GIUSEPPE il FILOSOFO. - Byzantine monk, born at Ithaca about 1280, died at Thessalonica about 1330. He studied Greek philosophy in this city. After a period of eremitical life in Thessaly, he went to Constantinople in 1320: proposed several times for the patriar-
chate, he refused and withdrew once more to monastic life at Thessalonica.
He composed (besides several writings on piety and virtue) an Encyclopedia of the sciences (rhetoric, logic, physics, quadrivium, ethics, theology), in which, however, he also collected various writings by contemporaries. The work is preserved in cod. Riccardiano gr. 12, and partially in other manuscripts. C. Walz published its rhetoric under the title Ἰωσὴρ τοῦ Ῥακενδύτου σύνοψις μητορικῆς (in Rhethores graeci, Stoccarda e Tubinga 1834, pp. 465-569).