Bessarionis Cardinalis Sabini & Patriarche Consta[n]tinopolitani capitula libri p[ri]mi aduersus calu[m]niatore[m] Plato[n]is incipiu[n]t feliciter

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CELEBRATED FIRST EDITI BESSARION

A BESSARIOΝ, IOHANNES. Adversus Platonis calumiatorem. An

natura et ars consilio agant. Roman and Grea types, 38 lines to a

Gesam thatalog qI83. Hain- pinger 3 V. B.M.C. IV, 7. t Bessarion was one of the eminent Greeli scholars Who contributed to the great revivat os learning in the Isin century. Born around I oo A.D. he was made Archbishop of Nicaea in I 37, and Cardinat in 1 39. In 1 63 he received thetisse of latin patriarch of Constantinople, and it was oesy on account of his Greeli bilath that he was not elevated to the papal chair. He died in Isa. The treati se Adversus Platonis Calumniatorem V is Bessarion's most importantl work. Planned as an answer to the attacks against Plato by George of l Trebigond, a violent Aristotelian, it took the sham os an extensive expositioni os Platonic philosophy and Platonic thought of the time. Bessarion seelis at reconciliation of the philosophies of Plato and Aristocle, and by ope ning up thel relations os Platonism to Christian religion he contributes greatly to thel extension of speculative thought in the domain of theology. The work wast enthusiasticatly received and was specialty prat sed by Argyropulos and Marsilio i Ficino. Ita influence on me development of Renais sance thought Was profound. A letter of the author to Marsilio Ficino, dated 13 September, I 69, in Whichhe SP akS of 'opus . . . nostrum . . . nuper editum in defensionem Platonis,

furnishes the terminus ante V of the printing of the book The metrical colophon appeus at the end A beauti fui copy wim splendid illumination. Paragraph marks, book- .hradings and marginal chapte numbers in red. Lower white margin os last leas repaired. Owned in the Isin centur by the celebrated Boncompagni fami ly From me