:Flanginian School

The Greek community in Venice, dating from the Byzantine era, had become the largest foreign community in the city during the end of the 16th century, numbering between 4,000 and 5,000, mostly concentrated in the Castello district (sestiere).{{cite web | last=Fusaro | first=Maria | title=Coping with transition. Greek merchants and ship owners between Venice and England in the sixteenth century | url=http://eh.net/XIIICongress/cd/papers/10Fusaro90.pdf | access-date=2010-09-10 | work=Oxford University | pages=6–7 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100616042218/http://eh.net/XIIICongress/cd/papers/10Fusaro90.pdf | archive-date=2010-06-16 | url-status=dead }} Moreover, it was one of the economically strongest Greek communities of that time outside the Ottoman Empire.{{cite book | title=Greece: Books and Writers | publisher=Ministry of Culture — National Book Centre of Greece | year=2001|url= http://www.greece2001.gr/docs/1-66.pdf | isbn= 960-7894-29-4| page =54}}

In 1626 a wealthy Greek merchant who lived in Venice, Thomas Flanginis, offered to the community a large sum of money for the foundation of a new school.{{cite book | last=Runciman |first=Steven | title= The Great Church in captivity: a study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the eve of the Turkish conquest to the Greek War of Independence| publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=1986|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=zSXu17g7BRwC&pg=PA212 | isbn= 978-0-521-31310-0| page =212}} The project for the construction of the school was entrusted to the famous Venetian architect Baldassare Longhena.{{cite web | title=The Flanghinis College | url=http://www.istitutoellenico.org/english/complesso/edifici/index.html | access-date=2010-09-10 | work=The Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice | archive-date=2010-10-30 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101030235402/http://www.istitutoellenico.org/english/complesso/edifici/index.html | url-status=dead }} The Flanginian school, named after its sponsor, started to function in 1664, with students from various Greek-populated regions.

The teaching staff included famous Greek scholars and representatives of the modern Greek Enlightenment, including Theophilos Korydaleus,{{cite book | last=Runciman |first=Steven | title= Modern Greek studies yearbook| publisher=University of Minnesota | year=1989|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=m2toAAAAMAAJ&q=flanginian | page =329}} Eugenios Voulgaris,{{cite book | last1=Alan |first1=Graham |last2=Rogers |first2=John | title= Locke's philosophy: content and context| publisher=Oxford University Press | year=1994 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vhHRlzStkWcC&q=flanginian&pg=PA223 | isbn=978-0-19-823684-9 | page =223}} Ioannis Chalkeus{{cite book | last= Peyfuss|first= Max Demeter |author-link= Max Demeter Peyfuss | title= Die Druckerei von Moschopolis, 1731-1769: Buchdruck und Heiligenverehrung im Erzbistum Achrida | publisher= Böhlau | year=1989 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2MxpAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Ioannes+Chalkeus+%28er+war+1694-1703+und+1712-1716+Direktor+der%22 | isbn=978-3-205-05293-7 | page =81}} and Ioannis Patoussas.{{cite book | title=Balkan studies: biannual publication of the Institute for Balkan Studies | publisher=Balkan studies: biannual publication of the Institute for Balkan Studies, Vol. 13-14 | year=1972|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=jltpAAAAMAAJ&q=phlanginian | page =274}}

The curriculum included advanced philosophy, rhetoric, philology and logic. The Flanginian produced a total of 550 graduates during the 214 years of its existence (1665–1797 and 1823–1905). Its graduates had the opportunity to continue their studies at Padua University, in order to obtain a doctoral degree.{{cite book | last1= Manousakas |first1=M. I.|last2=Paliouras|first2=Ath. | title= Guide to the Museum of Icons and the Church of St. George | publisher= The Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice | year=1976 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7vnkAAAAMAAJ&q=flanginian | pages =18, 21}} The school began to decline after the dissolution of the Venetian Republic (1797), and finally closed in 1905.

The school is perhaps best remembered for an anthology of prose and poetry entitled Flowers of Piety ({{langx|el|Άνθη Ευλαβείας}}, 1708), which was composed by the students of the school, made up of epigrams, both in ancient Greek and Latin, Sapphic odes, Italian sonnets, and, most significantly, prose and verse compositions in (Demotic) modern Greek. It offers the first surviving Demotic Greek poetry following the termination of the Cretan Renaissance. Additional works composed by the staff of the Flanginian are "Greece's Homage to the Venetian Senate", and a literary encyclopedia by Ioannis Patousas composed in four volumes, which was a valuable resource for Greek schools operating in the Ottoman Empire.

The school was located in the Campo dei Greci, near the Greek Orthodox church of Saint George. Today the building of the Flanginian School houses the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice. The building was conserved at the initiative of Sophia Antoniadis.{{Cite journal|title=Sophia Antoniadis|url=http://www.ekebi.gr/magazines/ShowImage.asp?file=118623&code=5031|journal=Nea Estia|volume=91|pages=269–71|access-date=2020-08-10|archive-date=2020-11-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201103003816/http://www.ekebi.gr/magazines/ShowImage.asp?file=118623&code=5031|url-status=dead}}

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• {{cite web| title=Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice| format=ΗΤΜ| url=http://www.istitutoellenico.org/english/index.html| access-date=2010-09-11| archive-date=2010-09-10| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100910021643/http://www.istitutoellenico.org/english/index.html| url-status=dead}}

{{Modern Greek Enlightenment}}

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Category:Buildings and structures in Castello, Venice

Category:Defunct schools in Italy

Category:Education in Venice

Category:Greek diaspora in Italy

Category:Modern Greek Enlightenment

Category:1664 establishments in the Republic of Venice

Category:Educational institutions established in the 1660s

Category:Educational institutions disestablished in 1905