Giacomo d'Angelo da Scarperia or Scarparia (Jacobus Angelus) was a Renaissance humanist, born in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

. He hastened to Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, when Manuel Chrysoloras

Manuel Chrysoloras

Manuel Chrysoloras was a pioneer in the introduction of Greek literature to Western Europe during the late middle ages....

 had arrived as an envoy of Manuel Paleologus in 1393 and had stayed to teach Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 in Italy for the first time in seven centuries. He decided to return with Chrysoloras to Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 — the first Florentine to do so — in company with Guarino da Verona

Guarino da Verona

Guarino da Verona was an early figure in the Italian Renaissance.He was born in Verona, Italy and later studied Greek at Constantinople, where for five years he was the pupil of Manuel Chrysoloras. When he set out to return home, he had with him two cases of precious Greek manuscripts which he had...

, to immerse himself in advanced Greek studies under Demetrios Kydones. Coluccio Salutati

Coluccio Salutati

Coluccio Salutati was an Italian Humanist and man of letters, and one of the most important political and cultural leaders of Renaissance Florence.-Birth and Early Career:...

 wrote to urge Giacomo to search the libraries there for texts especially of Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, and for lexicons of the Greek language, with the result that Giacomo translated Ptolemy

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...

's Geographia

Geographia (Ptolemy)

The Geography is Ptolemy's main work besides the Almagest...

into Latin in 1406: he dedicated it first to Pope Gregory IX

Pope Gregory IX

Pope Gregory IX, born Ugolino di Conti, was pope from March 19, 1227 to August 22, 1241.The successor of Pope Honorius III , he fully inherited the traditions of Pope Gregory VII and of his uncle Pope Innocent III , and zealously continued their policy of Papal supremacy.-Early life:Ugolino was...

, and then in 1409 rededicated it to Alexander V. He also brought new texts of Homer, Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 and Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

to the attention of western scholars.