Bessarion

BESSARION. - Greek cardinal, metropolitan of Nicaea, b. in the region of Trebizond on 2 Jan. 1402, to parents of humble condition, baptized with the name Basil (?). Destined for the ecclesiastical state, he was entrusted, while still very young, to the metropolitan of Trebizond, Dositheos, who took him to Constantinople, where he was initiated into letters, philosophy and the ascetic life by Ignatius (John) Cortasmenos, archbishop of Selimbria. At the school of the rhetor Chrysococces he was a fellow pupil of Francesco Filelfo and perhaps of George

Scholarios. He took the monastic habit on 30 Jan. 1423, with the name that became famous.

His first writing is precisely the encomium of his new patron (unpublished in cod. Marc. Gr. 533). He distinguished himself with a monody (funeral oration) for the emperor Manuel II (d. 25 July 1425); he was sent to the court of Trebizond (1426?), wrote an oration in honor of the emperor Alexios IV and three monodies on the empress Theodora Kantakouzene Komnene (d. 17 Nov. 1426). A deacon in 1426, a priest in 1431, he went to the Peloponnese, where he gained the favor of the despot Theodore II and was a hearer of George Gemistos Plethon, with whom he always maintained the best of relations.

He wrote an epitaph and a monody on Cleopa Malatesta, wife of the despot Theodore (d. 1433); an epitaph for Theodora Tocco, spouse of Constantine Palaiologos (who was later the last emperor of Byzantium); verses to be placed beneath a portrait of Manuel II and his consort. Twelve letters date from that sojourn, one of them a long one to John Laskaris Leondaris with an exposition of Christian morality; a defense of his protector Dositheos (transferred to the see of Monemvasia); a eulogy of his native Trebizond and a homily (unpublished in cod. Marc. Gr. 533).

Having helped to settle a quarrel that arose in 1436 between the emperor John VIII and his brother

Theodore, he was recalled to the capital and appointed to the monastery of St. Basil. Elected metropolitan of Nicaea (1437), he sailed with the emperor for Italy (24 Nov. 1437).

At the Council of Ferrara-Florence he was, along with Mark Eugenikos, the principal Greek orator and contributed effectively to the act of union of 6 June 1439 (speeches of 9 Oct. and 1 Nov. 1438 at Ferrara; a great dogmatic speech on the equivalence of the formulas « διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ » and « ex Filio » at Florence, 13 and 14 Apr. 1439). After the union, Eugene IV assigned him an annual pension of 300 florins, increaseable to 600 if he were to settle in the Curia (11 Aug. 1439). B. returned to Constantinople with the emperor and the apostolic nuncio Cristoforo Garatoni (1 Feb. 1440). He wrote three Consolations for the emperor John VIII, who had lost his wife Maria (17 Dec. 1439), conducted research on the Fathers in the libraries of the capital, took part in the election of the patriarch Metrophanes II (1 May 1440), and probably worked on his confutations of Gregory Palamas and Maximus Planudes concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit. Created cardinal with the title of the SS. Apostles (18 Dec. 1439), he returned to Florence, where the Curia still was (10 Dec. 1440). He studied Italian and Latin, seeking to acquire in this language the perfection and elegance demanded by the humanist current, into which he entered resolutely, becoming one of its luminaries. He held the archbishopric of Thebes in the duchy of Athens (1440-49?) and the Benedictine abbey of S. Giuliano di Rimini (?-1449). On 5 Feb. 1442 he signed the decree of union of the Jacobites; in the same year he consecrated, according to the Latin rite, the Franciscan church of S. Croce in Florence. He arrived with the Curia in Rome on 28 Sept. 1443 and settled near his titular church, of which he took an active care.

From the Florentine sojourn or the early years of the Roman one date the letter to Alexios Laskaris Philanthropenos in which he defends his own conduct and that of the union council, the preface to the Latin version of St. Basil's Against Eunomius (made at his request by George of Trebizond), and the version of the same saint's homily on the Nativity, dedicated to Tommaso da Sarzana, the future Nicholas V. His interest in everything concerning his homeland is reflected in the letter to the despot Constantine (1444), full of suggestions for reviving in Greece the arts of peace and of war. In 1444 B. dedicated to Giuliano Cesarini, cardinal bishop of Tusculum, his version of Xenophon's Memorabilia. The correction of the medieval version of Aristotle's Metaphysics, dedicated to his friend Alfonso, king of Naples (d. 1458), may also go back to this period.

As commendatory abbot of S. Giovanni Evangelista in Ravenna, he ceded to the Friars Minor of the Observance the priory of S. Mamante (1444). He also held in commendam the abbey of S. Cristoforo di Castel Durante (Urbania; 1445-68) and that of S. Stefano in Pinis at Split, of which, in 1450, he ceded a priory (S. Maria della Palude) to the Observant Friars Minor. Protector of the Order of St. Basil, in Nov. 1446 he celebrated in the basilica of the Twelve Apostles a general chapter with the abbots of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, approved by Eugene IV (14 Dec. 1446). For the Basilians he composed an epitome of the rules of St. Basil. The right of visitation over the Greek monasteries of Italy was confirmed to him by Nicholas V on 22 June 1451, and this offered him the occasion, perhaps, of discovering in the monastery of S. Nicola di Casole, in the Terra d'Otranto, the codices of Quintus Smyrnaeus and Colluthus. In the states of Alfonso of Aragon, B. held in commendam the archbishopric of Manfredonia (1447-49) and the Basilian monasteries of S. Angelo di Brolo (1447-64), S. Filippo Grande (1449-64), SS. Pietro e Paolo di Forza d'Agrò (1450-1452), S. Giovanni a Piro (?-1468). He was charged in 1447 with the recognition of the relics of St. Lawrence martyr, and in 1449 with the canonization of St. Bernardino of Siena. Bishop of Sabina (5 March 1449), he retained in commendam until his death the basilica of the Twelve Apostles, in which he replaced the secular Chapter with a convent of Friars Minor (30 June list in Ravenna, he ceded the priory of S. Mamante to the Friars Minor of the Observance (1444). He also held in commendam the abbey of S. Cristoforo di Castel Durante (Urbania; 1445-68) and that of S. Stefano in Pinis at Split, of which, in 1450, he ceded a priory (S. Maria della Palude) to the Observant Friars Minor. As protector of the Order of St. Basil, in Nov. 1446 he celebrated in the basilica of the Twelve Apostles a general chapter with the abbots of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, approved by Eugene IV (14 Dec. 1446). For the Basilians he composed an epitome of the rules of St. Basil. The right of visitation over the Greek monasteries of Italy was confirmed to him by Nicholas V on 22 June 1451, and this offered him the occasion, perhaps, of discovering in the monastery of S. Nicola di Casole, in the Terra d'Otranto, the codices of Quintus Smyrnaeus and of Colluthus. In the states of Alfonso of Aragon, B. held in commendam the archbishopric of Manfredonia (1447-49) and the Basilian monasteries of S. Angelo di Brolo (1447-64), S. Filippo Grande (1449-64), Sts. Peter and Paul of Forza d'Agrò (1450-1452), S. Giovanni a Piro (?-1468). He was charged in 1447 with the recognition of the relics of St. Lawrence martyr, and in 1449 with the canonization of St. Bernardino of Siena. Bishop of Sabina (5 March 1449), he retained in commendam until his death the basilica of the Twelve Apostles, in which he replaced the secular Chapter with a convent of Friars Minor (30 June 1463). On 23 Apr. 1449 he exchanged the see of Sabina for the other suburbicarian see of Frascati, then, in the same year, that of Manfredonia for that of Mazzara, and he probably left that of Thebes for the patriarchate of Jerusalem (1449-58). He obtained from Nicholas V, in the early days of his pontificate, that Lorenzo Valla might return from Naples to Rome, where Niccolò Perotti, secretary of B., was the auditor of that humanist.

In the last years of his Roman stay B. encouraged Valla when for the first time he applied the new philological methods to biblical studies with his Annotationes in Novum Testamentum. Also B.'s little work In illud « Sic eum volo manere » belongs to this order of studies. To the same period go back the origins of what was later called the academy of B. The correspondence with Plethon, which is of about 1447, shows us what interest he continued to have in philosophy.

On 10 Sept. 1449 Nicholas V created B. legate a latere for the peace negotiations between Venice and Milan and between Francesco Sforza and the Ambrosian Republic, but without good result. From 1450 to 1455, then, the legation of Bologna tore B. away from the Roman humanists. In that government B. relied on the nascent lordship of the Bentivoglio; but especially upon the decayed University the legate lavished his care, having, among other things, his Perotti teach there. Meanwhile Constantinople had fallen into the hands of the Turk, and a new element enters into the life of the Greek Cardinal: he ransoms his countrymen reduced to slavery, provides for those who wander homeless through the world, exhorts the princes to war against the invader; above all, he conceives and begins to carry out the project of a library in which to gather the treasures of Greek literature, threatened, as he believes, with being lost, since his people no longer had any center of studies. This noble concern shines through the correspondence with Michele Apostoli (1453-55). In the Conclave of 1455, from which for some time it seemed that B. was to emerge as Pontiff, Callistus III was elected instead, who brought to the Chair of Peter the spirit of the Spanish reconquista. An orientation most welcome to the Greek Cardinal who, taking advantage of a cure at Pozzuoli and of a reception given in his honor by King Alfonso at Naples (5 June 1457), exhorts him to holy war. But it was a private attempt, since the pontificate of Callistus III marked for B. a time of lesser political activity and, in compensation, a gain for his studies. Thus when in 1455 George of Trebizond, in his Comparaciones, attacked Plato, B. defended the supreme philosopher in the 4 books In Calumniatorem Platonis, his principal work. The confutation of the Sillogismi of Mark Eugenicus goes back instead, probably, to the time of the Bolognese legation. The commendam of the Camaldolese abbey of S. Croce di Fonte Avellana (1456-72) gave him occasion to tighten ever more his relations with the house of the bibliophile Count Federico III of Montefeltro and Urbino. He became (1456-57) coadjutor, then archimandrite, of the Basilian monastery of S. Salvatore in Messina. From 1458 to 1462 he was bishop of Pamplona. Of Pius II, a humanist like Nicholas V and as zealous for the crusade as Callistus III, B. soon became a very close friend, although, in the Conclave of 1458, he had not at first given him his vote. The new Pope gave B. as protector to the Minorite Order (10 Sept. 1448) and entrusted to him the canonization of Catherine of Siena (1459).

At the Congress of Mantua (autumn 1459) the Pope and the Greek Cardinal labored without fruit to obtain the adherence of the princes to an offensive league against the Turk. The consequent legation of B. in Germany (1460-61) was a setback whose blame must be attributed not so much to the legate as to circumstances in no way propitious. He took advantage of this journey to acquire codices and to establish relations with German scholars. On his return to Italy he was created Venetian patrician (2 Dec. 1461) and administrator of the bishopric of Negroponte in Venetian Euboea (13 Dec. 1461) in anticipation of the episcopal title which he received on 1 Apr. 1463. In 1462 he took part in the solemn translation of the head of St. Andrew the Apostle, brought to Italy by the fugitive despot of Morea, Thomas Palaiologos (discourse of 13 Apr. 1462), and exchanged the Messinese archimandrite see of S. Salvatore for the Basilian abbey of S. Maria in Grottaferrata, whose buildings he provided for restoring, whose administration he reorganized, and whose library and sacristy he enriched. Promoted patriarch of Constantinople, he addressed (27 May 1463) to his Greek faithful living under Venetian dominion an encyclical in which he returned to the great theme of union. Also the little treatise on the words of consecration is of this period. Meanwhile Trebizond, his homeland, had fallen into the hands of the Turk (1461). Once again there was need to succor infinite miseries. George Amiroutzes, a fellow citizen once a friend, but long since passed into the ranks of the adversaries, did not hesitate, in those straits, to turn to B. with a letter as curious as it is memorable. In 1463 the capture of Argos and the conquest of Bosnia matured a new project of Crusade. Pius II sent to Venice as legate a latere the B., who helped to bring about the triumph, in the councils of the Most Serene Republic, of the cause of war. But when, with the Venetian fleet commanded by the doge, the B. arrived at Ancona where the army was gathering, he found the Pope dying: with the death of its animator the enterprise faded away. When, after the Conclave of 1464, the newly elected Paul II declared that he was not obliged to observe the sworn "capitulations" that limited the exercise of pontifical power, a misunderstanding arose between him and the B., and the latter devoted himself more intensely to his studies. It was probably then that he composed the De natura et arte and put his theological-polemical writings into Latin. In 1465 the sons of the despot Thomas Palaiologos arrived in Italy, and he became their protector: we have three letters in vernacular Greek in which he lays down rules of conduct for the tutors of the exiled princes. In 1466 he restored at Viterbo (where from 1462 he was accustomed to take cures) the baths known as those of King Pepin. He was camerlengo of the sacred college for 1467-68. In this year he made his will and donated his library, the richest at that time in Greek codices, to the republic of Venice (14 May 1468). The trial against the academicians of Pomponio Leto (1468), some of whom belonged to that of the B., gave him the opportunity to exert himself once again on behalf of the humanists, especially for Platina, who the following year repaid his benefactor by writing a panegyric of him. Here and in other documents we see the B. reconciled with Paul II, whose confidence he enjoyed. On 4 July 1468 he received a pension on the revenues of the Benedictine abbey of S. Pietro di Villanova near Lusiana, in the diocese of Vicenza. We also find him, at his death (but it is not known since when), commendatory of the Cluniac priory of S. Giacomo di Pontida in the Bergamasque region. On 14 Oct. 1468 he passed from the Tusculan see to that of Sabina. In Aug. 1469 the Latin version of the In calumniatorem Platonis came off the presses, giving occasion for an exchange of letters with many men of letters, among them Marsilio Ficino. The usual controversies were not lacking either, one with Giovanni Argyropoulos, courteous, and another, vehement, with George of Trebizond. The Turkish conquest of Euboea (1470) moved the B. to write an oration to the Christian princes which his friend Guillaume Fichet, rector of the University of Paris, immediately circulated in print, while at Rome a cardinalatial commission, gathered in the B.'s house, occupied itself with the Turkish danger. Sixtus IV, a friend of the B., having succeeded Paul II, appointed the B. legate a latere in France, Burgundy and England (22 Dec. 1471) in favor of the Crusade. But very soon the legation was limited to settling the questions pending between the Holy See and France; nevertheless the B. allowed himself to be persuaded by his friends (especially by Fichet and by Iacopo Ammannati) and by a personal invitation from King Louis XI, to take upon himself this difficult charge. If he hoped in his heart to draw that powerful monarch into the holy war, he was disappointed, and, on the whole, his French legation had no happier an outcome than his German one. Worn out by illness and by the fatigues of the journey, the B., having returned to Italy, died a holy death at Ravenna on 18 Nov. 1472. His remains were brought to Rome, where on 3 Dec., in the basilica of the Twelve Apostles, the funeral took place in the presence of the Pope. Niccolò Capranica, bishop of Fermo, delivered the funeral eulogy in Latin, while at Crete the faithful Apostoli wrote another in Greek. The cardinal rests in the tomb that he had had prepared for himself (1466) in the same Basilica. There one can see his effigy in bas-relief and his coat of arms: two arms

(representing the Latin and Greek churches) support the cross: emblem of the cause to which he dedicated his life and of which he himself has remained the symbol.

Raimondo Loenertz