The education of Iacob Heraclide Despot (I)

The education of Despot was very distinguished. In first his years he was instructed by Hermodor Lestarchus, at Chios, Greece. This information is found in Mellanchton’s letters addressed to the king of Danemark. Legrand Emile kept these letters for us. Also Sommer provides information about Despot and his professor. Hermodor was a good teacher, doctor and speaker, he was also very popular. Prince Despot of Moldavia invited him as a professor at the Academy from Cotnari or Suceava and sent him 200 gold for his travel but he went back in Grerce when he arrived at Danube, because the city of Suceava was surrounded. The controversy about Hermodor Lestarchus: ”if that person was his teacher or Despot’s colleague” was solutioned by Ștefan Bârsănescu. He argued that Hermodor was his professor not Janus Lascaris because last person died in 1518 and Despot was born in 1520. Anyway the years in Chios were very productive for  the development of Greek and Latin Jacob’s language and other disciplines like Maths.

            Antonio Maria Graziani wrote about Despot’s work as a scribe for the library of Vatican. Ion Neculce and Nicolae Costin speak about the death of the real Despot in Rome or in Venice. Filip Lucian Iorga deduces that Iacob was educated in Venice. Nicolae Iorga describes Eraclide like a calligraphist from the manuscript. In these years Jacob Eraclide Despot learned the art of being a scribe, drawer (see the draws of military manuscript) and languages. Here he became very interested in documents and when the real Despot died, he had to make a choice, he chose the documents instead of gold. Of course! This interpretation belongs to the authors who believed in his ignoble. Despot was known like a polyglot but the sources regarding this are various. All authors who write about the languages that Despot spoke mention Greek, Latin and French but L’Ecluse renders Italian, Gratiani – Italian and Spanish and Grigore Ureche – German.