The Pletho Revival of Plato in Italy

Abstract

The second major movement toward the revival of Plato in Italy was the work of another Greek visitor, Giorgios Gemisthos Pletho, a monk from the monastery of Mistra in the Greek Peloponessus (on Pletho see Masai, 1954, 1956). Pletho came to Florence in 1439 as a delegate to the Church Council that convened at Florence in that year. That Council had been called for the great purpose of trying to reconcile the Eastern and Western branches of the Church, but the practical business of the Council involved trying to reach compromise on small technical differences such as the filioque clause in the Creed, and the date of Easter (Gill, 1965). The Council had originally convened at Basle (April, 1437), but had subsequently moved to Ferrara, and from there, in January, 1439, to Florence. The Council wound up its business by issuing the Decree of Union in June, 1439. Pletho then returned to Mistra, but during his six months in Florence he had had a dramatic effect on the revival of Plato in Italy. So far as England was to be concerned, the most important influence of Pletho was his impact on the Medici family in Florence, but Pletho also had a powerful impact on some of his colleagues among the Greek clerics in Rome, and we must examine that episode before we move on to the Medici phase of Pletho’s influence.