Metochites, Theodorus

Metochites, Theodorus 

Born 1270; died Mar. 13, 1332, in Constantinople. Byzantine writer and state figure.

A close adviser to Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus, Metochites fell into disfavor when Andronicus III ascended the throne in 1328. His numerous works, some of which remain unpublished, include Personal Comments and Annotations, commonly referred to as Philosophical and Historical Miscellany, which comprises 120 essays on morality, politics, aesthetics, history, and classical Greek literature. He also wrote a description of his embassy to Serbia and a treatise on astronomy. The works of Me-tochites, an authority on classical writers and a commentator on Aristotle, have made possible a deeper understanding of antiquity and the background of the Renaissance. Metochites was a patron of the Chora Monastery; its church, now Kahriye Djami in Istanbul, was decorated with mosaics and frescoes by his order and is an outstanding monument of the Palaeologian renaissance. Metochites spent the last years of his life in the Chora Monastery.

REFERENCES

Beck, H. G. Theodoros Metochites. Munich, 1952.
Ševčenko, I. “Theodore Metochites, the Chora, and the Intellectual Trends of His Time.” In The Kariye Djami, vol. 4. Princeton, N. J., 1975. Pages 19–91.