Cardinal Bessarion (1403-1472)

This biography presents Cardinal Bessarion in his time and explores his personal perspective on his times and experience.

Michael Malone-Lee took an undergraduate degree in classics at Oxford University. He had a career of nearly thirty years in the British civil service where he served in senior positions in several departments of state. He later became Vice Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University. In retirement he returned to classics and did a doctorate at Oxford University on Cardinal Bessarion and the transmission of Plato in the fifteenth century. Until recently he was teaching undergraduates Latin and Greek.

Introduction / From Trebizond to Byzantium / The Road to Florence / The Roman Years / Legate in Bologna / The Threat of the Ottoman Turks / Last Years / Scholar and Humanist / Bibliography