Understanding the legacy of the Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire lasted for more than 1,000 years and left a considerable legacy, yet it is still commonly perceived as being somehow alien to Europe culture. The philosopher Bessarion defended the work of Plato and expanded on the importance of Byzantine cultural heritage in his work In Calumniatorem Platonis, as PD Dr Sergei Mariev explains. The Roman Empire was divided into Eastern and Western parts under the emperor Theodosius, who ruled between 379-395 AD. While by the end of the 5th century the Western part of the Empire had ceased to exist as an economic unit and military power, the Eastern part – also known as the Byzantine Empire – thrived for many years, until the capital city was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. “The Byzantine Empire can be thought of as starting in the 4th century, around 325-330, with the founding of Constantinople by Constantin the Great. In 1453 Byzantine power ceased to exist, in a political sense,” says PD Dr Sergei Mariev, a researcher at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. While the Byzantine Empire – or Byzantium – contributed much to Europe’s cultural heritage, it is still often perceived as being somehow alien or foreign, an issue PD Dr Mariev is investigating in a new DFG-funded research project. “The Byzantine Empire ceased to exist in the 15th century,” he outlines. “Byzantine culture was essentially assimilated into European culture during the 15th century, and became part of our common European heritage.” Against the slanderer of Plato This process by which ideas spread from the Byzantine East to the Latin West forms the wider backdrop to PD Dr Mariev’s project, in which he is looking specifically at the work of Bessarion, a philosopher and Cardinal of the Catholic Church who helped explain the importance of Byzantine cultural heritage during the 15th century. One of Bessarion’s most important works was In Calumniatorem Platonis (Against the Slanderer of Plato), which started as a response to George of Trebizond’s Comparatio philosophorum Platonis et Aristotelis, a book which contained some harsh judgments on Plato. “George of Trebizond was a translator. He was also a teacher of rhetoric, a businessman, and an adventurer,” outlines PD Dr Mariev. However, his translations into Greek did not satisfy his critics, including Bessarion, who as a Platonist subsequently wrote In Calumniatorem Platonis (ICP), which was initially planned
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Bessarion as St. Agustine in a painting „Vision of St. Agustine“ (1508) by Vittore Carpaccio.
as a response to George of Trebizond’s work before it later broadened out. “In the course of Bessarion’s work on the ICP it ceased to be a reply to George of Trebizond, and it became about explaining to the West the importance of Byzantine philosophical traditions,” explains PD Dr Mariev.
philosophical traditions to the West over six books. “It’s very important that Bessarion took a text from a student of Thomas Aquinus, who is a pillar of Western theology,” stresses PD Dr Mariev. “His strategy was to show that Platonic philosophy and tradition from Byzantium – which George of Trebizond
While George of Trebizond warned the West about the dangers of Platonic philosophy, Bessarion tried to show that those warnings were nonsense, and that Platonic philosophical tradition from Byzantium was in fact a great enrichment. The Comparatio philosophorum Platonis et Aristotelis consisted of three books, and Bessarion’s initial intention was to respond to each. However, at some point over the ten years or so in which Bessarion worked on the ICP before its publication in 1469, he decided to include some additional material from his friend Giovanni Gatti, who was a supporter and student of Thomas Aquinus. “He inserted that material into the book, and re-worked the entire structure,” says PD Dr Mariev. This is the point that marks the transition from the ICP being a response to George of Trebizond to a treatise that explains Byzantine
viewed as dangerous – was in fact not as unknown in the West as it seemed. This is because in many cases Western theologians – like Thomas Aquinus – used the same sources, arguments and models as available in Byzantine traditions.” As a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, Bessarion was pointing out that Byzantine ideas were already known in the West and formed part of many Western thinkers’ and theologians’ frame of reference, whether they were aware of it or not. Bessarion’s work helped highlight the origins of these traditions. “Bessarion was in effect saying; ‘We can show
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that these traditions come from the East’,” outlines PD Dr Mariev. This is a powerful argument in terms of highlighting the wider importance of Byzantine cultural heritage and the manuscripts in which it is described, which PD Dr Mariev and his colleagues study in the original Greek. “As Byzantinists we are the keepers of those Byzantine traditions, of those sources. It is very important to us to study and read Greek,” he says. “That was also Bessarion’s intention – he wanted to stimulate his Western colleagues and encourage them to read the sources in Greek. To Bessarion, it was obvious that you should read the texts in the original language, then you would understand them better.” This is not always obvious to others however, and persuading people to look at a manuscript in the original language is no easy task. Bessarion encouraged scholars to read manuscripts in the original language, and his efforts bore fruit after his lifetime, says PD Dr Mariev. “Henri Estienne (1528-
1598) published an edition of Plato with the Greek text and the Latin translation side by side in 1578. Bessarion prepared the ground for this by making the case that reading the text in Greek is inherently valuable. He made the point that it is imperative to read Plato in the original Greek,” he outlines. As a scholar of Byzantium, PD Dr Mariev is now producing critical editions of all six books of the ICP in both Latin and Greek. “Bessarion started with three books, then the book by Giovanni Gatti was inserted. The fifth book was the word-forword commentary of George of Trebizond’s translation of Platonic “Laws” into Latin. This is where he explained, in Latin, what George of Trebizond’s translation missed in the original Greek,” he continues. “In the fifth book, he demonstrates the inability of George of Trebizond to produce an adequate Latin translation of Plato.” A critical edition of the sixth book has recently been published, while research continues into other aspects of Bessarion’s
Bessarion and Byzantine Culture
work to help Byzantine philosophical heritage gain wider acceptance in the West. While Bessarion corrected inaccuracies in George of Trebizond’s translation, PD Dr Mariev says he also had a wider goal. “He wanted Western scholars – his colleagues – to see the value of Byzantine philosophical heritage,” he says. This point is central to the conflict between Bessarion and George of Trebizond. “While George of Trebizond warned the West about the dangers of Platonic philosophy from Byzantium, Bessarion tried to show that those warnings were nonsense, and that Platonic traditions from Byzantium were in fact a great enrichment,” explains PD Dr Mariev. “Bessarion’s aim was to preserve Byzantine culture, and to make sure that it was well-received in the West. During his life he wrote and published the ICP, and he also donated around 1,000 Greek and Latin manuscripts to the city of Venice.” This collection was intended to be accessible to everybody who wished to study those
Bessarion and Byzantine Culture in public perception during the late 15th century
Project Objectives
The project focuses on the main philosophical work of Bessarion (1408-1472), the “In Calumniatorem Platonis” (ICP). The primary objective is to prepare and publish a full critical edition of both Greek and Latin versions of all six books of the ICP. The project also aims to paint a comprehensive picture of the efforts of Bessarion and members of his scholarly circle to explain the value of Byzantine cultural heritage for the West to a learned audience in Italy during the late 15th century. The project is financed through the Heisenberg Programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and hosted by the Institute of Byzantine Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany.
Project Funding
Heisenberg-Programm of the DFG
Project Partners
• Leibniz ScienceCampus, Mainz • Biblioteca Marciana, Venice • University of Albany, the State University of New York
Contact Details
Principal Investigator, PD Dr Sergei Mariev Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz 55099 Mainz, GERMANY T: +49 163 8466200 E: bessarion-dfg-projekt@uni-mainz.de W: https://byzantinistik.geschichte.unimainz.de/forschung/bessarion-projekt/
First folio of the manuscript Gr. Z. 198 (744) containing the final Greek version of In Calumniatorem Platonis with the coat of arms of Bessarion in the manuscript reading room of the Marciana Libarary.
PD Dr Sergei Mariev Folio 112r of the manuscript Gr. Z. 526 (776) containing excerpts from Platonic „Laws“ made by Bessarion himself.
manuscripts, and it is today housed in the Biblioteca Marciana, a public library located in St Mark’s Square in Venice. Bessarion himself was a Cardinal and was almost elected Pope, and PD Dr Mariev says he also had cultural ambitions. “He wanted to make sure that Byzantine cultural heritage continued to live in the West. It wasn’t just a small part or piece of Byzantine culture that he wanted to defend, rather he saw himself as its patron in Europe in general. He owned the largest library of Byzantine texts in existence, and wrote a book that explained the importance of the Byzantine philosophical tradition to the West,” he says. With the invention of the printing press, it was possible for Bessarion’s writings to reach a wider audience, and Bessarion was keen to harness the power of this technology. “The technology was already used in printing the Latin version, and Bessarion was very interested in the dissemination of his work as widely as possible,” continues PD Dr Mariev. “We don’t know exactly how many copies
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were printed, but the numbers were impressive for the 15th century.” The book was intended primarily for a learned audience rather than the wider public, as a high level of knowledge is required to understand it, and this remains the case for scholars today. Now PD Dr Mariev aims to bring his research on the ICP to a wider audience, and he is holding an exhibition in the Marciana library this Summer, during the International Congress of Byzantine Studies in Venice. “This will be quite a large event, with more than 2,000 Byzantinists from all parts of the world attending. There will be several exhibitions, one of which I’ve created – it is dedicated to the history of the ICP, presented through the series of manuscripts that are preserved in the Marciana library,” he says. “There will be an exhibition of Bessarion’s manuscripts, along with a presentation of the history of scholarship on this book, its reception in subsequent centuries, and the scholarly work on it as well.”
PD Dr Sergei Mariev has venia legendi in Byzantine Studies at the JGU University of Mainz. He studied Classics, Byzantine Studies and Latin Philology of the Middle Ages at the universities in the USA and in Germany and has been Assistant, Associate and Visiting professor at several European universities. He is the author of more than 30 publications on Byzantine historical literature, aesthetics, philosophy, cultural history and the history of ideas in Byzantium.
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