Michael Apostolius (
Greek: Μιχαὴλ Ἀποστόλιος or Μιχαὴλ Ἀποστόλης;
c. 1420 in
Constantinople – after 1474 or 1486, possibly in
Venetian Crete)[1] or Apostolius Paroemiographus, i.e. Apostolius the proverb-writer, was a
Greek teacher, writer and
copyist who lived in the fifteenth century.
Life
Apostolius, a student of
John Argyropoulos, taught for a short time at the Monastery of St. John of Petra in Constantinople.[1] Taken prisoner by the Turks during the
fall of Constantinople in 1453, he was later released and fled to
Crete, then a
Venetian colony.[1] There he earned a scanty living by teaching and by copying manuscripts for Italian humanists, including his patron,
Cardinal Bessarion.[2][1] He often complained about his poverty: one of his manuscripts, a copy of the Eikones of
Philostratus, now in
Bologna, bears the inscription: "The king of the poor of this world has written this book for his living."[2]