Petrarch kept, with devotional care, a Greek manuscript of Homer which he didn’t know how to read. To the friend who sent it to him from Constantinople, he wrote: “Your Homer lies mute by my side, while I am deaf by his, and often I have kissed him saying: “Great man, how I wish I could hear your words!” At Petrarch’s suggestion, and with the help of Boccaccio, their friend Leonzio Pilato, a Calabrian monk of Greek origin, translated the Odyssey and the Iliad into Latin, both very badly.
(via rhea137)