Abstract

George Gemistos Plethon was a remarkable and influential thinker, active at the time of transition between the Byzantine Middle Ages and the Italian Renaissance. His works cover literary, historical, scientific, but most notably philosophical issues. Plethon is arguably the most important of the Byzantine Platonists and the earliest representative of Platonism in the Renaissance. This book provides a new study of Gemistos' philosophy. The first part is dedicated to the discussion of his 'public philosophy', in the second, most extensive, part of the book the Platonism of Plethon is presented in a systematic way and in the third part the notorious question of the paganism of Gemistos is reconsidered.