JOHN ITALUS. - Eleventh-century Hellenist, born in southern Italy (a Calabrian origin is not demonstrated at all). He followed his father on a military campaign in Sicily and around 1043 moved to Constantinople, where he devoted himself to the study of letters. First a disciple and then the successor of Michael Psellus in the office of ὕπατος τῶν φιλοσόφων (princeps philosophorum), he shared his enthusiasm for Greek antiquity and for the Neoplatonic philosophers Porphyry, Proclus and Iamblichus, whose works he commented on in his very well-attended lectures.
Extremely expert in dialectic, he applied its method to theology, expounding the dogmas of Christianity according to the principles and notions of Aristotelianism. This method of his, and particularly the zeal he showed in promoting the study of letters and of ancient philosophy, provoked strong reactions in the ecclesiastical and especially the monastic circles of Constantinople, where he was accused of adhering to Neoplatonic doctrines. In 1075-76 nine propositions were condemned, in which public opinion believed it recognized the teaching of G. But his person was not molested. In March 1082, however, following a turbulent trial, G. was condemned and confined in a monastery. He then came to a retraction, and his punishment was mitigated.
His writings display no character of originality, except for a collection of 93 brief compositions of varied origin. G. was far from maintaining all the errors attributed to him. A student of antiquity for its own sake, he illustrated its thought, believing he could do away with the sharp separation that divides it from Christianity; in this respect he was a precursor of humanism.
Works for the most part unpublished, G. Ceretelli, Johannis Itali, opuscula selecta, fasc. I, Tiflis 1924; fasc. II, ibid. 1926.
Bibliography2 works
Pelopidas S. Stephanou