almost a centenarian, in 1 152, as some reporters allege, he must have been about seventy when he held the first public employment recorded as held by him •. and he must have heen verging on ninety when last commemorated a-* an imperial officer in the Pelopon-
I be years of maavbians are so readily exag- gerated by themselves, and by their more juvenile con- temporaries, that im great weight need be attached to the allegation that he was born in 1355. His name of
Pletho has heen slate. I In have heen bestowed mi him ill
consequence '>l' his learning, but it may have been de- is an approximate reproduction of the name of Plato, to whose memory and speculations he devoted himself with unrestrained enthusiasm. The surname may, indeed, have been assumed bj himself, for it fur- nished frequent occasions of sarcasm and ridicule to the ts adversaries whom heprovoked. He occupied a high place at court, in the close of the reign of the emperor Manuel II Paheologus (Brucker says Michael, but the last emperor of that name had died almost a century ami a half before. Dr. Plate, in Smith's Diet. ofGr. and A'"/". Mythol., etc.. gives 1 126 as the date of this official function, but Manuel died in 1425). Gerois- tus "the Philosopher," as he was already called, was one of the notables at the conference in Constantinople which recommended conciliation with the Latin Church (Mi- chael Attaliotes, Hist. Polit. c. iv). He attended the John V. as a senator and deputy of the- Greek Church, to the Council of Florence in 1439 (Ducas.
Hist. Byzant. c. xxxi). Among Ins npanions were
Bessarion, his pupil; Isidore of Russia; George the Scholarius, his future antagonist; and Argyropulus. Pletho distinguished himself by the active part which he to..], in iii,- conferences, and by his violent opposi- tion to the union of the churches. lie yielded ulti- mately, however, and was one of the signatories of the formulary of compromise. This sacrifice of religious opinion embittered the feelings of his countrymen to him. lie did not accompany tin- emperor on his return to « ionstantinople. During hi.- stay in Florence he formed an intimacy with Cosmo the Magnificent, and by the fascination of his lectures converted the great Floren- tine to the Platonism which Gemistus had espoused with
tie- in on, -I fervor— though it was rather the mystical of the later Neo-Platonists than the genuine doctrine of Plato which he had adopted. Marsilius Ficinus states. ;n ids Dedication of Plotinus, that it suggestion that Cosmo di Medici iaati- tuted the Platonic Academy at Florence, of which Fici- nus became the first dirt ctor. lie certainly succeeded in rendering Platonism the rage in Italy, supported as he was by tin- countenance of his illustrious disciple, cardinal Bessarion, and by the favor of the Mcdicean Most of his labors henceforth wen devoted to the illustration and dissemination of the Platonic doc- trine. I his endeavor, .-nid the SUCCeSS which attended
it, provoked the hostility of the Aristotelians, whose
opinion, had heen for centuries jn a] -i unchallenged
i of the domain of philosophy, and involved him in virulent controversy with their leaders, Nor was the hostility mitigated by the Buspii ion that Pletho desired to supplant not merelj Peripateticism, but Chris- tianity also, by his revived Pla ism. He was charged
1 > Geoi re ol I r, hi/ 1 with being not li ss
to the faith than Mohammed himself. The suspicion
j was in some sort justified by the language of Tletho, ' and corroborated subsequently by the tenor of the Com- mentaries of ficinus. The quarrels thus excited were further exacerbated by the revolutionary doctrines of Pletho's treaii-e (>i, taws, written after the example of Plato, and I'ar transcending the socialistic reveries of the Platonic Republic. The work seem- not to have heen published, or even completed. It is said to have been burned after his death by the directions of his ancient antagonist, George Scholarius, or Gennadius. Fragments of the work only remain. The imitation of Plato might have tempted him to the composition of the work, have determined its form, and suggested its doctrines. Any such temptation would have been encouraged by the meditated socialistic experiment of Plotinus. Hut the wretched condition of his country - m»ii. their destitution, their hopeless oppression by taxes which they could not pay— especially in Pelopon- nesus, ravaged as ii had been for centuries by Sclavo- nians and Saracens and Franks, .and ground into the dust by the Latin barons introduced by the fourth Crusade— are alleged as the inducements to this wild di vice of social reorganization. There is every reason to believe that Pletho was as sincere as he was earnest in this dream of political renovation: which was neither more nor less insane in lie- loth century than ha\ • been the numberless analogous schemes which have deluded the 19th. The project seems to have occupied his de- clining age. The years of Pletho were as full as was In- assumed name.
Writings. — The treatises, abstracts, essays, polt mics, letters, and other productions of Pletho were both nu- merous and varied. They still remain, for the most part, in manuscript, nor has tin re been any complete enumeration, or sufficient investigation ol those that survive. The wish has several times been expressed for their collection, recension, and publication; hut the wish is still ungratified, notwithstanding the acknowl- edgment <d' the various and valuable services that might he expected from its satisfaction. Tin- editors of the Bonn edition of the Byzantine historians, who proceed so languidly with the continuation of the labors auspiciously and energetically commenced by Niebuhr, may contemplate, or may he induced to contemplate, an edition at some future time of the Opera omnia //""• supersunt of Georgius Gemistus Pletbo. The variety of these works has already heen indicated. Of those which have been given to the press, the most important, as reported in Smith's Dictionary of Mythology, etc, are : 1. /'< Gestis Grcecorum post pugnam <i<l Maniineam, ex- tracted from Diodorus and Plutarch:— 2. De Fato: — .",. Ih Virtviibus : — 4. De Platonica <i/rju< Aristotelica PhUosophia Differentia: — 5. Oracula Magica Zoroas- tris. Since this list was prepared, some of the smaller tracts of Pletho, previously unedited, have been pub- lished, and M. Alexandre ha- brought out at Paris, t',. /'< Legibus, Fragnu ui<i.