Among the prose writers of the 16th century were a number of chroniclers. At the end of the 15th, Kritobulos of Imbros, who had been private secretary of Mahommed II., wrote the history of his master, Emmanuel Melaxos a history of the patriarchate, and Phranzes a history of the Palaeologi. Theodosius Zygomalas (1580) wrote a history of Constantinople from 1391 to 1578. In the 17th century Demetrius Cantemir, a Moldavian by birth, wrote a history of the Ottoman empire, and G. Kontares tales of ancient Athens. Others composed chronicles of Cyprus and Crete, narratives of travels and biographies of saints. Most of these works are written in the literary language, the study of which was kept alive by the patriarchate and the schools which it maintained at Constantinople and elsewhere. Various theological and philosophical works, grammars and dictionaries were written during this period, but elegant literature practically disappears.[8] The literary revival. A literary revival followed in the 18th century, the precursor of the national uprising which resulted in the independence of Greece. The efforts of the great Phanariote families at Constantinople, the educational zeal of the higher Greek clergy and the munificence of wealthy Greeks in the provinces, chiefly merchants who had acquired fortunes by commerce, combined to promote the spread of education among a people always eager for instruction. The Turks, indifferent to educational matters, failed to discern the significance of the movement. Schools were established in every important Greek town, and school-books and translations from Western languages issued from the presses of Venice, Triest, Vienna and other cities where the Greeks possessed colonies. Young men completed their studies in the Western universities and returned to the East as the missionaries of modern civilization. For the greater part of the 18th century the literature was mainly theological. Notable theological writers of this epoch were Elias Miniates, an elegant preacher, whose sermons are written in the popular language, and Meletios of Iannina, metropolitan of Athens, whose principal works were an ecclesiastical history, written in ancient Greek, and a descriptive geography of Greece in the modern language, composed, like the work of Pausanias, after a series of tours. The works of two distinguished prelates, both natives of Corfu and both ardent partisans of Russia, Nikephoros Theotokes (1731?-1800) and Eugenios Bulgares (1715-1806), mark the beginning of the national and literary renaissance. They wrote much in defence of Greek orthodoxy against Latin heresy. Theotokes, famous as a preacher, wrote, besides theological and controversial works, treatises on mathematics, geography and physics. Bulgares was a most prolific author; he wrote numerous translations and works on theology, archaeology, philosophy, mathematics, physics and astronomy; he translated the _Aeneid_ and