John Italus

John Italus, who lived from around 1025 until sometime after 1082, was a Byzantine philosopher of Calabrian origin who revived Neoplatonic thought in Constantinople during the eleventh century. He studied under Michael Psellos and succeeded him as Chief of the Philosophers, leading a well attended school where he taught the works of Proclus, Plato, Iamblichus, Porphyry and Aristotle, excelling especially in logic and Aristotelian philosophy though weaker in grammar and rhetoric. His teaching drew ecclesiastical scrutiny under Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, and after being brought before an ecclesiastical court around 1076 to 1077 he was compelled to publicly retract eleven propositions judged heretical. By 1082 he was anathematized and banished to the Monastery of Zoodochos Pege, though his sentence was later moderated after he professed genuine repentance.