24 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



tages of an uncommon kind for a scholar like Scot, 

 eager to acquire knowledge in every department. 

 Sicily was still, especially in its more remote and 

 mountainous parts about Entella, Giato, and Platani, 

 the refuge of a considerable Moorish population, 

 whose language was therefore familiar in the island, 

 and was heard even at Court ; being, we are assured, 

 one of those in which Frederick received instruc- 

 tion.^ There can be little doubt that Scot availed 

 himself of this opportunity, and laid a good founda- 

 tion for his later work on Arabic texts by acquiring, 

 in the years of his residence at Palermo, at least the 

 vernacular language of the Moors. 



The same may be said regarding the Greek 

 tongue : a branch of study much neglected even by 

 the learned of those times. We shall presently 

 produce evidence which goes to show that Michael 

 Scot worked upon Greek as well as Arabic texts," 

 and it was in all probability to his situation in 

 Sicily that he owed the acquisition of what was 

 then a very rare accomplishment. Bacon, who 

 deplores the ignorance of Greek which prevailed in 

 his days, recommends those who would learn this 

 important language to go to Italy, where, he says, 

 especially in the south, both clergy and people are 

 still in many places purely Greek.^ The reference 

 to Magna Grecia is obvious, and to Sicily, whose 

 Greek colonies preserved, even to Frederick's time 

 and beyond it, their nationality and language. So 

 much was this the case, that it was thought neces- 

 sary to make the study of Greek as well as of Arabic 

 part of Frederick's education. We can hardly err 



^ Amari. 2 ggg infra, pp. 26, 59, and ch. vi. 



^ Compendmm Studii, p. 434. 



