George Of Trebizond Research Articles

Basilios Bessarion on George of Trebizond’s translation of Plato’s Laws

George of Trebizond (1395-1472) has spent a significant part of his life translating Greek books into Latin. The bulk of his translations is impressive: from Ptolemy’s Almagest to John Chrysostom’s homilies and works by Cyril of Alexandria, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Aristotle. He was quite an experienced translator, who had worked out an elaborated method explained in several writings. At the height of his career, George rather hastily translated Plato’s Laws. The haste and, probably, George’s bias against Plato and Platonism resulted in numerous inaccuracies of translation. Several years later, Basilios Bessarion closely scrutinized these faults in the fifth book of his In Calumniatorem Platonis, a comprehensive work aiming to refute the arguments set out in George of Trebizond’s anti-Platonic treatise Comparatio Philosophorum Aristotelis et Platonis. The paper analyses the use of such rhetorical devices as sarcasm and irony in Bessarion’s In Calumniatorem Platonis and especially in his commentary on George’s translation of Laws; it also aims to demonstrate how Bessarion turns George of Trebizond into a comic figure, thus compromising both the opponent and his interpretation of Plato’s doctrine.

Changing Jerome’s Bible: Biblical quotations in the patristic translations of Lampugnino Birago (1390–1472) and George of Trebizond (1396–1472/3)☆

AbstractThe fifteenth‐century Italian humanists applied their ideas on translation and textual scholarship not only to classical texts, but also to Scripture. One problem they encountered was the rendering of biblical passages in their patristic translations. The Church Fathers had occasionally based their exegesis on variant readings or interpretations that clashed with ‘Jerome’s translation’, the Latin translation in common use in the fifteenth century and traditionally ascribed to Jerome. When the patristic source text demanded it, changing Jerome’s translation was therefore surely justified – but perhaps it was justified in other cases too. This article analyses how humanist translators treated biblical quotations in patristic texts, focusing on the Latin translations of Basil’s Hexaemeron by Lampugnino Birago (1390–1472) and Cyril’s Commentary on John by George of Trebizond (1396–1472/3), and explores what their practice can tell us about humanist approaches to translation and the biblical text.

L’astronomie et Bessarion : tradition et modernité

This paper gives a quick survey of Byzantine training in astronomy at the time of Bessarion. It appears that Bessarion, in spite of his opening to modern astronomical studies under the influence of Regiomontanus, remained attached to the Byzantine tradition. For example, his letter De errore Paschatis to Pope Paul II is directly inspired by the treatise on Easter of Barlaam. The Introduction to the Almagest written in Greek by George of Trebizond was severely criticized by Bessarion and Regiomontanus, but there are no modern studies concerning this work. A quick analysis shows some interesting novelties introduced by George in the arithmetical procedures and terminology, but his criticism of Theon was not accepted by his opponents. A serious study of George’s writings would be highly recommended if one wishes to give a correct estimation of George ’s work.

ЛЕОНАРДО БРУНИ И ГЕОРГИЙ ТРАПЕЗУНДСКИЙ О СТРАТЕГИЯХ ПЕРЕВОДА ДРЕВНЕГРЕЧЕСКИХ АВТОРОВ

The paper addresses one of the episodes in the history of the early Renaissance polemic about the theory and practice of translation, namely, the views on the goals and methods of translation as presented in Leonardo Bruni’s treatise De interpretatione recta and in the writings of one of the most talented and prolific translators of the time, George of Trebizond. Although the basic principles of translation which guided both authors dated back to the Antiquity, their views on the medieval practice of literal translation are rather different: while Bruni believed that medieval translators “distorted and mutilated” the works of ancient authors, George considered their methods to be the most suitable for the translation of “scholarly” writings (such as treatises of Aristotle and other philosophers).

When Is a Translation Not a Translation? Girolamo Manfredi's De homine (1474)

This article investigates the claims made in the dedicatory epistle to Girolamo Manfredi’s De homine (also known as Il libro del perche) to have effected an Italian translation of various earlier works. First published in 1474, the De homine is strongly dependent on the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems, for which several translations into Latin were available by Manfredi’s time as well as the highly influential commentary by Pietro d’Abano. Focusing on one particular section of the De homine (II.x), on voice, this article offers an analysis of the various sources used and of the extent to which Manfredi is indeed offering a translation or something different. This study concludes that Manfredi closely followed the translation by Bartolomeo da Messina and the commentary by Pietro d’Abano; it finds no clear evidence of his use of the translations by George of Trebizond or Theodore Gaza. Other sources used include especially Rhazes’ Ad Almansorem.

О СООТНОШЕНИИ ВИЗАНТИЙСКОЙ И ЗАПАДНОЙ ЛОГИЧЕСКИХ ТРАДИЦИЙ

The article explores a little-known work of Byzantine literature of the 13th century, a textbook on log-ic by Nikephoros Blemmydes, an outstanding figure in a special period in the history of Byzantium, the period of the Nicene Empire, which arose after the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins. Nikephoros Blemmydes (1197—c. 1272) was a philosopher, rhetorician, theologian and teacher. A treatise Epitome logica in Greek is analyzed in the present article in order to identify the sources of this work and its influence on the development of logic in the East and in the West. For a detailed analysis in this article, one of the main sections of scholastic logic is chosen—the doctrine of the categorical syllogism. The presentation of this doctrine by Nikephoros Blemmydes has its peculiarities. First, only three figures with 14, and not 19, correct modes are presented. Second, the presentation is accompanied by Greek lettering and graphic images of the modes of syllogism. In the treatises by Latin authors such a graphic development of the doctrine of categorical syllogism has not been found by us. However, similar patterns were discovered by us in George of Trebizond (1395, Crete—approx. 1473, Rome). George of Trebizond was one of those Greeks who left the de-caying Byzantium and came to the West, enriching it with the culture of the East and becoming the first representatives of the Italian Renaissance. His “Dialectics”, written in 1439–1440, is believed to have become the first textbook on logic in the history of the Renaissance. He wrote it in Latin, but used, as we can see from the text, along with Latin textbooks, mainly Greek manuscripts. Based on the study of the “Logic” of Nikephoros Blemmydes, the conclusion is drawn that the treatise by Nikephoros Blemmydes is least likely to bear traces of Western influence (textbooks by W. Sherwood, Peter of Spain, etc.). It is suggested that the scholastic doctrine of categorical and hypo-thetical syllogisms was developed by peripatetics and Alexandrian neoplatonists, inherited by Byz-antine logicians, and only later underwent its final development in the West.

Nature and deliberation in Bessarion’s De natura et arte

AbstractThe present contribution will concentrate on the central issue discussed by Bessarion in one of his major works, the De natura et arte (written in 1458 and published in 1469 as the sixth book of Bessarion’s In calumniatorem Platonis), i. e. the concept of deliberation and the relationship between nature, purposiveness and deliberation. In De natura et arte Bessarion responds to an attack by George of Trebizond, who had demonstrated, against Bessarion, not only that nature does not deliberate, but also that deliberation cannot be attributed to God who guides nature either, since deliberation implies doubt and ignorance. In this contribution I will examine the strategies Bessarion uses in order to reaffirm the possibility of attributing deliberation even to God and the arguments through which he succeeds in stressing the fundamental agreement on this subject not only between Plato and Aristotle, but also and more importantly between Plato and Christian theology.

Christian-Muslim Encounters: George of Trebizond and the ‘Inversion’ of Eastern Discourse regarding Islam in the Fifteenth Century

The capture of Constantinople (1453) by the Ottoman troops of Mehmed II was a historical turning point. The political reference point of Eastern Christianity was now in Muslim hands, the Ottomans representing in the eyes of late medieval Europeans not only an enemy of the true faith, and as such an obstacle for ecclesiastical unity, but also a potential rival of the papacy as a political power. In short, within the contemporary context and the socially dominant apocalyptic frame of mind, the Ottomans were viewed as an existential threat for Christianity as a whole. While the papal reaction to this development was to go on the offensive, expressed through the call for a new crusade, the emergence of a few voices expressing divergent theological content and political orientation had special significance. One of the voices which ‘set off the politics of religious synthesis from different quarters” was that of George of Trebizond (1395–1472/3), a Cretan emigrant to Italy who lived in Venice and Florence before moving to Rome. He had converted to Catholicism without losing his sense of belonging to the East, and became a prominent figure of the Italian intellectual elite and an editor of classical and theological literature, as well as a member of the Vatican bureaucracy.

George of Trebizond’s Grammar on the Basis of Priscian’s Institutiones. Comparative Analysis

Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae is a systematic exposition of Latin grammar. Among the writings of George of Trebizond (Georgius Trapezuntius, 1395–ca. 1474) there is a grammar entitled Departibus orationis ex Prisciano compendium, a grammatical catechism written in Venice in the early 1430s. The primary aim of the present paper is to analyse Trebizond’s procedure in “condensing” Priscian, and to give a comparison of the Institutiones grammaticae with the De partibus orationis ex Prisciano compendium.

A Layman's <i>Life of St. Augustine</i> in Late Medieval Italy: Patronage and Polemic

During the century before the Reformation, lay elites on the Italian peninsula composed a striking number of classicizing Latin texts about the saints. These narratives are little known, although some — for example, Leonardo Giustiniani's life of St. Nicholas, Francesco Diedo's vita of St. Roch, and Giovanni Calfurnio's passion of Simon of Trent — went into print early and have thus been more or less available for centuries. Others, such as Giovanni Carrara's life of Clare of Montefalco, have been recovered and edited only recently. Some remain unstudied, even unrecognized — among them Nicolaus Secundinus's translation of a Greek account of Gregory Nazianzus. Yet others depend on an uncertain manuscript tradition (such as George of Trebizond's passion of Andrew of Chios) or are lost entirely (e.g., Pier Candido Decembrio's life of Ambrose). I propose here that the authorial ambitions, the details of style and content, and the complications of context embodied in this minor literature make it very much worth knowing.

Between Chimera and Charybdis: Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Views on the Political Organization of the Italian City-States

AbstractThis article offers a detailed investigation of Byzantine and post-Byzantine perceptions of the political organization of the Italian city-states. Drawing on philosophical and historical writing produced by Byzantine and post-Byzantine authors between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, it identifies the main patterns and motifs that informed Byzantine discourse about the constitutional arrangements of such Italian cities as Genoa, Venice, Florence, and Milan. It shows how these come into play in the writings of major figures of Byzantine and post-Byzantine intellectual life such as Theodoros Metochites, John Kantakouzenos, Nikephoros Gregoras, George of Trebizond, Cardinal Bessarion, Laonikos Chalkokondyles, and John Kottunios. It also explores the ways in which the classical legacy of political thought was applied by Byzantine writers in their analysis of various constitutional forms. The findings of this survey provide new insights into cross-cultural exchanges between the Byzantine world and medieval and early modern Europe and the formation of Byzantine identity.

A Layman'sLife of St. Augustinein Late Medieval Italy: Patronage and Polemic

During the century before the Reformation, lay elites on the Italian peninsula composed a striking number of classicizing Latin texts about the saints. These narratives are little known, although some — for example, Leonardo Giustiniani's life of St. Nicholas, Francesco Diedo'svitaof St. Roch, and Giovanni Calfurnio's passion of Simon of Trent — went into print early and have thus been more or less available for centuries. Others, such as Giovanni Carrara's life of Clare of Montefalco, have been recovered and edited only recently. Some remain unstudied, even unrecognized — among them Nicolaus Secundinus's translation of a Greek account of Gregory Nazianzus. Yet others depend on an uncertain manuscript tradition (such as George of Trebizond's passion of Andrew of Chios) or are lost entirely (e.g., Pier Candido Decembrio's life of Ambrose). I propose here that the authorial ambitions, the details of style and content, and the complications of context embodied in this minor literature make it very much worth knowing.

Interpretations of Renaissance humanism

Preface Contributors Introduction, Angelo Mazzocco PART I 1. Kristeller's Humanists as Heirs of the Medieval Dictatores, Ronald G. Witt 2. The Origins of Robert Black 3. Humanism: Ancient Learning, Criticism, Schools and Universities, Paul F. Grendler 4. Curial Humanism Seen Through the Prism of the Papal Library, Massimo Miglio 5. Humanism and the Medieval Encyclopedic Tradition, Giuseppe Mazzotta PART II 6. Humanism and Scholasticism: Toward an Historical Definition, Riccardo Fubini 7. Religion and the Modernity of Renaissance James Hankins 8. Rethinking Christian Humanism, Charles G. Nauert 9. Renaissance Humanism: the Rhetorical Turn, Eckhard Kessler 10. Literary Humanism in the Renaissance, Arthur F. Kinney PART III 11. Petrarch: Founder of Renaissance Humanism?, Angelo Mazzocco 12. Angelo Poliziano, Aldo Manuzio, Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and Chapter 90 of the Miscellaneorum Centuria Prima (With an Edition and Translation), John Monfasani 13. Reinterpreting Renaissance Humanism: Marcello Adriani and the Recovery of Lucretius, Alison Brown Bibliography Index

A tale of two books: Bessarion's In Calumniatorem Platonis and George of Trebizond's Comparatio Philosophorum Platonis et Aristotelis1

The two central Latin works of the Plato‐Aristotle Controversy of the Fifteenth Century were George of Trebizond's Comparatio Philosophorum Platonis et Aristotelis and Cardinal Bessarion's In Calumniatorem Platonis in response to George. The Renaissance fortuna of Bessarion's work is well known and reflects the relative success it enjoyed. George's Comparatio, however, had a much harder time of it. The story of its eventually printing in 1523 involves us tracing the history of MS Vat. Lat. 3382 of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana through Central Europe until its arrival in Venice. The key figure in the printing proved to be the imperial official Jacopo Bannisio. A marginal note by the Englishman Robert Ridley in a copy of Bessarion's work now at Yale University reporting a conversation he had with Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples in Paris provides interesting insights on how Lefèvre and others viewed the conflict between Bessarion and George as well as on the fortuna of George's Comparatio.

Regiomontanus as a Physical Astronomer: Samplings from The Defence of Theon against George of Trebizond

Regiomontanus as a Physical Astronomer: Samplings from <i>The Defence of Theon against George of Trebizond</i>

Ductusandcolor: the right way to compose a suitable speech

In Latin rhetorical contexts, color was a well known metaphor, used to refer either to the orator's stylistic choices or to the general complexion of the whole speech (Cic. De orat. 3.96) or the specific characteristics of each of the three styles (Cic. De orat. 3.199) or even of each part of the speech (Quint. 12.10.71). In the second case, by contrast, color had the peculiar meaning of a possible point of view in the discussion of the case, as appears from its usage in Seneca's Controversiae. The term ductus was less well known. We meet it for the first time in the handbook of Consultus Fortunatianus (1.6-8, pp. 71ff. Calb. Mont.) and then again in the book on rhetoric in the encyclopaedia of Martianus Capella (470-72, pp. 165.3ff. Willis). Ductus referred to the speaker's intention of being open or not in pleading the entire case. Considering the section on ductus in the Five Books on Rhetoric written by George of Trebizond, this article corroborates the parallels between the theory of ductus as treated by Fortunatianus and Martianus Capella, the figuratae controversiae of Quintilian (9.2.65-69), and the σχηματισμ να of Greek authors.

Regiomontanus on Ptolemy, Physical Orbs, and Astronomical Fictionalism: Goldsteinian Themes in the “Defense of Theon against George of Trebizond”

To honor Bernard Goldstein, this article highlights in the “Defense of Theon against George of Trebizond” by Regiomontanus (1436–1476) themes that resonate with leading strands of Goldstein's scholarship. I argue that, in this poorly-known work, Regiomontanus's mastery of Ptolemy's mathematical astronomy, his interest in making astronomy physical, and his homocentric ideals stand in unresolved tension. Each of these themes resonates with Gold-stein's fundamental work on the Almagest, the Planetary Hypotheses, and al-Bitruji's Principles of Astronomy. I flesh out these tensions with an intriguing interpretation of the history of astronomy, in which Regiomontanus contrasts the two-dimensional “eccentric astronomy” attributed to the Almagest and the Arabs with the three-dimensional spheres of the “later” astronomers. A similar contrast reappears when Regiomontanus portrays as a “fictitious art” an astronomy that does not go beyond the accommodation of computations to the appearances. To conclude, I use Regio...

Language and Learning in Renaissance Italy: Selected Articles by John Monfasani

BOOK REVIEWS95 sentiment and scolds him for ignoring die positive aspects of Mary's brief reign. Moreover, medieval Catholicism was not totally bankrupt. According to Duffy, "It has been one of the principal contentions of this book, however, diat into the 1 530s the vigour, richness, and creativity oflate medieval religion was undiminished, and continued to hold the imagination and elicit the loyalty of the majority of the population" (p. 479). Duffy presents his arguments is a convincing and intelligent manner and successfully chaUenges some accepted tenets of Reformation historiography. His description of traditional religion, especially the chapters on die Mass and die saints, is exceptionally good and shows the vitality of die pre-Reformation church. Keith Thomas's book on refigion and magic makes an excellent companion volume to Duffy's discussion on liturgy. The local or parish environment was the arena where the reforming policies touched the lives of the people, and the audior's description ofparish life, worship, and the opposition to the new Tudor policies is entertaining and informative. In addition to an impressive list of secondary sources, Duffy skUlfuUy uses wills, churchwardens' accounts, parish and gild records, primers, and a weakh of contemporary printed evidence to support his arguments. He does not rely exclusively on die printed word. The faithful also learned the fundamentals of their faith from paintings, carvings, and the glass in their churches, and die inclusion of photographs of ecclesiastical art which has survived gives important pictorial proof to Duffy's contention that parish life on the eve of the Reformation was not in decay. This is an important book and a significant contribution to Reformation studies. No serious student of the period can avoid confronting the arguments presented in uiis work. Rene Kollar St Vincent Archabbey Language andLearning in RenaissanceItaly: SelectedArticles. ByJohn Monfasani . [Variorum CoUected Studies Series, CS 460.] (Brookfield, Vermont: Variorum, Ashgate Publishing Company. 1994. Pp. xii, 338. Í8995.) John Monfasani himselfnotes diat this collection reflects two ofhis interests, Renaissance rhetoric and the cultural world of his earliest subject, George of Trebizond. Variorum has given him a chance to coUect these studies and to update them with Addenda et Corrigenda. Since some of these articles are very technical, it is well that he has placed die studies ofmost general interest at eidier end to frame the rest. Readers unwiUing to embark on discussions of topics like Anti-Quintilianism should, nonetheless, read the first study, "Humanism and Rhetoric." For the ecclesiastical historian, the pay-off comes at die end, where rhetoricians prove to have written on homiletics and where rhetoric plays a role in die earliest curriculum for Jesuit schools. On the way to die last article, readers might want to read the two reviews of editions of 96BOOK REVIEWS Lorenzo Valla, whose writings from his Neapolitan days challenged not just die pretensions of the religious but even the fllioque. (Interested scholars also should read Riccardo Fubini, "Lorenzo VaUa tra U Concilio di BasUea e quello di Firenze, e il processo deU'Inquisizione," in Conciliarismo, stati nazionali, inizi dell'umanesimo [Spoleto: Centro di Studi suU'Alto Medieoevo , 1990].) Also of importance are "A Description of the Sistine Chapel under Pope Sixtus IV," which helps us date die construction and the earlier works of art more accurately, and "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in MidQuattrocento Rome," which casts light on "the Renaissance unmasking of the Dionysian corpus as apocryphal." I caU particular attention to the concluding study, "The Fraticelli and Clerical Wealth in Quattrocento Rome," because it highlights the tensions between the professed ideals of the vita apostólica, represented by the mendicants, and the curial ethos, "which differed little in its attitude toward wealth and display from the courts ofprinces. Anyone who has read Pius IPs unsympathetic account ofNicholas ofCusa's outburst against curial opposition to reform is aware of how this conflict of values helped undermine Rome in the period culminating in the Reformation crisis. (A bit more might have been done with die FraticeUi problem during die reign of Nicholas V, especiaUy the trial in Fabriano; see Charles Burroughs, From Signs to Design: Environmental Process and Reform in Early Renaissance Rome [Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1990].) Some of Monfasani's...

Humanistic Influences in the Spanish Rhetorician Alfonso García Matamoros: A Study of De ratione dicendi libri duo (Alcalá, 1548)

Abstract: Alfonso García Matamoros, the author of De ratione dicendi libri duo (Alcalá, 1548), is undoubtedly one of the most important rhetoricians of sixteenth-century Spain. A source study of De ratione, one of three treatises on rhetoric by this author, yields surprising results. García Matamoros borrowed extensively from Erasmus' Ecclesiastes, Melanchthon's Elementorum rhetorices libri duo, and Vives' De consultatione. George of Trebizond's Rhetoricorum libri quinque and Agricola's De inventione dialectica libri tres are also among his sources. Unexpectedly, direct classical influences, although present, are less extensive. An index of sources is provided at the end of the paper.

Episodes of Anti-Quintilianism in the Italian Renaissance: Quarrels on the Orator as a Vir Bonus and Rhetoric as the Scientia Bene Dicendi

talian Ranaissanca humanists were a contentions lot. They quarralad among themselves. They assailed politicians, philosophers, and clerics. They even turned on the ancients. Valla attacked Aristotle; George of Trebizond, Plato. Antonio da Rho did not spare a Church Father in his Dialogus in Lactantium. But one current of criticism has not received sufficient attention. I mean the strain of anti-Quintili anism which one can document from the early Quattrocento to tha close of the Renais­ sance in Italy. The history of Quintilian in the Renaissance waits to be written. It will bave to cover a large array of topics, ranging from broad issues in padagogy to arcane rhetorical precepts such as the status doctrine; and it will bave to take into account cul­ tural developments in ail of Europe and avan the Americas. My goal in this paper is much mora humble. I wish to call attention to reactions in Renaissance Italy to two specifie points of Quin­ tilian's teachings, namely, his definitions of rhatoric and of the orator.