Primary Literature

The In calumniatorem Platonis was originally printed in 1469 in Rome (by Schweynheym and Pannartz), and then again in 1503 and 1516 in Venice (by Manutius). Both Venetian editions—which slightly differ from one another—contain revisions suggested by Bessarion himself. Ludwig Mohler’s modern edition is based on the text printed by Manutius. See

• Bessarionis In Calumniatorem Platonis Libri IV, Paderborn: Schöningh, 1927;
• Aus Bessarions Gelehrtenkreis: Abhandlungen, Reden, Briefe, Paderborn: Schöningh, 1942, pp. 92–146 (book VI),

respectively the second and the third volume of his Kardinal Bessarion als Theologe, Humanist und Staatsmann. Mohler printed the Greek original text as well, but completely omitted the fifth book of the work. A large selection of the In calumniatorem has been translated into Italian, on the basis of Manutius 1516 edition, but taking into consideration other emendations as well:

• Contro il calunniatore di Platone, Eva Del Soldato (ed.), with a bibliographical note by Ivanoe Privitera, Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2014.

The sixth book of the In calumniatorem has been recently edited and translated into German:

• Über Natur und Kunst, Sergei Mariev, Monica Marchetto, and Katharina Luchner (eds.), Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2015.

There also exists an Italian translation:

• La natura delibera—La natura e l’arte, Pier Davide Accendere and Ivanoe Privitera (eds.), Milan: Bompiani, 2015.

Giovanni Gatti’s Notata, which represents the basis for the third book of the In calumniatorem, has been published in a critical edition : Giovanni Gatti, Notata ex libro ineptiis et deliramentis pleno, qui inscribitur De Comparatione Philosophorum, John Monfasani (ed.), Turnhout: Brepols, 2021.

Bessarion’s theological works have been printed in the Patrologia Greca 161 (Paris 1866). The Oratio dogmatica de unione has been re-edited several times since:

• Bessarion Nicaenus, S.R.E. Cardinalis: Oratio dogmatica de unione, Emmanuel Candal (ed.), Rome: Pontificium institutum orientalium studiorum, 1958;
• Orazione dogmatica sull’unione dei Greci e dei Latini, Gianfrancesco Lusini (ed.), Naples: Vivarium, 2013. (Scholar)

Other works by Bessarion, including many of his letters, have been edited by Mohler in Aus Bessarions Gelehrtenkreis: Abhandlungen, Reden, Briefe.

Secondary Literature

• Bardi, Alberto, 2018, “Bessarione a lezione di astronomia da Cortasmeno”, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 111(1): 1–38. doi: 10.1515/bz-2018-0001 (Scholar)
• Baudry, Léon, 1950 [1989], Querelle des futurs contingents, Paris: Vrin. Translated as The Quarrel over Future Contingents (Louvain 1465–1475), (Synthese Historical Library, 36), Rita Guerlac (trans.), Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1989. (Scholar)
• Bianca, Concetta, 1999, Da Bisanzio a Roma. Studi sul cardinale Bessarione, Roma: Roma nel Rinascimento. (Scholar)
• Bisaha, Nancy, 2004, Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. (Scholar)
• Cattaneo, Gianmario, 2015, “Note critiche all’epistolario greco del cardinal Bessarione”, Medioevo Greco. Rivista di Storia e Filologia Bizantina, 15(1): 51–61. (Scholar)
• –––, 2017, “Or. Chald. 88 des Places, il carteggio tra il cardinal Bessarione e Giorgio Gemisto Pletone e la philosophia perennis”, Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica, 14: 241–251. (Scholar)
• –––, 2020, Domizio Calderini, Niccolò Perotti e la controversia platonico-aristotelica nel Quattrocento, Berlin–New York: De Gruyter. (Scholar)
• Charlet, Jean-Louis, 1987, “Traductions en vers latins de fragments grecs dans l’Epitome de N. Perotti et l’In calumniatorem Platonis de Bessarion”, Res Publica Litterarum, 10: 51–67. (Scholar)
• Coluccia, Giuseppe L., 2009, Basilio Bessarione. Lo spirito greco e l’occidente, Firenze: Olschki. (Scholar)
• Davies, Martin, 2013, “Some Bessarion Owners”, La Bibliofilía, 115(1): 41–52. (Scholar)
• De Keyser, Jeroen, 2011, “Perotti and Friends. Generating Rave Reviews for Bessarion’s In calumniatorem Platonis”, Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, 52: 103–137. (Scholar)
• Del Soldato, Eva, 2009 “Platone, Aristotele e il cardinale: il De natura et arte di Bessarione”, Rinascimento (Series 2), 48: 61–79. (Scholar)
• –––, 2011, “Sulle tracce di Bessarione: la fortuna cinquecentesca dell’In calumniatorem Platonis”, Rinascimento, series 2, 50: 321–342. (Scholar)
• –––, 2012, “Illa Litteris Graecis Abdita: Bessarion, Plato and the Western World”, in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Translatio Studiorum: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Bearers of Intellectual History, Leiden: Brill, pp. 107–122. doi:10.1163/9789004236813_009 (Scholar)
• –––, 2017, “Exploiting Thomas: Renaissance Thinkers, Aquinas, and the Piety of Aristotle”, Divus Thomas, 120: 89–105. (Scholar)
• –––, 2020, Early Modern Aristotle: On the Making and Unmaking of Authority, Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. (Scholar)
• Eleuteri, Paolo, 1994, “Una parafrasi di Bessarione alla Fisica di Aristotele”, in Θησαυρίσματα, 24: 189–202. (Scholar)
• Feld, M.D., 1982, “Sweynheim and Pannartz, Cardinal Bessarion, Neoplatonism: Renaissance Humanism and Two Early Printers’ Choice of Texts”, Harvard Library Bulletin, 30: 282–335. (Scholar)
• Fiaccadori, Gianfranco (ed.), 1994, Bessarione e l’Umanesimo, Naples: Vivarium. (Scholar)
• Fyrigos, Antonis, 2011, “Il cardinale Bessarione ‘traduttore’ della Summa contra gentiles di Tommaso d’Aquino”, in Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici, 48: 137–266. (Scholar)
• Garin, Eugenio, 1976, Rinascite e rivoluzioni: Movimenti culturali dal XIV al XVIII secolo, Bari: Laterza. (Scholar)
• Gutkowski, Andrzej and Emanuela Prinzivalli (eds.), 2012, Bessarione e la sua Accademia, Rome: Miscellanea francescana. (Scholar)
• Hankins, James, 1991, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols., (Columbia studies in the classical tradition, 17), Leiden: Brill. (Scholar)
• Hladký, Vojtěch, 2014 The Philosophy of Gemistos Plethon: Platonism in Late Byzantium, between Hellenism and Orthodoxy, Farnham-Burlington: Ashgate. (Scholar)
• Karamanolis, George, 2002, “Plethon and Scholarios on Aristotle”, in Katerina Ierodiakonou (ed.), Byzantine Philosophy and its Ancient Sources, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 253–282. (Scholar)
• –––, 2011, “Basil Bessarion”, in Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy, H. Lagerlund (ed.), London: Springer, pp. 145–147. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-9729-4_77 (Scholar)
• Kraye, Jill and Martin Davies, 2011, “Cardinal Bessarion and Ludovico Saccano”, in Philippa Jackson and Guido Rebecchini (eds.), Mantova e il Rinascimento Italiano: Studi in onore di David S. Chambers, Mantua: Sometti, pp. 225–238. (Scholar)
• Labowsky, Lotte, 1967, “Bessarione”, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 9: 686–696. [Labowsky 1967 available online] (Scholar)
• –––, 1979, Bessarion’s Library and the Biblioteca Marciana: Six Early Inventories, Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. (Scholar)
• Lamers, Hans, 2015, Greece Reinvented: Transformations of Byzantine Hellenism in Renaissance Italy, Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004303799 (Scholar)
• Maier, Anneliese, 1982, On the Threshold of Exact Science: Selected Writings of Anneliese Maier on Late Medieval Natural Philosophy, Steven D. Sargent (ed. and trans.), Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. (Scholar)
• Malpangotto, Manuela and Ephtymios Nicolaidis (eds.), 2021, Fécondité des échanges culturels. L’exemple de Bessarion, Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences (special issue), 71.
• Mariev, Sergei, 2016, “Bessarion, Cardinal”, in Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Cham: Springer International Publishing, 1–10. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_25-1 (Scholar)
• –––, 2017, Neoplatonic Philosophy in Byzantium, in Sergei Mariev (ed.), Byzantine Perspectives on Neoplatonism, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 1–30. (Scholar)
• ––– (ed.), 2020, Bessarion’s Treasure: Editing, Translating and Interpreting Bessarion’s Literary Heritage, Berlin-New York: De Gruyter. (Scholar)
• Martin, Craig, 2014, Subverting Aristotle. Religion, History, and Philosophy in Early Modern Science, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. (Scholar)
• Märtl, Claudia, Christian Kaiser, and Thomas Ricklin (eds.), 2013, »Inter graecos latinissimus, inter latinos graecissimus«. Bessarion zwischen den Kulteren, Berlin-New York: De Gruyter. (Scholar)
• Meserve, Margaret, 2003, “Patronage and Propaganda at the First Paris Press: Guillaume Fichet and the First Edition of Bessarion’s Orations against the Turks”, The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 97(4): 521–588. doi:10.1086/pbsa.97.4.24295683 (Scholar)
• Mioni, Elpidio, 1960, “Contributo del cardinale Bessarione all’interpretazione della Metafisica aristotelica”, in Aristotelismo padovano e filosofia aristotelica. Atti del XII Congresso Internazionale di filosofia, Florence: Sansoni, pp. 173–181. (Scholar)
• Mohler, Ludwig, 1923, Kardinal Bessarion als Theologe, Humanist und Staatsmann, I. Darstellung, Paderborn: Schöningh. (Scholar)
• Monfasani, John, 1976, George of Trebizond: A Biography and a Study of His Rhetoric and Logic, Leiden: Brill. (Scholar)
• –––, 1984, Collectanea Trapezuntiana. Texts, Documents, and Bibliographies of George of Trebizond, Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies. (Scholar)
• –––, 1992, Fernando of Cordova: A Biographical and Intellectual Profile, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. (Scholar)
• –––, 1995, Byzantine Scholars in Renaissance Italy: Cardinal Bessarion and Other Émigré’s: Selected Essays, Aldershot: Ashgate. (Scholar)
• –––, 2004, Greeks and Latins in Renaissance Italy: Studies on Humanism and Philosophy in the 15th Century,, Aldershot: Ashgate. (Scholar)
• –––, 2012, Bessarion Scholasticus: A Study of Cardinal Bessarion’s Latin Library, Turnhout: Brepols. (Scholar)
• –––, 2015, “Cardinal Bessarion”, (Oxford Bibliographies), Oxford: Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0230 (Scholar)
• –––, 2016a, Greek Scholars Between East and West in the Fifteenth Century, Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. (Scholar)
• –––, 2016b, “The Humanist and the Scholastic: Giovanni Bussi and Henricus de Zomeren”, Humanistica Lovaniensia, 65: 29–38. (Scholar)
• Pagani, Fabio, 2022, “Greek Identity and Ideas of Decline in Fifteenth-Century Byzantium: Gemistos Pletho and Bessarion”, in Nathanael Aschenbrenner and Jake Ransohoff (eds.), The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, pp. 27–46. (Scholar)
• Pontani, Anna, 1989, “Note sulla controversia platonico-aristotelica del Quattrocento”, in Giuseppe Spadaro (ed.),Contributi di filologia greca medievale e moderna, Catania: Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, pp. 97–165. (Scholar)
• Rigo, Antonio, 1991, “Bessarione, Giovanni Regiomontano e i loro studi su Tolomeo a Venezia e Roma (1462–1464)”, Studi Veneziani, 21: 49–110 (Scholar)
• –––, 1999, “La refutazione di Bessarione delle Antepigraphai di Gregorio Palamas”, in Mariarosa Cortesi (ed.), Tradizioni patristiche nell’Umanesimo, Florence: Edizioni del Galluzzo, pp. 283–294. (Scholar)
• –––, 2001, “Bessarione tra Costantinopoli e Roma”, in Gianfrancesco Lusini (ed.), Bessarione di Nicea: Orazione dogmatica sull’unione dei greci e dei latini, Naples: Vivarium, pp. 19–124. (Scholar)
• Rigo, Antonio and Niccolò Zorzi, 2021, I libri di Bessarione: Studi sui manoscritti del Cardinale a Venezia e in Europa, Turnhout: Brepols. (Scholar)
• Ronchey, Silvia, 2002, “L’ultimo bizantino. Bessarione e gli ultimi regnanti di Bisanzio”, in Gino Benzoni (ed.), L’eredità greca e l’ellenismo veneziano, Florence: Olschki, pp. 75–92. [Ronchey 2002 available online]
• Searby, Denis (ed.), 2017, Never the Twain Shall Meet? Latins and Greeks learning from each other in Byzantium, Berlin: De Gruyter. (Scholar)
• Shank, Michael H., 2007, “Regiomontanus as a Physical Astronomer: Samplings from The Defence of Theon against George of Trebizond”, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 38(3): 325–349. (Scholar)
• Stormon, E.J., 1981, “Bessarion Before the Council of Florence: A Survey of His Early Writings (1423–1437)”, in Elizabeth and Michael Jeffreys and Ann Moffatt (eds.), Byzantine Papers: Proceedings of the First Australian Byzantine Studies Conference Canberra, 17–19 May 1978, Canberra: Humanities Research Center, pp. 128–156. (Scholar)
• Strobl, Wolfgang, 2000, “Ein griechischer Brief eines Veroneser Humanisten anläßlich Bessarions Schrift ‘In calumniatorem Platonis’”, Jahrbuch der Oesterreichischen Byzantinistik, 50: 217–230. (Scholar)
• Swerdlow, Noel, 1993, “Science and Humanism in the Renaissance: Regiomontanus’s Oration on the Dignity and Utility of the Mathematical Sciences”, in Paul Horwich (ed.), World Changes. Thomas Kuhn and the Nature of Science, Boston: MIT Press: pp. 131–168. (Scholar)
• Vast, Henri, 1878, Le Cardinal Bessarion (1403–1472). Étude sur la Chrétienté et la Renaissance vers le milieu du XVe siècle, Paris: Hachette. (Scholar)
• Zambelli, Paola, 1991, “La metafora é conosciuta solo da chi fa la metafora. Pomponazzi, Bessarione e Platone”, Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, 2: 75–88. (Scholar)
• Zorzi, Marino, 2002, Bessarione e i codici greci, Florence: Olschki. (Scholar)
• Zorzi, Niccolò, 2015, “Per la tradizione manoscritta dell’inedito commento all’Etica nicomachea di Giorgio Pachimere: I. Il Marc. gr. 212 di Bessarione e i suoi apografi. II. Ermolao Barbaro e il commento di Pachimere (con una proekdosis del cap. 18)”, Νέα Ῥώμη. Rivista di ricerche bizantinistiche, 12: 245–304. (Scholar)