DOI 10.1515/bz-2018-0017 BZ 2018; 111(3): 641–658 Scott Kennedy Bessarion’sdateofbirth: anew assessment of the evidence Abstract: The cardinal Bessarion was aforemost figure of the Italian Renaissance and late Byzantium. However,some of the details of his life are not yetsecurely established, especiallyhis dateofbirth. Over the lastcentury,scholars have pro- posed dates rangingfrom 1400 to 1408. In this study, Icriticallyinterrogatethe two most commonlyaccepted dates (1400 and 1408). In the past,scholars have relied on the agerequirementsofcanon laworthe testimonyofItalian observers to determine Bessarion’sage.Bycritically examining the validity of these two as- sumptions, Ireprioritize the evidence,approximating the cardinal’syear of birth as 1403. Adresse: Dr.Scott Kennedy,Bilkent University,Main Campus, GBuilding, 224/g, 06800 Bilkent–Ankara, Turkey;[email protected] Striding the boundary between East and West,Greek and Latin, the cardinal Bes- sarion (d. 1472) was amajor figure in the transmission of Greek learning to the Latin West.¹ Born in Trebizond (mod. Trabzon) on the Black Sea coast,Bessarion In preparing thisarticle forpublication, Ihaveincurred adebt of gratitude to anumber of schol- ars. Thanksare due to Anthony Kaldellis forhis usual editorial wisdom and foralerting me of Evangelos Chrysos’sarticle on prematureordinations in the Middle Byzantine period. Alice MaryTalbot helpfully discussed thisarticle with me on multiple occasionsasIprepared my forthcoming translation of Bessarion’sencomium of Trebizond and Panaretos’schronicle of the emperors of Trebizondwiththe Dumbarton OaksMedieval Library. She also shared with me her pioneeringwork on Akakios Sabbaites. Finally,Iowe adebt of gratitude to Byzantinische Zeitschrift’sanonymous reviewers whose comments and corrections much improved this article. Thereisnofull biographyofBessarion in English. Forabrief summary of his life, see A.M. Talbot,Bessarion. ODB , .The standardscholarlybiographies areL.Mohler,Kardinal Bessarion als Theologe, Humanist und Staatsmann. Paderborn ,vol. ;L.Labowsky,Bes- sarione. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani () –.For his life up to ,E.Mioni, Vita del cardinale Bessarione. MiscellaneaMarciana () –,issuperior.There is also arecentbiographybyG.L.Coluccia,Basilio Bessarione:lospiritogreco el’Occidente. Florence .For abrief outline of his life, M. Zorzi,Cenni sulla vita elafiguradel cardinale Bessar- ione, in A. Cuna /A.Gatti /S.Ricci (eds.), Bessarione el’Umanesimo:catalogo della mostra. Venice , –. Brought to you by | Ohio State University Libraries Authenticated Download Date | 9/23/18 10:51 AM 642 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 111/3, 2018: I. Abteilung playedakeyrole at the council of Ferrara-Florencein1438 – 1439asaspokesper- son for the Eastern Orthodoxdelegation. After the union of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches was ratified, Bessarion joined the Catholic Church as acardi- nal, and almostbecame pope in 1455. Bessarion wasakeyfigure in the Italian Renaissance. His libraryofrare Greek manuscripts, studiously acquired after the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, now forms the coreofthe Greek holdingsofthe Bibliotheca Marciana. During the 1460s, Bessarion was also engagedinwhat modern scholars have deemed one of the great literary de- bates of the centurywith George of Trebizond over whether PlatoorAristotle’s philosophybetter conformed to Christian belief. The fruit of this dispute was Bes- sarion’sfamous Refutation of Blasphemies against Plato (In Calumniatorem Pla- tonis), which opened the door to the studyofPlato in the West.² As one of the first bookseverprinted on the printing press,the Refutation profited from the power of this new technology to swaypublic opinion.³ As acentral playerinthe Renaissance,Bessarion has naturallyinspired a large amount of scholarlyinterest.Nevertheless, some issues still remainopen in his biography. The cardinal’sdate of birth has been the subject of considerable scholarlydiscussion over the lastcentury,with datespostulated thatrangefrom 1400 to 1408. Opinion has varied and awide variety of evidence has been mar- shalled in support of each proposal, but no consensus has emerged. This study will criticallyreexamine previous arguments for the cardinal’sdateofbirth through arigorous analysis of the sourcematerial.Inthe first section of this paper,Iwill review the debate up to this point,outlining the major evidence and arguments on which they base their claims. In the following sections, I will then test the strength of these theses against other contemporary data. It will be shown that the two most commonlyaccepted dates for Bessarion’s birth (1400 and 1408) are built on shaky foundations. By reprioritizingthe exist- ing evidence, this paper will suggest abetter approximation of Bessarion’sdate of birth, namely1403. 1. Historyofthe question Since the nineteenth century,scholars have put forward threemajor hypotheses regardingBessarion’sdate of birth. The oldest and now generallyleast accepted L. Mohler,Kardinal Bessarion,vol. .Paderborn .For the debateingeneral, J. Hankins, Platointhe Italian Renaissance. Leiden . Zorzi,Cenni (as footnote above) . Brought to you by | Ohio State University Libraries Authenticated Download Date | 9/23/18 10:51 AM S. Kennedy,Bessarion’sdateofbirth 643 position derivesfrom aLatinobit at the end of Niccolò Capranica’seulogyofBes- sarion that states, “Vixit Nicenus annis 69,mensibus 10,diebus 16.” Based on this calculation, Bessarion’slate-nineteenth-centurybiographer Henri Vast neatlycalculated Bessarion’sdateofbirth as January 2, 1403,given thatBessa- rion died on November 18, 1472.⁴ Thetidiness of this date has acertain appeal about it,and it is what one finds in some of the morereadilyaccessiblereference works,such as volume 1ofLudwigMohler’sseminal KardinalBessarion (1923) and LotteLabowsky’sentry in the Dizionario biografico degliItaliani (1967). But as the twentieth centuryworeon, scholars pushed back against this date. The now most commonlyaccepted position derivesfrom an idea first ad- vanced by PierreIoannou and then independentlydeveloped by Henri Saffrey in an influential article on the autograph manuscripts of Bessarion.⁵ It runs like this. Canon 14 of the Quinisext Council in Trullo (691–692A.D.) forbade men from being ordained deacons or priestsuntil theyhad reached the ages of 25 and 30,respectively,under pain of being removed from office.⁶ Saffrey be- lieved thattwelfth-century Byzantine commentaries on canon lawbyAlexios Aristenos,John Zonaras,and Theodore Balsamon indicatedthatthe Byzantines strictlyenforced and respectedthe canon in the fifteenth century.Theywould not have unlawfullyordained the futurecardinal. Since Bessarion himself, in his curriculum vitae scribbled into Venice, Marc. Zan. gr.14(=Marcianus 395), tells us the dates at which he obtained the deaconship and priesthood (Decem- ber 1425 and October 1430,respectively), then his date of birth must fall in 1399/ 1400.⁷ This date has enjoyedwide acceptance and is even included in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium’sentry on Bessarion.⁸ In 1992, John Monfasani assembled and reviewed the vast bodyofdata that Bessarion and his contemporaries provided about his ageinorder to arrive at a new approximation.⁹ Although previous scholarship had doubted the authentic- H. Vast,LeCardinal Bessarion.Paris , . P. Ioannou,Unopuscule inédit du cardinale Bessarion: le panégyrique de Saint Bessarion anachorète égyptien. Analecta Bollandiana () note ;H.Saffrey,Recherches sur quelques autographes du Cardinal Bessarion,in: Mélanges Eugène Tisserant. Vatican City , –. Ed. H. Ohme,Concilium Constantinopolitanum a. / in Trullo habitum. ACC, /.Berlin , . The Greek text is published in Saffrey,Recherches (as footnote above) –;see also P. Schreiner,Die byzantinischen Kleinchroniken I. CFHB, /.Vienna , –. Talbot,Bessarion (as footnote above) . J. Monfasani,Platina, Capranica, and Perotti: Bessarion’sLatin eulogists and his dateof birth, in M. Cortesi /E.V.Maltese (eds.), BartolomeoSacchi Il Platina (Piadena –Roma ): Atti del Convegno internazionale (Trento, – ottobre ). Naples , –. Brought to you by | Ohio State University Libraries Authenticated Download Date | 9/23/18 10:51 AM 644 Byzantinische Zeitschrift Bd. 111/3, 2018: I. Abteilung ity of Capranica’sobit of Bessarion, Monfasani proved that Bessarion’seulogist Capranica or anear contemporary authored the obit.However,hedoubtedthat Capranica actuallyknew how old Bessarion was when he died. Respondingto the Ioannou/Saffrey hypothesis, he argued thatthe canonicalage-requirement would have been followed onlyinanideal society and not the real world of late Byzantium, though he does not offer anyevidence to support this position.¹⁰ Instead, he builds his case upon the evidence of Bessarion’scontemporaries. For example, Bessarion’sfriend and Latin ghostwriter Niccolò Perotti states,inthe prefacetohis translation of Bessarion’sfuneral oration for Manuel II Palaiologos (1391–1425), that Bessarion was not yettwenty (nondum vigesimum aetatis suae annum ingressus)when he wrotethis piece.¹¹ As Perotti was the author of alarge two-volume biographyofBessarion, now lost,this data clearly should not have been neglected in favorofthe Ioannou/Saffrey hypothesis. Under their hypoth- esis, Bessarion would have been approximatelytwenty-five when he wroteMan- uel’sfuneral oration in 1425.The editor of Perotti’spreface, Giovanni Mercati, had alreadynoted this problem and suggested thatBessarion’sdateofbirth probablyfell around 1406.¹² But Monfasani