M4573R:
This will be a single color matrix with no dimming for clarification.
Then have a look at this article Arduino Playground - HomePage You cannot get much simpler than using a MAX7219 as it takes care of all the row/column scanning for you and only needs a single resistor to set current limiting. They are cheap to buy on ebay and so simple to use I made this http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,118338.0.html as my first arduino project.