Basilius Bessarion

Basilius Bessarion (in Greek Βασίλειος Βησσαρίων) (January 2, 1403 – November 18, 1472), mistakenly known also as Johannes Bessarion due to an erroneous interpretation of Gregory Mamme, a Roman Catholic Cardinal Bishop and the titular Latin Patriarch of Constantinople, was one of the illustrious Greek scholars who contributed to the great revival of letters in the 15th century. Image File history File links Basilius_Bessarion. ... Image File history File links Basilius_Bessarion. ... January 2 is the second day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events July 21 - Battle of Shrewsbury. ... November 18 is the 322nd day of the year (323rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... February 20 - Orkney and Shetland are returned by Norway to Scotland, due to a defaulted dowry payment Possible discovery of Bacalao (possibly Newfoundland, North America) by João Vaz Corte-Real. ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... Cardinal Bishops, or Cardinals of the Episcopal Order, are among the most important persons in the Roman Catholic Church. ... The Latin Patriarch of Constantinople was an office established as a result of Crusader activity in the Middle East. ...

Biography

He was born at Trebizond (an Anatolian Black Sea port), the year of his birth being variously given as 1389, 1395 or 1403. Trabzon, formerly known as Trebizond, is a city on the Black Sea coast of north-eastern Turkey. ...

He was educated at Constantinople, and went in 1423 to the Peloponnese to hear Gemistus Pletho expound the philosophy of Plato. On being tonsured monk, he adopted the name of an old Egyptian anchorite Bessarion, whose story he has related. In 1437, he was made metropolitan of Nicaea by the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaeologus, whom he accompanied to Italy in order to bring about a reunion between the Orthodox and Catholic churches. They had been separated since the Great Schism of 1054, but the emperor hoped to obtain help from Western Europe against the Turks. Map of Constantinople. ... The Peloponnese or Peloponnesus (Greek: Πελοπόννησος Peloponnesos; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is a large peninsula in southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth. ... Georgius Gemistos (or Plethon, Pletho), (c. ... For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... Anchorite (male)/anchoress (female), from the Greek anachōreō, signifying to withdraw, to depart into the country outside the circumvallated city, denotes someone – prominently in earlier Christian and medieval times – who for religious reasons withdraws from the secular society and leads an intensely prayer-oriented and, circumstances permitting, Mass-focused... Iznik (formerly Nicaea) is a city in Anatolia (now part of Turkey) which is known primarily as the site of two major meetings (or Ecumenical councils) in the early history of the Christian church. ... Medal of the emperor during his visit to Florence, by Pisanello (1438). ... The Eastern Orthodox Church is a Christian body that views itself as: the historical continuation of the original Christian community established by Jesus Christ and the Twelve Apostles, having maintained unbroken the link between its clergy and the Apostles by means of Apostolic Succession. ... For the later Papal Schism in Avignon, see Western Schism. ...

As his return to Greece, he found himself bitterly resented for his attachment to the minority party that saw no difficulty in a reconciliation of the two churches. At the Council of Florence, held in Ferrara and then Florence, Bessarion supported the Roman church and gained the favour of Pope Eugene IV, who invested him with the rank of cardinal at a consistory of 18 December 1439. A decree of the Council of Constance (9 October 1417), sanctioned by Pope Martin V obliged the papacy to summon general councils periodically. ... Ferrara is a city in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, capital city of the province of Ferrara. ... Florence (Italian: ) is the capital city of the region of Tuscany, Italy. ... Eugenius IV, né Gabriel Condulmer (1383 - February 23, 1447) was pope from March 3, 1431 to his death. ... A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually a bishop, of the Roman Catholic Church, a member of the College of Cardinals which as a body elects a new pope. ... // Antiquity Originally, the Latin word consistorium meant simply sitting together, just as the Greek syn(h)edrion (from which the Biblical sanhedrin was a corruption). ... In the Gregorian calendar, December 18 is the 352nd day of the year (353rd in leap years), with 13 days remaining until the end of the year. ... Events Battle of Grotnik, which ended the hussite movement in Poland Eric of Pomerania, King of Sweden, Denmark and Norway is declared deposed in Sweden. ...

From that time, he resided permanently in Italy, doing much, by his patronage of learned men, by his collection of books and manuscripts, and by his own writings, to spread abroad the new learning. His palazzo in Rome was a virtual Academy for the studies of new humanistic learning, a center for learned Greeks and Greek refugees, whom he supported by commissioning transcripts of Greek manuscripts and translations into Latin that made Greek scholarship available to West Europeans. He supported Regiomontanus in this fashion and defended Nicholas of Cusa. Raphaels fresco The School of Athens An academy is an institution of higher learning, research, or honorary membership. ... Renaissance humanism (often designated simply as humanism) was a European intellectual movement beginning in Florence in the last decades of the 14th century. ... Johannes Müller von Königsberg (June 6, 1436 – July 6, 1476), known by his Latin pseudonym Regiomontanus, was an important German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. ... Nicholas of Cusa Nicholas of Cusa (1401– August 11, 1464) was a German cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, a philosopher, jurist, mathematician, and an astronomer. ...

He held in succession the archbishopric of Siponto and the suburbicarian sees of Sabina and Frascati. At the papal conclave of 1455 which elected the Aragonese candidate, Alfons de Borja, as Callixtus III, Cardinal Bassarion was an early candidate for his disinterest in the competition between Roman factions that pressed candidates of the Orsini and Colonna factions. He was opposed for his Greek background by the French Cardinal Alain de Coëtivy. "It is probable that the cardinals were less afraid of his Greek training and temperament than they were of his known austerity and passion for reform", Francis A. Burkle-Young has observed. Categories: | ... The seven suburbicarian dioceses are Roman Catholic dioceses located in the suburbs that surround Rome. ... Cardinal Bishop of Sabina is a role in the Roman Catholic church. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... con·clave (knklv, kng-) n. ... Callixtus III, né Alphonso de Borgia (December 31, 1378 - August 6, 1458) was born in Xàtiva, Valencia, Spain and was pope from April 8, 1455 to August 6, 1458. ... The Orsini family was a powerful noble family in medieval and renaissance Rome, supplying three popes and many other leaders, and fighting with their rivals, the Colonna family, for influence. ... The Colonna family was a powerful noble family in medieval and renaissance Rome, supplying one pope and many other leaders, and fighting with their rivals the Orsini family for influence. ...

In 1463, his fellow humanist Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, then Pius II, gave him the purely ceremonial title of Latin patriarch of Constantinople. For five years (1450-1455), he was legate at Bologna, and he was engaged on embassies to many foreign princes, among others to Louis XI of France in 1471. Vexation at an insult offered him by Louis is said to have hastened his death, which took place on November 19, 1472, at Ravenna. Pope Pius II, born Enea Silvio Piccolomini (Latin Aeneas Sylvius), (October 18, 1405 – August 14, 1464) was Pope from 1458 until his death. ... The Patriarch of Constantinople is the Ecumenical Patriarch, ranking as the first among equals in the Eastern Orthodox communion. ... A papal Legate, from the Decretals of Boniface VIII (1294 to 1303). ... Bologna (IPA , from Latin Bononia, Bulåggna in Emiliano-Romagnolo) is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, in the Pianura Padana, between the Po River and the Apennines, exactly between the Reno River and the Sàvena River. ... Louis XI the Prudent (French: Louis XI le Prudent) (July 3, 1423 – August 30, 1483), also informally nicknamed luniverselle aragne (old French for universal spider), or the Spider King, was King of France (1461–1483). ... November 19 is the 323rd day of the year (324th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... February 20 - Orkney and Shetland are returned by Norway to Scotland, due to a defaulted dowry payment Possible discovery of Bacalao (possibly Newfoundland, North America) by João Vaz Corte-Real. ... Ravenna is a city and commune in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. ...

Works

Bessarion was one of the most learned scholars of his time. Besides his translations of Aristotle's Metaphysics and Xenophon's Memorabilia, his most important work is a treatise directed against George of Trebizond, a violent Aristotelian who had written a polemic against Plato, which was entitled In Calumniatorem Platonis ("Against the Slanderer of Plato"). Bessarion, though a Platonist, was not so thoroughgoing in his admiration as Gemistus Pletho, and he strove instead to reconcile the two philosophies. His work, by opening up the relations of Platonism to the main questions of religion, contributed greatly to the extension of speculative thought in the department of theology. Aristotle (Greek: Aristotélēs) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... Xenophon, Greek historian Xenophon (In Greek , c. ... George of Trebizond (1395- August 12, 1484), Greek philosopher and scholar, one of the pioneers of the revival of letters in the Western world, was born in the island of Crete, and derived his surname Trapezuntios from the fact that his ancestors were from Trebizond. ... For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... Georgius Gemistos (or Plethon, Pletho), (c. ... Platonic idealism is the theory that the substantive reality around us is only a reflection of a higher truth. ... At Wikiversity you can learn more and teach others about Theology at: The School of Theology Theology finds its scholars pursuing the understanding of and providing reasoned discourse of religion, spirituality and God or the gods. ...

His library, which contained a very extensive collection of Greek manuscripts, was presented by him in 1468 to the senate of Venice, and forms the nucleus of the famous library of St Mark's, the Biblioteca Marciana. Venice (Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venezsia) is the capital of region Veneto, and has a population of 271,663 (census estimate January 1, 2004). ... The Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, the Library of St Marks, patron of Venice, is one of the primary manuscript depositories of Italy. ...

Most of Bessarion's works are in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 161. Jacques Paul Migne (25 October 1800 - 25 October 1875) was a French priest who published inexpensive and widely-distributed editions of theological works, encyclopedias and the texts of the Church Fathers. ... The Patrologia Graeca is an edited collection of writings by the Christian Church Fathers in the Greek language in 161 volumes, produced in 1857–1866 by J.P. Migne It includes both the Eastern Fathers and those Western authors who wrote before Latin became predominant the West in the 3rd...

Sources and references

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Catholic Encyclopedia: "Johannes Bessarion" (not fully exploited)
• Francis A. Burkle-Young, "The election of Pope Calixtus III (1455)" Bessarion an early candidate, opposed by the French.

• Geanakoplos, Deno John. Greek Scholars in Venice: Studies in the Dissemination of Greek Learning from Byzantium to the West (Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard, 1962).
• Gill, Joseph. The Council of Florence (Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 1959).
• Harris, Jonathan. Greek Emigres in the West (Camberley : Porphyrogenitus, 1995).
• Keller, A. "A Byzantine admirer of 'western' progress: Cardinal Bessarion", in, Cambridge Historical Journal, 11 (1953[-]5), 343-8.
• Labowsky, Carlota. Bessarion's Library and the Biblioteca Marciana (Rome : Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1979).
• Legrand, Émile. Bibliographie Hellenique (Paris : E. Leroux (E. Guilmoto), 1885-1906). volume 1.
• Mohler, Ludwig Kardinal Bessarion als Theologe, Humanist und Staatsmann (Aalen : Scientia Verlag ; Paderborn : F. Schöningh, 1923-42), 3 volumes.
• Monfasani, John. Byzantine Scholars in Renaissance Italy: Cardinal Bessarion and other Emigrés (Aldershot, UK : Variorum, 1995).
• Setton, K.M. "The Byzantine background to the Italian Renaissance", in, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 100 (1956), 1-76.
• Vast, Henri. Le Cardinal Bessarion (Paris : Hachette, 1878), see also (Geneva : Slatkine, 1977).
• Wilson, Nigel Guy. From Byzantium to Italy. Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance (London : Duckworth, 1992).