Page 80 - Beholding Liberty!

80 BEHOLDING LIBERTY!
1.2.1
Kaisarios Konstantinos Dapontes
Spiritual Depository
Venice: By Nikolaos Glykys of Ioannina, 1778 Library of the Hellenic Parliament
I.2.2
Iosipos Moisiodax
Theory of Geography
Vienna: By the Noble and Imperial or Royal Printer Ioannis Thomas of Trattner, 1781 Library of the Hellenic Parliament
THE DEACON-MONK IOSIPOS MOI- SIODAX (c. 1725-1800), one of the most im- portant figures of the Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment, advocated in his work with audacity the need for the cultural renewal of the Balkan area and its align- ment with European prototypes.
In the Theory of Geography he presents his views on science and physical philosophy, favouring the he-
liocentric theory. The thesis forms part of a wider category of scientific treatises -translations and es- says- that circulate in the years of mature Enlight- enment, proposing a different concept about geo- graphical space as a field of worldly life, in which the geography of culture dominates. In the same work, participating in the lively discussion of his era about language, Moisiodax argues rationally in favour of simple style in the scientific domain and education.
KAISARIOS DAPONTES, born in 1713 or 1714 on the island of Skopelos, was one of the most important scholars, verse writers, translators and chronographers of the 18th century. Having first held public offices for a long time, in 1753, disillusioned with worldly life, after the death of his wife, he was ordained monk. In 1757 he entered the Monastery of Xiropotamos of the Holy Mountain, where he took up, among other things, copying manuscripts. As a matter of fact, in the republication of the work «Spir- itual Table» (1778), which contains fifteen «useful» speeches, spiritual food for the readers, he also in- cluded five chrysobulls (documents bearing the em- peror’s gold bulla) of the Monastery of Xiropotamos, and, hence, «it was first from this work of Dapontes that the scientific world learnt about the preserved in Athos official documents».