Giovanni Cardinal Bessarione

In Italy the fifteenth century marked the rebirth of humanae litterae and the rediscovery of the Greek Classics. One of the characteristics of this movement, known as Humanism and inspired by a new philological awareness, was the return to Plato. Almost all of Plato's works were rediscovered in this period: during the Middle Ages Plato had been read mainly through the works of his followers. The centre of the rebirth of Platonic studies was Florence, but the teaching of Ancient Greek had begun in Bologna in 1420. One of the most illustrious Greek scholars in Bologna was Giovanni, Cardinal Bessarione (1402-1472), who was of Greek origin and played an important role in attempting to bring the Greek and Roman churches closer together. Bessarione was one of the supporters of a return to Platonic studies, as shown by his In calumniatorem Platonis, 1455. Moreover, his considerable philological knowledge also led him to a revaluation of Aristotle, and his translation into Latin of Aristotle's Metaphysica represents an attempt at a modern reading of a text which had dominated philosophy in earlier centuries. The great philologist Isaac Casaubon, who published a new edition of Aristotle's complete works at the end of the sixteenth century, along with translations by other Humanist scholars such as Gaza, Scaligero, Patrizi and Filelfo (who was also a professor at Bologna), chose Bessarione's translation of the Metaphysica.