325. Platonic Love: Gemistos Plethon

This was a very impressing episode. But I would like to make an remark:

Plethon had  also a well known student. His name was Bessarion. There was a controversy between Bessarion and George of Trapezunt at that time. Bessarion wrote a book which try to harmonize the position of Plato and Aristotle. This was a book which was written against the position of George of Trapezunt if I remember it right. It deals a  lot with platonic philosophy. It has the latin title (In calumniatorem Platonem> Against the accusers of Plato). The interesting thing is that we also have a latin text of this book. So Bessarion was able to read latin or write in latin which was not very common among byzantine thinkers. So there is a greek and a latin text of this book. I think it would have been a good idea if Bessarion would have been mentioned in this episode, since he was the student and friend of Plethon. And like Plethon he deals with platonism in his own way. To compare Bessarion and Plethon in this point could have been interesting.

But thanks for this episode!

I would like to draw your attention to my work ('The Game of Saturn') concerning a late 15th century Ferrarese tarocchi (the Sola-Busca) which embeds a distinctly Hellenistic theurgical ritual grammar amidst its otherwise bizarre (and upon ocassion, grotesque) imagery.  Looking for the source of this imagery led me to Plethon's sojourn in Ferrara and his impact on Italian elite intellectual life of the period. If correct it would strongly confirm the supposition that pagan did indeed teach Platonic theurgy and was therefore a practicing as well as intellectual pagan. The work was positively reviewed by Dr Niketas Siniossoglou (in Aries Journal of ESSWE, 2017) and by Dr Joscelyn Godwin (Renaissance Quarterly, LXXI No.2.).