George Gemistos Plethon

Georgios Gemistos Plethon, commonly known as Gemistos Plethon, lived circa 1355 or 1360 to 1452 or 1454 and was a Greek scholar and one of the most renowned philosophers of the Late Byzantine era, a chief pioneer of the revival of Greek scholarship in Western Europe. In his last literary work, the Nomoi or Book of Laws, circulated only among close friends, he rejected Christianity in favor of a return to the worship of the classical Hellenic gods mixed with ancient wisdom based on Zoroaster and the Magi. In 1438 to 1439 he reintroduced Plato's ideas to Western Europe during the Council of Florence in a failed attempt to reconcile the East-West Schism, and formulated a political vision proposing a reborn Byzantine Empire on a utopian Hellenic system of government centered at Mystras; his boast that we are Hellenes by race and culture has generated discussion about Byzantine and modern Greek identity, and he has been labeled both the last Hellene and the first modern Greek.

Georgios Gemistos Plethon, who lived from around 1355 or 1360 to 1452 or 1454, was a Greek scholar and philosopher of the late Byzantine period, born in Constantinople and educated at the University of Constantinople under Demetrios Kydones before spending most of his career in Mystras. He is remembered as a chief pioneer of the revival of Greek scholarship in Western Europe, reintroducing Platonic philosophy at the Council of Florence in 1438 and 1439, where he lectured Florentine humanists on the differences between Plato and Aristotle, an influence significant enough that Marsilio Ficino called him the second Plato. His works include De Differentiis, comparing Aristotle and Plato, and the more controversial Nomoi, or Book of Laws, which argued for a return to a classical Hellenic religion blended with Zoroastrian elements and was burned after his death, alongside treatises proposing political reform for the Peloponnese. Called both the last Hellene and the first modern Greek, he remains best known for reviving Byzantine Hellenism and for a utopian political vision grounded in Platonic philosophy.