Manuel II Palaiologos

MANUELE II PALEOLOGO. - N. a Costantinopoli nel 1350, m. ivi il 21 luglio 1425. Imperatore bizantino, regnò dal 1391. Teologo e uomo di grande talento, ebbe un regno molto difficile a causa della potenza turca minacciante e restringente sempre più l'Impero bizantino. Per chiedere aiuti contro i Tur-

chs made a journey to the courts of Western princes (1399-1403: Venice, Paris, London, again Paris, Genoa, and again Venice). During his long reign, he also repeatedly sent embassies to the Supreme Pontiffs, both during the period of the Western Schism and after it to Pope Martin V, to whom he sent the Greek Dominicans Theodore and Andrew Chrysoberges, both converts and well regarded by the Emperor. On Apr. 6, 1418, M. obtained from the Pope the requested dispensation from the impediment of mixed marriage for his sons. The papal embassy, entrusted to the Franciscan Antonio di Massa in 1422, could no longer negotiate with M., who was already struck by a serious illness, but rather with his son John VIII, who had been associated with the imperial government for some years. M. died without returning to the union so many times promised.

He left many writings, letters, and above all theological books, homilies, and other religious discourses, including a mariological homily recently published by M. Jugie (PO 15, 539-66). A major treatise, for the most part still unpublished, is his Apologie of Christianity against Islam, dedicated to his brother Theodore. In Paris, M. composed a still unpublished treatise against the Filioque, on the occasion of a short writing presented to him on the same subject by a monk of the Abbey of St. Denis. A jewel of the Louvre Museum is the codex of the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, sent in 1408 by M.'s ambassador, the humanist Manuel Chrysoloras, to the monastery of St. Denis. Several letters from the latter bear witness to M.'s relations with the Greek convert Demetrius Cydones.