantities to play a significant commercial...
of revenue from Thebes and lived thereafter in poverty "more acceptable in the sight of God," though the
Peter IV of AragonPeter IV, also known as Pedro or Pere , called the Ceremonious or El del Punyalet , was the King of Aragon, King of Sardinia and Corsica , King of Valencia , and Count of Barcelona Peter IV, also known as Pedro or Pere (Balaguer5 September 1319 – 6 January 1387), called the Ceremonious (el...
assumed that Atumano would receive a higher dignity from the Roman Pope. From Italy he wrote to Demetrius Cydonius about his worries for his flock and about the blasphemy and lack of respect for law of the
Ispanoi, that is, the Navarrese.
Translation work
Atumano undertook studies of
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
while in Thebes. In the mid-late 1370s, he began the composition of a
Biblia Triglotta, a polyglot Latin-
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
-Hebrew bible written a century before the Complutensian Polyglot. Whether or not Atumano's interest in Hebrew was ignited by the large Jewish presence in Thebes is unknown, since it appears that the Jewish population there had dwindled significantly by the late fourteenth century. The
Biblia Triglotta, dedicated to Urban VI, was never finished. He did, however, complete a Hebrew translation of the
New TestamentThe New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christian Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament, both terms being associated with Supersessionism...
and a Greek of the
OldIn Christianity, the Old Testament is the collection of books that form the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions. In the Eastern Orthodox Church the comparable texts are known as the Septuagint, from the...
.
In 1373, Atumano translated the
De remediis irae of
PlutarchPlutarch, born Plutarchos then, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 – 120, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
into Latin from Greek. In 1381–2 he taught Greek to Raoul de Rivo.
Character
Atumano was praised by his contemporary,
Frederick III of SicilyFrederick II or III was the regent and subsequently King of Sicily from 1295 until his death. He was the third son of Peter III of Aragon and served in the War of the Sicilian Vespers on behalf of his father and brothers, Alfonso and James...
, for his "innate goodness and praiseworthy character" and by his twentieth-century biographer as "no common scholar."
Coluccio SalutatiColuccio Salutati was an Italian man of letters and one of the most important political and cultural leaders of Renaissance Florence.-Biography:...
, the famous Florentine humanist, praised him to
PetrarchFrancesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest Renaissance humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
as a
vir multe venerationis: most venerable man. He was made a citizen of the
Republic of VeniceThe Most Serene Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century AD until the year 1797...
. Even the
Antipope Clement VIIRobert of Geneva was elected to the papacy as Clement VII by the French cardinals who opposed Urban VI, and was the first Avignon claimant of the Western Schism. Clement VII is regarded by the Roman Catholic Church as an antipope.He was the son of Amadeus III, Count of Geneva, and was born in...
referred to him as of
bone memorie (good memory).
However, some latter day historians, especially the
CatalanThe Catalans are the people from, or with origins in Catalonia, an Autonomous Community in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France –known in Catalonia proper as Catalunya Nord, and in France as the Pays Catalan– are often included in this definition.-Extended concept:The...
Antonio Rubió y Lluch, have labelled him an untrustworthy scoundrel on the basis of four documents in the archives of the
Crown of AragonThe Crown of Aragon was a permanent union of multiple titles and states in the hands of the King of Aragon.At the height of its power by the 14th and 15th centuries, the Crown of Aragon was a thalassocracy controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain, Southwestern France, as well as...
in
BarcelonaBarcelona is the capital, most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008. It is the 11th-most populous municipality in the European Union and sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris,...
dated to 1381 and 1382. In one of the letters, Peter IV of Aragon requests that Urban VI remove Atumano from Thebes and replace him with John Boyl, the Bishop of
MegaraMegara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...
, exiled from his see since the Florentine occupation of 1374. According to the letter, Atumano fled to Italy when still a Greek monk on account of nefarious sins for which, Peter claims, he would have been burned alive. In Italy, he succeeded in "parading himself as a man of honour" and so obtaining the archdiocese from
Pope Gregory XIPope Gregory XI , born Pierre Roger de Beaufort, Pope from 1370 to 1378, born in Maumont, in the modern commune of Rosiers-d'Égletons, Limousin around 1336, succeeded Pope Urban V in 1370 as one of the Avignon Popes.During his pontificate vigorous measures were taken against the heresies which had...
. The letter, however, is probably mere calumny, as the "only verifiable information given" is readily falisified: Gregory was not Pope when Atumano received the archbishopric.
Sources