Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The fall of Byzantium

Learning, literature, science, and art

Page 11

Plethon received his elementary education at Constantinople and spent the greater part of his life, almost a century long, at Mistra, the cultural center of the Despotat of Morea. He accompanied Emperor John VIII to the Council of Ferrara-Florence. Plethon died at Mistra, probably in 1450. In 1465 an Italian general and patron of letters, of the famous family of Malatesta, captured Sparta from the Turks and transported Plethon's ashes to the small Italian city of Rimini, where they now repose in the church of San Francisco.

The aim of Plethon's philosophical works was to explain the significance of Platonic philosophy as compared with Aristotelian. Plethon opened a new phase in the struggle between Aristotelianism and Platonism. He brought to Italy his knowledge of Plato and his enthusiasm and produced a striking impression upon Cosimo Medici and other Italian humanists. Indeed he initiated the idea of founding the Platonic Academy at Florence.

In this city Plethon wrote the treatise On the difference between Aristotle and Plato, in which he endeavored to prove the superiority of his favorite philosopher over Aristotle. The stay of the Byzantine philosopher at Florence is one of the most important episodes in the history of the transplantation of Greek classical learning to Italy and especially of the revival of Platonic philosophy in the West. Plethon's chief piece of work was a kind of Utopia, A Treatise on the Laws (Νόμων συγγραφή), which unfortunately does not exist in full. On the one hand, it was an attempt, interesting as indicating a tendency of the epoch but of course doomed to failure, to restore paganism on the ruins of Christianity by establishing neo-Platonic philosophy; on the other hand, it was designed to give mankind ideal living conditions. In order to find in what men's happiness consists, Plethon judged it necessary to understand as thoroughly the nature of man himself as the system of the universe of which man forms part. Plethon also submitted plans to Manuel II for the restoration of the Peloponnesus.

In his significance and influence Plethon goes far beyond the confines of the cultural history of Byzantium, and if only for this reason deserves the deepest attention. As his activity and importance have not yet been fully estimated, the significance of Gemistus Plethon is one of the most fascinating themes for the historian interested in the cultural history of the later Byzantine Empire.

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