Bessarion
Eastern Orthodox) Philosophy career | |
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Era | Renaissance philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Neoplatonism |
Main interests | Metaphysics, theology |
Coat of arms |
Styles of Bessarion | |
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Constantinople |
Bessarion (
He was educated by
His baptismal name was Basil (Greek: Βασίλειος,
Biography
Bessarion was born in
Bessarion's Neoplatonism
Bessarion was educated in
Bessarion's Neoplatonism stayed with him his whole life, even as a cardinal. He was very familiar with Neoplatonist terminology and used it in his letter to Pletho's two sons, Demitrios and Andronikos, on the death of his still-beloved teacher in 1452.[10] Perhaps the most remarkable thing about his life was that a Neoplatonist could have played such a significant role in the Catholic Church for at least a brief time, though he was attacked for his views by more orthodox Catholic academics shortly after his death.
Role in the Council of Ferrara
On becoming a tonsured monk, he adopted the name of
Some historians have impugned Bessarion's sincerity in adhering to the union.[11] However, Gill upholds Bessarion's sincerity in being convinced to the truth of the Roman position in the matters discussed at the Council quoting from the bishop's own Oratio Dogmatica:
But if we had discerned error in the doctrine of the Latins or distortion in their faith, not even I would have counseled you to embrace union and agreement with them in that case, that for fear of bodily ills you should prefer the values of the present world to spiritual values, the freedom of the body to the betterment of the soul, but I myself would have undergone all that is worst and I would have exposed you to it before I would have urged you to union with them and have recommended such action.[12]
Upon his return to the East, he found himself bitterly resented for his attachment to the minority party that saw no difficulty in a reconciliation of the two churches. Pope Eugene IV invested him with the rank of
From that time, Bessarion 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
.He held in succession the
For five years (1450–1455), he was
As primus Cardinalium (from April 1463) – the title
He died on 18 November 1472 at Ravenna. He is buried in the basilica of Santi Apostoli, Rome.
Works
Bessarion was one of the most learned scholars of his time. Besides his translations of
It was thanks to him that the Bibliotheca, an important compendium of Greek mythology, has survived to the present.
His library, which contained a very extensive collection of Greek manuscripts, was presented by him in 1468 to the Senate of the Republic of Venice, and forms the nucleus of the famous library of St Mark's, the Biblioteca Marciana. It comprised 482 Greek and 264 Latin manuscripts.[17]
Most of Bessarion's works are in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 161.
Editions
- Monfasani, John, ed. (2023). Liber Defensionum contra Obiectiones in Platonem: Cardinal Bessarion's own Latin translation of his Greek defense of Plato against George of Trebizond. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. ISBN 9783111246352.
See also
References
- ^ "Bessarion | Byzantine theologian". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 20 July 2021.
- ^ George Gemistos Plethon, the Last of the Hellenes, by C. M. Woodhouse, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986, pp. 32–33.
- ^ Primary source: Jacques Paul Migne, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 161, 1866, "Letter from George Amiroutzes to Bessarion," pp. 723–728, esp. 725.
- ^ Ierodiakonou, Katerina; Bydén, Börje. "Byzantine Philosophy". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- ^ Craig Martin, Subverting Aristotle: Religion, History, and Philosophy in Early Modern Science, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014, p. 41.
- ^ Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). "Basil [Cardinal] Bessarion". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- ^ a b Chisholm 1911.
- ^ James Hankins, Humanism and Platonism in the Italian Renaissance, Volume 1, Ed. di Storia e Letteratura, 2003, p. 207.
- ^ a b C.M. Woodhouse, George Gemistos Plethon, the Last of the Hellenes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 33
- ^ Woodhouse, George Gemistos Plethon, p. 13
- ^ Miscellanea marciana di studi bessarionei, Antenore, 1976, p. 121.
- ^ Joseph Gill, "The Sincerity of Bessarion the Unionist," Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 26 (1975), p. 387.
- ^ "Johannes Bessarion", Catholic Encyclopedia (1907).
- ^ J. P. Adams, Sede Vacante of 1464. Retrieved: 6 April 2016.
- ^ J. P. Adams, Sede Vacante 1471. Retrieved: 6 April 2016.
- ^ Ludwig Mohler, Bessarionis in calumniatorem Platonis libri IV [Kardinal Bessarion als Theologe, Humanist und Staatsmann. Funde und Forschungen Band 2]. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1927 (repr. 1967).
- ^ Emblem of Cardinal Bessarion Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
Attribution
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bessarion, Johannes". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
Sources
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. (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).
- Henderson, Duane. "Bessarion, Cardinalis Nicenus. A cardinalitial vita between ideal conceptions and institutional structures," Claudia Märtl; Christian Kaiser; Thomas Ricklin, eds. (2013). "Inter graecos latinissimus, inter latinos graecissimus": Bessarion zwischen den Kulturen. Berlin: De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-031621-6., 79-122.
- Keller, A. "A Byzantine admirer of 'western' progress: Cardinal Bessarion", in, Cambridge Historical Journal, 11 (1953[-]5), 343–8.
- Kraye, Jill, ed. (28 August 1997). "Chapter 12". Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts: Moral and Political Philosophy. Vol. 1. Cambridge UK/New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-42604-6.
- 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.
- Märtl, Claudia; Christian Kaiser; Thomas Ricklin, eds. (2013). "Inter graecos latinissimus, inter latinos graecissimus": Bessarion zwischen den Kulturen. Berlin: De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-031621-6.
- 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 Émigrés (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).
External links
- Media related to Basilius Bessarion at Wikimedia Commons
- New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
.
- The Nuttall Encyclopædia. 1907. .
- Bessarion at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Makripoulias Christos, "Bessarion Cardinal", Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World, Asia Minor
- OCLC 53276621.