Scott Kennedy
Bilkent University
The Byzantine Greek cardinal Bessarion (1403-72), who nearly became pope twice, is often held up as a saintly figure. Scholars of the Renaissance often highlight his In Calumniatorem Platonis (ICP), a defense of Plato against accusations of immorality, as his magnum opus, which reconciled Platonism with Christianity and made Plato ‘sexy’ after millennia of neglect in Western Europe. However, Bessarion was not a figure without controversy. The student of the radical neopagan Platonist George Gemistos Plethon (d. 1454), Bessarion awoke fears in some that he would corrupt Christianity with his Platonism. While most have disregarded these fears, this talk shows that they were not unfounded. Comparison of Bessarion’s earliest Greek drafts of the ICP with his later Latin renditions reveals that the cardinal was far from saintly for his time. In this talk, I offer a case study of how Bessarion transformed his radical Platonism into Christian orthodoxy through a comparison of the different drafts of his defense of Plato’s controversial community of women. In the earliest Greek draft, Bessarion frequently speaks of the “beneficialness” and “helpfulness” of the community of women. A cultural relativist who thought marriage was not a “divine matter” and ignored Paul’s injunctions about marriage as between one man and one woman (1 Cor. 7), he then offers examples from the “greatest” and “most powerful” nations as proof of its beneficialness. When he translated himself into Latin, the cardinal drastically edited himself, cutting and reframing various passages as well as adding a new preface, where he presents himself as a pious Christian commentator explaining why Plato thought what he did in light of his historical circumstances. Bessarion’s transformation from radical Platonist to pious Christian not only reveals how it was necessary to adapt Byzantine fringe ideas for a European audience, but also that his opponents were right to fear his Platonism and the potential noxious effects it might have on Western Europe if Bessarion became pope and was able to implement his hidden Platonic convictions.