Flanginian School

Flanginian School Φλαγγίνειος Σχολή
Location
Venice Republic of Venice (now Italy)
Information
Type	Secondary male school
Established	1664/5
Founder	Thomas Flanginis
Closed	1905
Flanginian school (left) and San Giorgio dei Greci (center)

The Flanginian School (Greek: Φλαγγίνειος Σχολή, Italian: Collegio Flanginiano) was a Greek educational institution that operated in Venice, Italy, from 1664-1665 to 1905. The Flanginian produced several teachers that contributed to the modern Greek Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries.

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). Moreover, it was one of the economically strongest Greek communities of that time outside the Ottoman Empire.

At 1626 a wealthy Greek merchant that lived in Venice, Thomas Flanginis, offered to the community a large sum of money for the foundation of a new school. The project for the construction of the school was entrusted to the famous Venetian architect Baldassare Longhena. Finally, the Flanginian school, named after its sponsor, started to function at 1664 and its students came from various Greek-populated regions.

The teaching staff included famous Greek scholars and representatives of the modern Greek enlightenment, like Theophilos Korydaleus,Eugenios Voulgaris,Ioannis Chalkeus and Ioannis Patoussas. The curriculum included advanced philosophy, rhetorics, 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 doctor's degree. The school began to decline after the dissolution of the Venetian Republic (1797), and finally closed down in 1905.

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