Cardinal Bessarion (1403-1472): Most Latin of Greeks, Most Greek of Latins

Cardinal Bessarion was a towering figure in the fifteenth-century Renaissance. His life spanned the century. In his sixty-nine years of life, he was a stellar student, a Basilian monk, a Greek Orthodox archbishop, a Roman cardinal, a papal diplomat, and an eminent humanist and scholar.

Cardinal Bessarion’s life and career were shaped by the tidal wave of the advance of the Ottoman Turks towards the West and by the centuries-old tension between the Orthodox East and the Latin West. He made a ...