Proceedings of The 5th World Conference on Social Sciences
Year: 2022
DOI:
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Faith and contradiction in the person of Cardinal Bessarion
Plescau Ionut Alexandru
ABSTRACT:
In the 15th century, two important historical events happened: the Fall of Constantinople and the Humanist Renaissance in Italy. In the present article we will see how the migration of Byzantine scholars from Constantinople to Venice, Florence and Rome influenced the new humanist perspective. Also, the movement of the most precious manuscripts to Italy was due to Bessarion, a former Orthodox bishop and then Western cardinal, who played a political, ecclesiastical and cultural role. His effort was to save, on the one hand, the Byzantine Empire from the Turkish conquest, and, on the other hand, to preserve intact the culture and treasury of a millennial empire. His philosophical schools and his disciples from Italy became famous and they had a huge contribution in literature, painting, architecture and politics. Bessarion was the man who gave to Latin Europe the most books and manuscripts in the 15th century, and without his work, the Renaissance process would not have become the event we know today.
keywords: Renaissance, Byzantium, migration, Christianity, Platonism