Bessarion

Those who work with topics related to Modern Greek identity usually start discussing these issues by quoting the famous Georgios Gemistos Pletho (c.1360-1454): we, over whom you rule and hold sway, are Hellenes by genos (γένος), as is witnessed by our language and ancestral education. Although Woodhouse thought of Pletho as the last of the Hellenes, others prefer to denounce him the last of the Byzantines and the first and foremost Modern Greek. During the 14th and 15th centuries, a number of influential intellectuals in the Eastern Roman Empire preferred the term Hellene (Ἓλλην) to identify themselves, instead of the formal Roman (Ρωμαῖος) and the common Greek (Γραικός). According to the prevalent view of modern scholarship, the shift should not be interpreted only as a statement of proto-national identity, but also as the outcome of growing archaism. As Vryonis pointed out, the historian Critoboulos used to call the Balkan nations with their archaic names: Byzantines became “Hellenes,” Albanians became “Illyrians,” etc. Chalkokondyles followed in the same path. Furthermore, in order to lament the decline of their Empire, byzantine intellectuals tended to compare their sad present to the glory of ancient Greece. Besides archaism, proto-nationalism and Hellenism, I suggest that a careful reading of the sources would lead us to reappraise the ways 15th century intellectuals perceived identity. Whilst I do not accept Vakalopoulos’ views on diachronic Hellenic identity, I support that, in the 15th century, Byzantine scholars attempted to create an identity based on cultural and historical continuity and otherness. Moreover, Laiou’s definition of Greek identity as a resultant of language, history, tradition and interests does not cover the case of 15th century Byzantine philosophers, since the latter strived to enrich and enlarge Greek identity with additional elements. It is worth noting that those philosophers who fled to Italy deliberately chose to describe themselves as
Greeks (Greci/Γραικοί) or Hellenes (Ἓλληνες) and not as Romans (Ρωμιοί/Ρωμαῖοι), according to the Byzantine official terminology. During the 15th century a major shift occurred in the Byzantine intelligentsia and its prominent members revisited matters of identity. In this paper, I attempt to scrutinize the ways Byzantine philosophers of the 15th century,
who lived in the territories of the Byzantine Empire and in Italy, perceived identity and otherness. In my research, I include not only Greek, but also Latin sources, since their works is written in both languages.

Μέσα σε ένα κλίμα γενικότερων κοινωνικών, πολιτικών αλλά και οικονομικών αλλαγών που συνέβησαν κατά τον ύστερο Μεσαίωνα, ο 14ος αιώνας σηματοδότησε για τις πόλεις της Ιταλικής χερσονήσου δίψα για μόρφωση και ειδικότερα για την κατάκτηση της αρχαιοελληνικής και λατινικής γνώσης. Η «Αναγέννηση», όπως προσδιορίζεται η χρονική περίοδος αυτή, στις τέχνες και στο πνεύμα, που ξεκίνησε αρχικά στην πόλη της Φλωρεντίας είχε ως αποτέλεσμα την εισβολή στην καθημερινή ζωή της λατινικής και ελληνικής αρχαίας γραμματείας η οποία θεωρήθηκε ως η πηγή πολιτισμού. Ο νέος αυτός τρόπος σκέψης που χαράχθηκε στις κοινωνίες αυτές ονομάστηκε «ουμανιστικός» και ερχόταν σε αντίθεση με τα στενά πλαίσια της μεσαιωνικής κοσμοθεωρίας. Τα μέγιστα προς αυτή την αλλαγή συνέβαλε και ο Βυζαντινός κόσμος ήδη από τον 13ο αιώνα.  Η επίδραση του Βυζαντίου θεωρείται καταλυτική διότι αφενός υπήρξαν πολλοί λόγιοι που κατέφευγαν στη Δύση μετά την κατάληψη της Πόλης από τους Λατίνους το 1204, αφετέρου, παρότι το Βυζάντιο κατά τους δύο τελευταίους αιώνες της ιστορίας του βρισκόταν σε παρακμή, εντούτοις ο πολιτισμός του την περίοδο αυτή άνθησε.

All’interno dell’Europa rinascimentale una figura emerge come baluardo e principale tramite della cultura greca in Occidente: è quella del cardinal Bessarione, l’“ultimo bizantino”, intellettuale, letterato, bibliofilo, punto di riferimento per tutti gli immigrati greci in Italia. Le lettere greche del Cardinal Bessarione. Nuovi percorsi di ricerca è la prima monografia interamente dedicata alla collezione di epistole greche del cardinal Bessarione: in essa trovano spazio nove saggi inediti, ognuno dei quali contiene una nuova edizione di una o più lettere greche, con traduzione italiana e note di commento. Non si tratta però solo di un libro dedicato a Bessarione: grazie allo studio del suo epistolario nuova luce viene gettata sulle vicende di suoi illustri corrispondenti, come Giovanni Eugenico e Giorgio Gemisto Pletone. Inoltre, la grande ricchezza di contenuti rende le lettere di Bessarione una fonte importantissima per gli studi riguardanti la filosofia, la politica e la storia tardobizantine, la storia dei manufatti librari e la fortuna dei classici nell’Umanesimo italiano.

This chapter refines the argument for the publication of Bessarion’s Orations by the Sorbonne press in 1471 constituting an act of propaganda on behalf of a crusade. First, it views the initiation for the printing as resting with a triumvirate: Bessarion himself, the Paris academic and publisher Guillaume Fichet, and the Cardinal of Burgundy, Jean Rolin. All three men had an interest in promoting a crusade, and the argument highlights Rolin’s association with Burgundian aspirations. Second, the chapter establishes the links between Fichet’s publication and the great diet of Regensburg. The context here was not just the first Ottoman raids into Imperial territory, but the hopes of Bessarion’s impressive circle of friends that the Greek cardinal might be elected as successor to Pope Paul II.

Mark of Ephesus and his theology of Eucharistic consecration has been discovered, ironically, to be exactly reflected in the latest Roman Catholic edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1992). Essentially, Mark held an explicit doctrine that both the words of institution (dominical words at the last supper), the epiclesis, and the three accompanying signs of the cross are all together necessary for any valid transmutation of the elements of bread and wine. While his position was opposed at the Council of Florence by the Dominicans, it had strangely coincided with the Eucharistic theology of Bonaventure in his Commentary on Lombard's Sentences.

The entire debate at Florence actually marked a misrepresentation of Catholic dogma as it existed in the 14th century in favor of theologoumena or theological opinions that were predominant in the universities but that also enjoyed no dogmatic status. The Latin arguments on behalf of the Eucharistic transmutation or transubstantiation mark such a case. The Dominican that was entrusted with the debates attempted to require of Greeks Aquinas' "instrumental causality" of the priest as the real or a truly formal cause of changing bread and wine. Ironically, it was principally the Franciscans that reproved this doctrine as contradictory and simplistic. Furthermore, the Latin arguments against Mark of Ephesus required them to ignore and fail to address parts of both Aquinas' ST (affirming the authority and existence, for example, of the anaphora of James the apostle), and even Augustine. What is more one crux of the debate lie in the interpretation of the Roman canon by Nicholas Cabasilas, which subsequently proves to be correct by commentaries and comparison of Cabasilas' argument with Lombard's own tradition and sources.

Both Latin and Greek tradition knew of a consecratory epiclesis in their respective Latin and Greek liturgies until a gradual theological shift began in the thirteenth century in the West. Mark of Ephesus and Nicholas Cabasilas surprise us in their explanation of the epiclesis by coinciding with traditional Latin exegesis of St. Ambrose of Milan, through Medieval Latin authors, even until St. Bonaventure. The Dominican approach of John Torquemada has interesting holes and lacunae, some of which must be accredited to the patristic and historical deficits in Aquinas' own research.

The story of the "moment/s" of consecration has really never been told from the perspective of the sources and underlying controlling idea of the Theotokos at the Annunciation as the universal point of departure for theological reflection on the transmutation of the gifts. Perhaps an ancient, if forgotten, starting point may finally overcome thomistically inspired preoccupations by recourse to the Fathers and to the solutions lurking within the Franciscan tradition of the Eucharist?

""Il contributo indaga l'eredità ideologica di Bisanzio negli Stati dell'età moderna e contemporanea. Naufragato il progetto – promosso da Bessarione e da Pio II e imperniato sulla figura di Tommaso Paleologo – di una rifondazione della basileia in Morea, secondo la nuova e ristretta formula statale ideata da Gemisto Pletone e dalla Scuola di Mistrà, e fallito con esso il piano di "salvataggio occidentale" del titulus costantiniano, il matrimonio – orchestrato da Bessarione – tra la figlia maggiore di Tommaso, Zoe Paleologina, e Ivan III di Russia segnò il passaggio dell'eredità propriamente dinastica dell'impero ortodosso da Bisanzio a Mosca, la Terza Roma; il che determinò una prima e quasi diretta assimilazione del suo lascito non solo culturale e ideologico (anzitutto la dottrina dell'autocrazia di diritto divino), ma anche politico-amministrativo (a partire dalla riorganizzazione, effettuata da Ivan IV, dell'amministrazione imperiale secondo i princìpi dello statalismo centralista bizantino) da parte dell’impero zarista. Un secolo dopo Ivan Groznij e molto più a occidente, nella Francia del XVII secolo, la riscoperta dell'eredità di Bisanzio negli studi e nella riflessione degli eruditi diede luogo a una riattualizzazione della basileia di diritto divino in quella figura di “re-sole” – eredità della monarchia ellenistica nell’ideologia politica bizantina dei primi secoli ma ancora riaffiorante in modo esplicito, al crepuscolo dell’impero, nei versi bessarionei dedicati a Manuele II Paleologo – che è posta ora al centro della moderna monarchia assoluta (la cui specifica teorizzazione sarà compiuta, a fine Seicento, da Jean Domat). Già all'epoca di Luigi XIV può dunque collocarsi la nascita della bizantinistica in Francia, con la prima opera di classificazione ed edizione delle fonti storiografiche bizantine (il «Corpus del Louvre») patrocinata da Colbert e con gli scritti e le riflessioni di Du Cange. La Francia del Seicento fu inoltre la prima, nell’Europa occidentale, a elaborare un'estetica bizantina, connessa alla grandeur della monarchia assoluta: nella ripresa della grande tradizione cerimoniale della corte costantinopolitana si espresse un vero e proprio transfert Costantinopoli-Versailles. All’inizio del XIX secolo, dopo il Congresso di Vienna, la fiaccola passò alla monarchia di una nazione in ascesa, la Prussia, e parallelamente il Corpus del Louvre trovò continuazione nel Corpus di Bonn. Ulteriori revival di Bisanzio scandiranno il secondo Ottocento europeo, tra Ludwig II di Baviera e Napoleone III, con sempre minore, tuttavia, vitalità politica, per arrivare a quella Francia fin-de-siècle, dove ogni genuina memoria della tradizione statale bizantina verrà obliterata o mistificata e si formerà l'immagine stereotipa di una Bisanzio come decadenza infinitamente protratta, vacuo regno di effeminati intrighi. Mai estinta invece nell’impero zarista, l’eredità bizantina troverà la più importante attualizzazione politica nel filobizantinismo dell’autocrate novecentesco Stalin, che promuoverà gli studi di bizantinistica ed esalterà il modello autocratico sussunto da Ivan Groznij; la concezione e l'estetica del potere bizantino vedranno così la loro più compiuta rielaborazione nell’opera cinematografica di Ejzenstejn (Ivan Groznij e Ivan Groznij II ovvero La congiura dei Boiari), dove la ricostruzione storica rivela allusioni contemporanee, omaggio e al contempo autenticamente bizantina Kaiserkritik al governo stalinista.

This contribution investigates the legacy of Byzantium in modern and contemporary nations. After the dual failure of the project - promoted by Bessarion and Pius II and planned around the figure of Thomas Palaeologos - to re-establish the basileia in Morea, according to the new concise formula created by Gemistus Pletho and the School of Mystras - and of the plan to save the titulus of Constantine in the West, the marriage orchestrated by Bessarion between Thomas’ eldest daughter Zoe Palaeologina and Ivan III of Russia marked the passing of the strictly dynastic legacy of the orthodox empire of Byzantium to Moscow, the third Rome. This determined a first and almost direct assimilation of Byzantium’s legacy – not only cultural and ideological (above all, the doctrine of divine right autocracy), but also political-administrative (starting from Ivan IV’s reorganisation of the imperial administration along the principles of Byzantium centralist statism) - by the Tsarist empire. A century after Ivan the Terrible and much further west in 17th century France, the rediscovery of the legacy of Byzantium in scholarly thought and erudition gave rise to a revival or “modernisation” of the divine right basileia in the figure of the “Sun King” – an inheritance of Hellenistic monarchy in the first centuries of Byzantine political ideology that was still emerging clearly when the empire was waning in Bessarion’s verses dedicated to Manuel II Palaeologos – now placed at the centre of modern absolute monarchy as Jean Domat would theorise succinctly at the end of the same century. Already at the time of Louis XIV, therefore, we can date the birth of Byzantine studies in France with the first work of classification and editing of Byzantine historiographical sources (the Louvre Corpus) financed by Colbert and with Du Cange’s writings and reflections. Furthermore, seventeenth century France was the first country in western Europe to develop a Byzantine aesthetic connected to the grandeur of absolute monarchy: an authentic Constantinople-Versailles transference found expression in the revival of the great tradition of Constantinopolitan court protocol. After the Congress of Vienna at the beginning of the 19th century, the torch passed to the monarchy of a nation on the rise, Prussia, and in parallel fashion, the Louvre Corpus found continuity in the Bonn Corpus. Further revivals of Byzantium would mark the second half of the 19th century in Europe - between Ludwig II of Bavaria and Napoleon III – with increasingly less political vitality until fin-de-siècle France when every authentic memory of the Byzantine statist tradition would be obliterated or mystified and the stereotyped image of Byzantium as cypher of protracted decadence and vacuous kingdom of effeminate intrigue would form. However, never extinct in the Tsarist empire, the Byzantine legacy would find its most important modern political realisation in the philo-Byzantinism of the twentieth century autocrat Joseph Stalin, who would promote Byzantine studies and exalt the autocratic model subsumed from Ivan Grozny. The Byzantine concept of power and aesthetics would thus see their most complete re-elaboration in the cinema of Eisenstein (Ivan the Terrible and Ivan the Terrible II: the Boyars’ Plot), in which the historical reconstruction contains contemporary allusions, a homage and, at the same time, an authentic Byzantine Kaiserkritik of the Stalinist government.
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Eine ganze Menge der aus der Bibliotheca Corviniana bekannten Werke waren bis zum Tod Matthias’ nicht im Druck erschienen. In der Mehrzahl beinhalten die Corvinen nicht die uns heute bekannten, vollständigen Texte. Unsere Aufgabe ist es, die Qualität der Texte, welche die lateinischen Übersetzungen griechischer Autoren enthalten, zu analysieren und zu präsentieren. Diese Analyse darf aber nicht durch Vergleich mit den heute bekannten Texten (editiones criticae), sondern anhand einer Nebeneinanderstellung mit den damals zugänglichen Handschriften und Inkunabeln vorgenommen werden.
Ein Viertel der erhalten gebliebenen authentischen Corvinen (216) enthält Übersetzungen griechischer Autoren ins Lateinische. In 57 Handschriften befinden sich Opera der klassischen griechischen, der griechisch-patristischen und der byzantinischen Literatur. Die ca. 100 Werke von 46 Autoren wurden von 32 Gelehrten ins Lateinische übersetzt.

"Alla caduta di Costantinopoli, Anna Notaras, esponente della più aristocratica e ricca famiglia dell'ultima età paleologa travolta dalla conquista turca, riparò in Italia. Si stabilì inizialmente a Roma, sotto la protezione del cardinale Bessarione, che con papa Pio II stava coltivando il progetto di una "rifondazione occidentale di Bisanzio" nel despotato di Morea. Dopo il fallimento della crociata contro i turchi in Morea, Bessarione coinvolse Anna nel tentativo di fondare un piccolo regno bizantino a Montauto, allora dominio senese, che tuttavia, nonostante le energie profuse, non vide mai la luce. Dopo la morte di Bessarione, nel 1475 Anna si trasferì a Venezia, dove si impegnò, con la sua influenza sull’establishment politico della Serenissima, a tenere in vita le tradizioni culturali e cultuali di Bisanzio. Sul primo fronte mantenne, nella sua residenza, una ricca biblioteca greca e divenne di fatto la prima donna editrice, orientando e finanziando un'attività di stampa tuttavia firmata dal suo stretto collaboratore Zaccaria Kalliergis. Sul fronte cultuale, Anna si batté con successo per l'indipendenza confessionale e per il diritto al culto ortodosso della comunità greca di Venezia. Una parte importante del suo testamento riguarda le disposizioni circa la costruzione della chiesa bizantina di San Giorgio dei Greci, ancora oggi punto di riferimento del filellenismo a Venezia. Nel museo di questa sono conservate le tre icone – riprodotte nelle tavole finali del contributo – appartenute ad Anna e donate alla comunità greca veneziana.

After the fall of Constantinople, Anna Notaras, member of the wealthiest and most aristocratic family of the late Palaeologian period, swept away by the Turkish conquest, took refuge in Italy.  She settled first in Rome under the protection of Cardinal Bessarion, who with Pope Pius II was planning a “Western re-foundation of Byzantium” in the Despotate of the Morea.  After the failure of the crusade against the Turks in the Morea led by Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, Bessarion enlisted Anna in an attempt to establish a small Byzantine kingdom at Montauto, then under Sienese control, which never came to light despite the expense of considerable effort. After Bessarion’s death, in 1475 Anna moved to Venice, where, by means of her influence on the political establishment of the Serenissima, she devoted herself to keeping Byzantine cultural and religious traditions alive.  In her residence, she maintained an extensive Greek library and, in fact, became the first woman publisher, managing and financing the publication of Byzantine books, which were credited however to her close collaborator Zaccarias Kalliergis.  Furthermore, Anna fought successfully for religious freedom and the right of the Greek community of Venice to follow orthodox practice.  An important part of her will dealt with arrangements for the construction of the Byzantine Church of San Giorgio dei Greci, a focus still today of philo-Hellenism in Venice. The museum houses three icons – reproduced at the end of Ronchey’s essay – which belonged to Anna and were donated to the Greek community of Venice.
"

The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how issues of textual transmission stymied productive discussion at Ferrara-Florence on the doctrine of the filioque and led to a schism within the Greek delegation, which resulted in the signing of a formula of reunion destined to fail. Were it not for the inability of those at the council to assess properly the texts in question due to the state of their transmission, there would likely have been no union, and thus the aftermath of the council—a divisive controversy in the East and a sense of betrayal and embitterment in the West—might have been avoided. The essay will conclude by demonstrating how recent discoveries in the field of textual criticism have put us in a position to reengage the issue more productively than the churches have been able in the past.

This brief note focuses on the reception of Or. Chald. fr. 88 des Places in Synesius of Cyrene, Michael Psellus and George Gemistus Plethon. I suggest two corrections to a passage of a letter Gemistus Plethon sent to Cardinal Bessarion which contains references to the μαγικὰ λόγια τῶν ἀπὸ Ζωροάστρου μάγων (p. 459, 4-10 Mohler). Finally, I analyse how the Chaldean Oracles form part of Gemistus Plethon and Bessarion’s idea of perennial philosophy.;

La croisade en projets. Plans présentés au Grand Quartier Général de la croisade, le Collège des cardinaux, in : J. Paviot (dir.), Les projets de croisade. Géostratégie et diplomatie européenne du XIVe au XVIIe siècle, PUM, Toulouse, 2014 [série Croisades tardives, 1], p. 247-286.

Discussion d’un bouquet de projets anti-ottomans de la deuxième moitié du XVe siècle : de Jean de Torcello (1440), de Lampo Birago (1454) et d’un anonyme du temps du pontificat de Paul II (1464). Nous montrons que le point commun de tous ces projets est d’avoir appartenu à la suite proche du cardinal Bessarion. Les similitudes générales s’expliquent ainsi par leur source commune d’inspiration.  Il est rappelé que Bessarion était depuis Eugène IV membre de la commission cardinalice responsable de l’organisation de la croisade, qui assura la transmission de ce programme à tous les pontifes qui lui ont succédé. Comme le rappelle une déclaration remarquable du cardinal Francesco Piccolomini (le futur Pie III) au Reichstag de Ratisbonne après le décès de Paul II (1471), la croisade était en réalité le fait du collège cardinalice, et le pape ne pouvait que suivre cette politique. Les projets analysés sont donc loin d’être un simple exercice littéraire, puisqu’ils étaient élaborés au sein de (ou au bénéfice de) l’institution spécialement créée pour animer la croisade.

The book De pace fidei by Nicholas of Cusa (†1464) contains a philosophical and political proposal that is still useful in order to illuminate the path of Christians in the encounter with other religions, as indicated in the conciliar declaration Nostra Aetate. Cusano believes that the peace of faith can only be realized starting from a religious renewal of Christianity, which must become welcoming and inclusive, and from the recomposition of unity with the Greek Church of Constantinople.

The filigree on the Bessarion Cross is comparable to objects attributable to Russia and Sicily and was probably inspired by Islamic
goldsmiths’ works, as can be shown by the example of the Trier Casket. The genesis of the particular filigree is traceable to Mamluk Egypt as well as the art of the Golden Horde, and it is probably not a Byzantine invention. On the other hand, the ornaments on the sides of the Bessarion Cross (and on the frame of the famous Esztergom
Staurotheke, which should be dated to the same time as the Bessarion Cross) take up a Western motif that developed in the first half of the 14th century and can be followed back to Gothic tracery. From the
1330s or 1340s, ornaments similar to the Bessarion Cross appear in Western goldsmiths’ works.
At first glance, the historical dating of the cross to 1347-1354
seems too early, as researchers usually tend to allow a couple of decades for a motif to migrate. That means that the ornament on the sides of the cross would have probably been dated stylistically rather towards the end of the 14th century, if there were no other clues for dating.
Nevertheless, it is possible for the ornament to appear at this point in time in Byzantium, i.e., the mid-14th century. As demonstrated here, ornaments are not as ‘elusive’ as has often been assumed and can be used as an important means for dating and attribution, as well as an indicator for the complex processes of cultural exchange in the Middle Ages. An important result of this paper is that, on the basis of the historical dating of the Bessarion Cross, it can be concluded that new fashions from the West, Islamic neighbours as well as the East, can be shown to have been assimilated rapidly in Byzantium.
It remains to conclude that the Bessarion Cross is an important object that provides evidence for the vivid transfer of taste and fashions between the leading Mediterranean and Asian cultures in the 14th century.

Draft of the paper published in Splendore Marciano. Il restauro della legatura già del codice LAT. III, 111 (=2116) della Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana di Venezia, a cura di Maria Letizia Sebastiani [e] Paolo Crisostomi, Padova, Nova Charta, 2012 [ISBN 978-88-95047-14-0], pp. 15-25. This paper, published in 2012, anticipates a few conclusions of the book "Antieroe dai molti volti: Giuliano l'Apostata nel Medioevo bizantino", published in 2014.
Il multiforme aspetto della civiltà bizantina è esemplificato nella biblioteca di Bessarione dalla presenza di importanti codici testimonianti la ricchezza e la varietà culturale del mondo in cui il cardinale si era formato. Come metropolita di Nicea era un uomo bizantino formatosi in una civiltà millenaria in cui i classici erano di casa e non c'era stato pertanto un Rinascimento come quello italiano, ma, come uomo del Rinascimento italiano, voleva trarre ispirazione dall'antichità per opere nuove: tra le sue opere, è ancora oggi attiva e funzionante la Biblioteca Marciana.

Bessarion et l’Église de rite byzantin du royaume de Hongrie (1463–1472), in:  Matthias Corvinus und seine Zeit. Europa am Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit zwischen Wien und Konstantinopel,  éd. Ch. Gastgeber et al., Vienna 2011, p. 77-92.

En mettant à profit la présence dans la Bibliotheca Corvina d’une copie de l’Encyclique aux Grecs émise par Bessarion pour justifier sa nomination en tant que patriarche de Constantinople par le pape Pie II en 1463, nous analysons le rôle du cardinal grec dans l’émergence d’une hiérarchie supérieure pour les chrétiens de rite byzantin de Hongrie. Les sources attestent en effet la présence en Transylvanie de Macaire de Halicz, évêque grec uniate qui exerçait, entre 1466 et 1469, son autorité sous la juridiction du primat de Hongrie, l’humaniste Jean Vitéz. Poursuivant ses relations avec Bessarion, il est possible de démontrer que le prélat hongrois avait adopté la position philosophique du cardinal grec dans sa plaidoirie en faveur d’un platonisme chrétien. Macaire de Halicz faisait quant à lui partie des Byzantins qui s’étaient réfugiés en Italie après la prise de Constantinople et, en tant que moine basilien, dépendait directement du général de cet ordre, Bessarion, auteur d’ailleurs, en 1457, de la règle, synthèse des canons de Basile le Grand. On conclut que l’activité de Macaire ne saurait être que le fruit d’une initiative de Bessarion.

On Julian the Emperor in the Romanae Historiae Compendium written by the Italian humanist Pomponius Laetus, who was the first to rehabilitate the Apostate after the Middle Ages. Article "L’Imperatore Giuliano e Pomponio Leto: la prima decisa rivalutazione dell’Apostata" published in “Atti dell’Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti”, Tomo CLXI (2002-2003), Classe di scienze morali, lettere ed arti, pp. 799-836

This study deals with the new production in the field of medicine (human and veterinary), during the Paleologues, and more precisely, with the work of Demetrios Pepagomenos, scholar from the XVth century. According to our point of view, Demetrios Pepagomenos is the author of a human medical treatise, the De Podagra, but also of only two of the three hunting treatises (falcons’ diseases/dogs’ diseases) which have been attributed to him since the Renaissance. In addition to the problems of attributing these texts, we’ve also tried, in the first part of this study, to find out the motives for the confusion between this author and his homonym from the XIIIth century. To reach this goal, we’ve based our argument on the study of the humanistic editions (printed): the edition of the De Podagra by Ange Vergece (who identified Demetrios Pepagomenos as the author of the De Podagra and the hunting treatises but which he dated wrong first from the IXth century and then from the XIIIth century), the edition of the hunting treatises by Andreas Aurifauer, but also on the latin translation of these texts by Pierre Gilles (who identified the author of these hunting treatises) and, finally on the study of the Monac. gr. 390 and the Paris. gr. 2323, which contain these texts.
The second part of our study deals with the hunting work of Pepagomenos and its boom within the scholars in his set.

The late Byzantine period(1204-1461) was distinguished by the existence of multiple, competing, and interconnected centers, superseding the imperial and Constantinopolitan model of the middle period. Civic identity, defined largely in opposition to the "other", which refers to the Latins in the earlier part of this period and the Turks in the latter, was an integral component of the late Byzantine intellectual's self-definition. City enkomia, a defunct genre, was revived in the late period by authors such as Theodore II Laskaris, Theodore Metochites, John Eugenikos, Bessarion, and Mark Eugenikos to praise Nicaea, Trebizond, and Thessalonike among other Byzantine cities. This paper provides three competing visions of late Byzantine identity:, Roman, Hellenic, and Christian. In spite of their differences, these three alternate solutions to the question of Byzantine identity and Byzantine self, all engaged with oppositions between inside and outside and developed the notion of freedom in the context of autonomous centers, existing in opposition to Constantinople.

According to the dominant opinion in historical research the decree of Church union agreed on in the Council of Florence in 1439 met with a strongly negative reaction from the Cretan population. The painted decoration of Orthodox Churches on the island is often taken as a statement against papal unionist policy. The frescoes of the monastery church of
Balsamonero, supposedly a palladium of Orthodoxy in the Cretan countryside, have been interpreted accordingly. But the fragmentary paintings in the narthex from the 15th century, which have been completely ignored so far by art history studies, contain various unionistic motifs such as the Church council and the embrace of the apostles Peter and Paul, thus defying the traditional perception of the monastery. Specific details in its decoration lead to the
assumption that the paintings of the narthex were financed by the important humanist and merchant Lauro Querini and that Balsamonero, as well as some other monasteries, fell under the influence of a pro-unionist circle of wealthy and highly sophisticated lay people, mendicant friars and clerics around the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople Cardinal Bessarion. It appears that on Crete in the aftermath of the Council of Florence painting was used as a medium of propaganda, trying to spread pro-unionist messages even among the rural population.

in "Predella journal of visual arts" (www.predella.it – sez. Monografia), 35, 2014 [2015], pp. 99-113 & XLVIII-LVIII; print version: The Survival of the Trecento in the Fifteenth Century, ed. by Louise Bourdua, "Predella Monografie", 9, 2014 [2015]

"Il contributo ricostruisce e riassume, sotto forma di relazione congressuale, i vari aspetti e momenti del piano di "salvataggio occidentale di Bisanzio", che ebbe per protagonisti Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Bessarione e Tommaso Paleologo, sottolineandone in particolare le implicazioni ideologiche e dottrinali. Tommaso, sovrano in pectore della Nuova Bisanzio che avrebbe dovuto costituirsi nel Peloponneso una volta liberato dai turchi grazie alla crociata indetta da Pio II al Concilio di Mantova del 1459, recò con sé poco dopo in Italia, dietro probabile suggerimento di Bessarione, la reliquia della testa di Sant'Andrea, evangelizzatore del Peloponneso e patrono della Chiesa d’Oriente. La traslazione del capo di Sant’Andra fu un evento solenne e carico di simbolismi, commemorato, fra l’altro, in importanti committenze artistiche. L'idea di una crociata antiturca delle potenze occidentali sotto l’egida del papato si era concretizzata per la prima volta poco dopo il concilio di Ferrara-Firenze, il passaggio di Bessarione all'ala unionista e la conseguente, ancorché virtuale e “realpolitica”, unione delle chiese. Dopo il fallimento, tuttavia, della Crociata di Varna, ad essere caldeggiato dal papa restò il progetto di fondazione di una “Nuova Bisanzio” in Morea, basato sulle realistiche proposte politiche elaborate da Giorgio Gemisto Pletone e dalla scuola a Mistrà. Il progetto era appoggiato da un clan di signorie filo-bizantine, imparentate attraverso i Malatesta con i Paleologhi, ma la sua posta più alta era la prospettiva di una riunificazione della Prima e della Seconda Roma in una sola entità giuridica dominata dal papa. Le aspettative e i cruciali intrecci politici, ideologici, religiosi di quest'epoca si rispecchiano, in maniera allegorica, nel Corteo dei Magi di Benozzo Gozzoli e nella Flagellazione di Piero della Francesca. Tuttavia, dopo l’annuncio di Pio II a Mantova, andarono rapidamente scemando le adesioni internazionali al suo piano di spedizione antiturca, che vide il suo epilogo con la morte del pontefice, fino all'ultimo suo strenuo sostenitore, ad Ancona. Persa all'Occidente, l'eredità giuridica del titolo imperiale di Bisanzio passò alla Russia, grazie al matrimonio – machiavellicamente orchestrato da Bessarione – tra l'ultima principessa paleologa, Zoe, e Ivan III Vasilevič di Mosca. L'ideologia della basileia di diritto divino e l'ortodossia, manipolata per decenni, vennero riassorbite nell’impero della Terza Roma.

This conference paper reconstructs and summarises the various aspects and stages of the plan to “save Byzantium in the West,” of which Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Bessarion, and Thomas Palaeologus were protagonists, underscoring with particular attention the doctrinal and ideological implications. Thomas, sovereign in pectore of the New Byzantium to be founded on the Peloponnese once delivered from the Turks by the crusade called by Pius II at the Council of Mantua in 1459, brought the head of St. Andrew, missionary on the Peloponnese and patron of the Eastern Church, with him to Italy soon after – probably at Bessarion’s suggestion. The transfer of St. Andrew’s head was a solemn event, filled with symbolism and commemorated in important artistic commissions. The idea of a crusade against the Turks by the Western powers under the aegis of the papacy had been planned for the first time soon after the Council of Ferrara and Florence, Bessarion’s move to the unionist faction, and the subsequent, though virtual and realpolitiker, union of the churches.  After the failure of the Varna Crusade, however, the pope continued to promote the plan to found a “New Byzantium” in Morea, based on the realistic political proposals laid down by Georgius Gemistus Pletho and the school of Mystras.  The project was supported by a clan of pro-Byzantine signorie, related through the Malatesta to the Palaeologi, but the greater objective was the reunification of the First and Second Rome into one legal entity under the primary influence of the papacy.  The expectations and the crucial political, ideological, and religious connections are to be found mirrored allegorically in Benozzo Gozzoli’s Cavalcata dei Magi and Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation. However, after Pius II’s announcement at Mantua, international support for his expedition against the Turks began to wane quickly and the plan reached its epilogue with the death of the pontiff, the staunchest supporter until his end in Ancona. Lost in the West, inheritance of the Byzantine imperial title passed to Russia, thanks to the marriage – orchestrated with Machiavellian skill by Bessarion – between the last Palaeologian princess, Zoe, and Ivan III (the Great) Vasilyevich of Moscow. The divine right of the basileia and the concomitant bequest of orthodoxy, manipulated for decades, came to be absorbed into the Empire of the Third Rome.
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Georgius Gemistus Pletho died June 26, 1452, according to reports from his followers in two separate manuscripts. However, as John Monfasani has noted, this date is problematic for various reasons. Since June 26, 363 AC is the day in which Julian the Apostate was mortally wounded in a battle, it cannot be excluded that Demetrius Kavakis, admirer of Julian and of Pletho, or another of their followers, tried to construct a symmetry between the two men by reporting a false date of death (that is, June 26) for the neopagan philosopher.

"Il contributo è dedicato all’analisi di alcune poesie funebri composte in greco dal giovane Bessarione e contenute nel codice autografo Marciano greco 533, che documentano l’iter della formazione culturale e ideologica del loro autore tra i sedici e i trent’anni.
Oltre alla Monodia per Manuele II Paleologo (scritta in prosa ma falsariga per la successiva poesia bessarionea), vengono presi in esame l’iscrizione tombale in giambi per l’ambasciatore Michele Amirutza, i versi per gli arazzi raffiguranti i Paleologhi Manuele ed Elena in veste imperiale e monastica, i giambi funebri per Cleopa Malatesta Paleologina. Del primo e dell’ultimo componimento poetico viene inoltre fornita, in appendice, l’edizione critica.
L’analisi retorico-letteraria e storica di questi versi permette di desumere informazioni sia sul pensiero politico del giovane Bessarione, sulla sua formazione culturale e sul suo precoce ruolo alle corti di Costantinopoli e di Mistrà, sia sulla complessa situazione dinastica dell’ultima corte bizantina (quest’ultima oggetto di un breve résumé circa l’alleanza Paleologhi/Malatesta e la figura di Cleopa).

The essay analyses several funeral poems composed in Greek by Bessarion and contained in the Greek Marcian autograph manuscript 533. The poems reflect the author’s cultural and ideological education between sixteen and thirty years of age.  In addition to the Monodia for Manuel II Palaeologus (written in prose, although the model for Bessarion’s later poem), the author examines the tomb inscription in iambs for the ambassador Michael Amiroutzes, the verses on the tapestries representing Manuel and Helena Palaeologi in imperial and monastic dress, and the funeral iambs for Cleopa Malatesta Palaeologina, probably conceived, as those for Amiroutzes, as a tomb inscription. Further, the appendix includes the critical edition of the first and last of these compositions.
The literary and rhetorical analysis of these verses makes it possible to draw a portrait of the young Bessarion’s political thought, his cultural education, and precocious role at the courts of Constantinople and Mystras, in addition to the complex dynastic context of the last Byzantine court (the latter the subject of a brief résumé on the Palaiologoi/Malatesta alliance and the figure of Cleopa).
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Traditionally ascribed to Bessarion’s patronage as bishop of Tusculum from 1448 to 1468, the Casina on the Via Appia is one of the earliest suburban residences in Rome which is an expression of humanistic culture. As the outcome of the restoration of the Medieval hospital of the church of San Cesareo de Appia, which had been built on Roman ruins, this villa is characterized by the coexistence of elements related to late-Medieval legacy with architectural details and parts made ‘in the manner of the Ancients’. Some distributional aspects are, indeed, strictly related to the Roman way of life, as it is described in Roman writers’ literary works. Whether the latest studies confirm Bessarion’s role in the construction of the building, it is still controversial to identify the renovation works accomplished by him. In fact, they could also be attributed to his successors as bishop of Tusculum, above all the Venetian cardinal Giovanni Battista Zeno from 1479 to 1501. The purpose of this article is to outline the architectural interventions made during the 15th century, integrating the latest results of documentary and archaeological research on the Casina with an analysis of literary references, antique monuments and contemporary buildings taken into account by its patrons.

This book length translation of Bessarion's encomium of Trebizond (mod. Trabzon) makes available for the first time in English this crucial source for the history of the empire of Trebizond and the Greek Pontos. Conforming to the genre of late antique encomia of cities, this text draws heavily on Isocrates, Aelius Aristides, and Libanios to retell the history of Trebizond from Xenophon's Anabasis to the present day. It examines issues such as Byzantine identity and alterity during the fifteenth century, while also providing a valuable descriptions of the Komnenoi and their palace. As such, it is a valuable source not only for late Byzantine history, but also rhetoric and the construction of the past.

I also translate Michael Panaretos' chronicle of Trebizond, our only surviving history of Trebizond. It provides the backbone of what we know about the empire of Trebizond, while also offering the historian key information on Trebizond's relations with its Turkish and Turkmen neighbors. Panaretos's chronicle is notoriously obscure and laconic. This translation provides detailed historical and topographical commentary.

"Il contributo è dedicato al “Bessarione orientale”, cioè al rapporto fra il giovane Bessarione e l’ultima corte bizantina, quella paleologa di Mistrà. L’ideologia bessarionea è delineata attraverso l’analisi degli scritti per l’abdicazione e la morte di Manuele II e per i precoci, inopinati decessi delle “spose occidentali” dei suoi figli ed eredi Costantino e Teodoro: Teodora Tocco e Cleopa Malatesta. Il tombeau poetico per quest’ultima offre lo spunto per una breve analisi della figura di Cleopa, del suo ruolo nell’alleanza – poi fallita – tra Malatesta e Paleologhi, e del mistero che avvolge la sua morte e la sua sepoltura a Mistrà.

The essay is devoted to the figure of “the oriental Bessarion,” i.e. the relationship between the young Bessarion and the last Byzantine court, the Palaiologian court at Mystras.  Bessarion’s politics on his debut as court official are outlined in an analysis of writings on the abdication and death of Manuel II and the early and untimely deaths of the “Western brides” of his sons and heirs Constantine and Theodore: Teodora Tocco and Cleopa Malatesta. The verse tombeau for the latter offers the starting point for a brief analysis of the figure of Cleopa, her role in the failed alliance between the Malatesta and Palaeologi, and the mystery surrounding her death and burial at Mystras.
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