Bessarion was born in
Trebizond, the
Black Sea port in northeastern
Anatolia that was the heart of
Pontic Greek culture and civilization during the
Byzantine and
Ottoman periods. The year of his birth has been given as 1389, 1395 or 1403.
Bessarion's Neoplatonism Bessarion was educated in
Constantinople, then went in 1423 to
Mystras,
Peloponnese to study Neoplatonism under
Gemistus Pletho. Under Pletho, he "went through the liberal arts curriculum…, with a special emphasis on mathematics…including the study of astronomy and geography" that would have related "philosophy to physics…cosmology and astrology" and Pletho's "mathematics would include
Pythagorean number-mysticism, Plato's cosmological geometry and the Neoplatonic arithmetic which connected the material world with the world of
Plato's Forms. Possibly it also included astrology…" Woodhouse also mentions that Bessarion "had a mystical streak…[and] was proficient in Neoplatonic vocabulary…mathematics…and Platonic theology". 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
Bessarion of Egypt, whose story he has related. In 1436 became
abbot of a monastery in Constantinople and 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
Eastern (Orthodox) and
Western (Catholic) churches. The emperor hoped to use the possibility of re-uniting the churches to obtain help from Western Europe against the
Ottoman Empire. Bessarion participated in the Byzantine delegation to the
Council of Ferrara-Florence as the most eminent representative of unionists, although he originally belonged to the party of anti-unionists. On 6 July 1439, he read the declaration of the Greek Association of Churches in Florence cathedral, in the presence of
Pope Eugene IV and John VIII. Some historians have impugned Bessarion's sincerity in adhering to the union. However, Gill upholds Bessarion's sincerity in being convinced of the truth of the Roman position in the matters discussed at the Council, quoting from Bessarion's own work
Oratio Dogmatica:
Cardinal and later life 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
cardinal at the
consistory of 18 December 1439. 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 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 Western Europeans. He supported
Regiomontanus in this fashion and defended
Nicholas of Cusa. He is known in history as the original patron of the Greek exiles (scholars and diplomats) including
Theodore Gaza,
George of Trebizond,
John Argyropoulos, and
Janus Lascaris. 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 Bessarion was an early candidate, favored on account of his disinterestness in the struggle between candidates pushed forward by the Roman factions of the
Orsini and
Colonna. He was opposed for his Greek background by the French Cardinal
Alain de Coëtivy. . 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. Other missions were to Germany to encourage Western princes to help their fellow Christians in the East. For these efforts, his fellow humanist Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, then
Pius II, gave him the purely ceremonial title of
Latin Patriarch of Constantinople in 1463. As
primus Cardinalium (from April 1463) – the title
Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals was not yet in use – Cardinal Bessarion presided over the
Papal conclave, 1464 and
Papal conclave, 1471. He died on 18 November 1472 at
Ravenna. He was subsequently buried in the basilica of the
Santi Apostoli, Rome in a large funerary chapel of which he had overseen the renovation during his life. ==Works==