Georgius Gemistus Plethon

Huck

I would like to add a few thoughts to this thread, albeit with extreme caution. After perhaps 8 years researching the question of whether Plethon influenced the emergence of the Tarot - at this point in time, and considering the mass of material I have gathered, one answer would be: there is no material evidence. But, there is circumstantial evidence - that is to say - a cluster, or constellation of facts - that suggests Plethon cannot be excluded entirely. Various scholars claim different facets of Plethon's lengthy life and work. This mosaic, so to speak, needs to be co-ordinated. There is a growing interest in Plethon, including up to date research taking place in Italy, Amsterdam and Mistra itself. So the threads need to be drawn together. Plethon has been called Neo-Zoroastrian, Platonic, Neo-Platonic, Pagan, Neo-Hellenic - and even Islamic and Sufi mystical influences have been attributed to him, not to mention a Jewish stream. Plethon himself is on record describing a New World Religion which would transcend Islam and Christianity. The re-emergence of Plethon into our present historic consciousness is timely.
Yours sincerely, Samten de Wet

hi Samten,

Well, I agree with the basic idea, that "Plethon cannot be excluded entirely".
In matters of research I would like to know precisely, when Plethon left Italy or what precisely Plethon had done in the time after he left to Italy and was back home in Mistra.

I'd problems to get an answer from my sources for this: It seems, Plethon left Italy possibly in 1439 and came back to Mistra in 1441. What do you know just about his stay during this time? Are these both dates correct? Did he leave Italy in 1439?
 

Ross G Caldwell

hi Samten,

Well, I agree with the basic idea, that "Plethon cannot be excluded entirely".
In matters of research I would like to know precisely, when Plethon left Italy or what precisely Plethon had done in the time after he left to Italy and was back home in Mistra.

I'd problems to get an answer from my sources for this: It seems, Plethon left Italy possibly in 1439 and came back to Mistra in 1441. What do you know just about his stay during this time? Are these both dates correct? Did he leave Italy in 1439?

14 June, 1439, according to Michael Angold, Eastern Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 77:

"He (Scholarios) left Florence on 14 June 1439, scarcely a month after drawing up the Byzantine statement, in the company of two anti-unionists: the emperor's brother Demetrios and George Gemistos Plethon. Like them Scholarios was departing early, so as to avoid signing the union decree."

Woodhouse himself seems to have a clearer understanding of why they left early:

"Demetrios, with Scholarios and Gemistos, left Florence after the Patriarch's funeral. They did so not to avoid signing the decree, which as laymen they would not have been expected to do, but simply as a gesture of disapproval."

(Gemistos Plethon, the Last of the Hellenes, p. 175)

What source contradicts this date?
 

samten

On Plethon again PART 2

As this Project is emerging as an ongoing, international co-operative network - here are some resources and routes for further research:

The Wikipedia entry on Bembo, has the following:
"Born in Brescia and formed in the late Gothic school, he was influenced by the Renaissance style. After his knowledge with Gemistus Pletho, he absorbed the latter's Neoplatonic ideals. He was also active in Cremona."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonifacio_Bembo

What is the evidence for a Bembo/Plethon link? I will make my suggestions, and hope you could follow the sources of this quote.

Any further speculations on Pletho [I prefer this form of his name] need to absorb all the research published to date, and parallel material. A good place to start is with this key article:

Milton V. Anastos, Pletho's Calendar and Liturgy, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 4, (1948), pp. 183-305

For the Neo-Zoroastrian angle, and Pletho - through to Ficino/Chaldean Oracles:

Dr. Michael Stausberg, Neo-Zoroastrian Hellenism in 15th Century Byzantine Empire: The Case of George Gemistos Plethon, K.R. Cama Oriental Institute, Third International Congress Proceedings, January 2000, Mumbai

Dr. Michael Stausberg, Zoroaster as Perceived in Western Europe After Antiquity, August 29, 2005
http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/ot_grp9/ot_zoreur_20050829.html

For Pletho & Islam, Anastos and more recently:
Maria Mavroudi (University of C. Berkeley): George Gemistos Plethon in the Islamic world.

This would seen to be the most vital material, amongst others, but a bit thin on content:

Marco Bertozzi, George Gemistos Plethon and the Myth of Ancient Paganism: from the Council of Ferrara to the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, (pubblicato negli Atti del Congresso Internazionale su Pletone e il suo tempo, 2002-2003);
[Note the Plethon Congress in Mistra and its participants]

Marco Bertozzi, Giorgio Gemisto Pletone e il mito del paganesimo antico, in: Sul ritorno di Pletone. Un filosofo a Rimini, Raffaelli, 2003

Some other papers, without any order, which should be enough for the time being,
Yours sincerely, Samten de Wet

Bamford, Christopher, The Dream of Gemistos Plethon, Sphinx 6, London. Delivered at the: Marsilio Ficino, Renaissance Doctor of Soul & "A Little Breath of Venus"--1993 Convivium conference at the Villa Medici, Careggi in Florence.

Wouter J. Hanegraaff , ‘The Pagan Who Came from the East: George Gemistos Plethon and Platonic Orientalism’, in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff & Joyce Pijnenburg (eds.), Hermes in the Academy: Ten Years’ Study of Western Esotericism at the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam 2009, pp. 33‐49.

Sherrard, Philip, The Symbolical Career of Georgios Gemistos Plethon, Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Spring 1974) © World Wisdom, Inc.
www.studiesincomparativereligion.com

Leonidas C. Bargeliotes, Plethon's Conception of Cosmos and its Impact on the Western Cosmological Theories [Online as a .pdf]

Leonidas C Bargeliotes, Plethon as a Forerunner of Neo-Hellenic and Modern European Consciousness, Diotima (1973, Volume: 1, Pages: 33-60

Leonidas C Bargeliotes, Fate or "Heimarmene" According to Pletho, Diotima (1975)
Pages: 3 137-149
Abstract
Pletho's determinism is expressed in his conception of fate or "heimarmene". besides the political and religious significance of the doctrine it has an epistemological and a scientific one. this is shown by an analysis and presentation of the doctrine of fate in the context of his speculations on cosmology, divinity and man. a relation of fate to other concepts such as causality, necessity and chance is also included. it is also shown that Pletho had recourse to Greek traditional philosophers where he found the necessary concepts to meet the needs of his time. his main ideas discussed are: 1) the concept of "heimarmene", 2) universal causation and divine foreknowledge, 3) causation and inductive method of investigation, and 4) causation and rival theories.
 

Huck

14 June, 1439, according to Michael Angold, Eastern Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 77:

"He (Scholarios) left Florence on 14 June 1439, scarcely a month after drawing up the Byzantine statement, in the company of two anti-unionists: the emperor's brother Demetrios and George Gemistos Plethon. Like them Scholarios was departing early, so as to avoid signing the union decree."

Woodhouse himself seems to have a clearer understanding of why they left early:

"Demetrios, with Scholarios and Gemistos, left Florence after the Patriarch's funeral. They did so not to avoid signing the decree, which as laymen they would not have been expected to do, but simply as a gesture of disapproval."

(Gemistos Plethon, the Last of the Hellenes, p. 175)

What source contradicts this date?

Well, that's fine ... this corresponds to (my) assumption, that he hadn't much time in Italy.

I saw it twice mentioned (somewhere; I don't note always, what collects to my memory; also I had in my memory, that he left Italy in 1439, and that you have confirmed now), that he arrived in "Mistra 1441" (from which one might conclude, that, if nothing else is reported, that he had been till then more or less in Italy). But ... naturally, he could have been somewhere else in Greece or at other places.
The situation might be just so, that nobody knows, where he had been.

He was in Ferrara 1438, and Ferrara was (somehow probable) at least one birth place of Trionfi cards (with a date of suspicion at 1.1.1441 and sure documentary dates of January/February 1442 and July 1442).

What about Plethon's abilities to speak Latin?
Pletho is described as having taken place (in the begin of the council in Ferrara) in the second row, not first place. All the descriptions sound, as if the whole delegations needed some time to break some ice ... likely due to general Latin/Greek translation problems. Logic demands to assume, that Guarino's Greek learning pupils might have had some function.
Plethon is said to have gotten a more intensive position in autumn of the year 1338. But the general mood wasn't so good, as there were difficulties with the plague and also deaths inside the Greek delegation.
Generally it's the impression, that some manuscripts from Greece arrived with the delegation and caused some literary work in the background in Ferrara.
 

MikeH

I am very glad you have joined this discussion, Samten. Your web page at

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com

was intriguing.

I hope you will expand on your remarks there and particularly on the Bembo-Plethon connection, which you are not the only one to assert (witness the Moreno article I cited in an earlier post, http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=2835269&postcount=12). The bibliography you give is great, but much of it requires a major research library nearby to access; and it is hard to know what in that material pertains to the particular issue of Plethon's influence on tarot.
 

Teheuti

Didn't Cardinal Bessarion study with Plethon in Constantinople? Bessarion also did translations from the Greek and elevated Plato over Aristotle. So if we are speaking of the possible pre-Ficino influence of Plethon on Milan and Ferrara, wouldn't we have to include Bessarion as a major source?
 

Huck

Didn't Cardinal Bessarion study with Plethon in Constantinople? Bessarion also did translations from the Greek and elevated Plato over Aristotle. So if we are speaking of the possible pre-Ficino influence of Plethon on Milan and Ferrara, wouldn't we have to include Bessarion as a major source?

http://www.ptta.pl/pef/haslaen/b/bessarion.pdf
After priestly ordination (1430) he [Bessarion] went to Mistra in the Peloponnesos to listen to the most renowned humanist philosopher of the time, the neo-Platonist George Gemistios Plethon, the so-called Second Plato. Bessarion’s two years in Mistra (1431–1433) had a decisive influence on his philosophical formation, since it was there where he became familiar with the whole Pythagorean, Platonic, and neo-Platonic tradition. Like his master Gemistios, and Psellos
before him, Bessarion regarded this tradition is one continuum of eternal wisdom, but where
Psellos and Bessarion drew on this tradition to confirm Christianity, Gemistios employed it
to build and spread a new religion based on neo-Platonism and opposed to the Christian
religion. Despite great respect for his teacher Gemistios, Bessarion did not share his pagan,
anti-Aristotelian, and anti-reunion tendencies.

Wikipedia: "In c. 1407 Gemistos left Adrianopolis and travelled through Cyprus, Palestine and other places, finally settling in Mistra, in the Despotate of Morea."

Plethon had been in 1407 already rather old (maybe c. 47-52, an age, in which traveling becomes less usual) and Bessarion was just 4 years old.

Plethon returned 1441 to Mistra is said by ...

http://books.google.com/books?id=lP...AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=plethon mistra 1441&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=SC...AEwAw#v=onepage&q=plethon mistra 1441&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=uD...dShCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&

http://books.google.com/books?id=Vy...k_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBzgU

... mostly spread by German sources, so is my impression, but none of them is detailed enough to conclude, that this is 100% secure.
But if this is true, then there are 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 years with no report, where Plethon has been. "Somewhere in Greece" seems more probable than "somewhere in Italy", as it seems plausible, that his presence in Italy would had left a report about it.

But ... if there was no interest, that it was known, that Plethon had been still in Italy, it's easily imaginable, that he might have had refuge in a distant villa somewhere as "just an old man", even on Florentine territory. We just wouldn't know it, cause nobody, who knew it, was interested to tell it.
He took opposition to the decisions of the council, perhaps this was reason enough to keep silence. It's just strange, that nobody seems to know, where he was.
 

MikeH

Teheuti wrote
Didn't Cardinal Bessarion study with Plethon in Constantinople? Bessarion also did translations from the Greek and elevated Plato over Aristotle. So if we are speaking of the possible pre-Ficino influence of Plethon on Milan and Ferrara, wouldn't we have to include Bessarion as a major source?
Yes, in evaluating Plethon's influence we have to include Bessarion, because Plethon was the "decisive" influence in Bessarion's intellectual life, as Cizewski puts it. Bessarion certainly did value Plato over Aristotle: Plato was the tree of wisdom, and Aristotle just one branch. Just how much Plethon's alleged "paganism" influenced Bessarion is a matter of opinion. First, it is not clear that Plethon was a pagan, just because he had a "mystery school." And second, the matter of how much of this "paganism" rubbed off on Bessarion is a matter of dispute. Judging from the "letter to the sons of Plethon," Bessarion had quite a bit of sympathy with the mystery religions. I quoted it once; let me quote it again. This is my and Google's translation off an Italian website, http://www.ritosimbolico.net/studi2/studi2_22.html. (A translation omitting the reference to Dionysus but keeping the Olympians is at http://www.scionofzion.com/codex_B.htm.)
The Cardinal Bessarion greets Andronicus and Demetrius, the children of learned Gemistus. I learned that our common father and teacher has deposited everything earthly and gone to heaven, to the site of every purity, to join the choir of the mystical dance of Jacco [id est the Dionysus of the Mysteries of Eleusis - ed] with the Olympian gods.
For more, there are the quotes from Hankins' book that are given on the website
http://egregores.blogspot.com/2011/0...y-heathen.html. Actually, it is better to read Hankins as such. The section of Plato in the Italian Renaissance on Plethon and Bessarion is largely in Google Books (with some maddening omissions), starting p. 193. Hankins gives a much more nuanced view than Cizewski. But even he is prone to unjustified generalities--or so is my impression from a quick skim. He seems to think that Plethon's influence was mostly mediated through Bessarion--and even if Bessarion did smooth out the extremes, there's quite a bit left--and doesn't investigate the direct influence of Plethon on people with whom he came into contact. E.g. perhaps Huck knows whether Malatesta was present in Florence for Plethon's lectures.

In relation to Milan, there is the Filelfo-Bessarion connection, which I learn from the Cizewski article goes back further than I realized. Cizewski says
...Bessarion remained in Constantinople and entered the Basilians (1423). As a religious, together with Francesco Philelpho, and probably with George Scholarios, he attended a course on rhetoric by George Chrysococces...
Filelfo has many letters to Bessarion in the link that Huck gave earlier. All are from the post-Visconti era. But there's no reason to limit Plethon's influence to just the 1440s.
 

Huck

E.g. perhaps Huck knows whether Malatesta was present in Florence for Plethon's lectures.

The life descriptions of Sigismondo Malatesta (reigned in Rimini) ..
http://www.condottieridiventura.it/... SIGISMONDO PANDOLFO MALATESTA Di Brescia.htm
.. have not much space for a presence of him in Florence in 1439.

For intellectual interests the one-year-younger brother from Sigismondo Malatesta, Domenico il Novello Malatesta (reigned in Cesena), seems to have been more interesting.

593px-Pisanello%2C_medaglia_di_novello_malatesta%2C_recto.jpg


The picture give the impression, as if he imitated Leonello, Signore of Ferrara.

But ...
http://www.condottieridiventura.it/condottieri/m/0927 DOMENICO MALATESTA.htm

ALSO ... in 1439 much too much occupied elsewhere

He founded a library Bibliotheca Malatestiano, build between 1447-52 ...

Biblioteca_Malatestiana2.jpg


... and THAT'S EARLY, cause 1437-144 had been the building time for San Marco in Florence and 1447 is the start of the Pontivicate of Nicolaus V., the book-collector-pope.

Sigismondo was condottieri, Domenico had been book collector ... and it is said:
"La Biblioteca Malatestiana è la prima biblioteca civica d'Italia ... "
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblioteca_Malatestiana

Stealing some bones in Mistra during a military action is one action (Sigismondo), gathering hundreds or thousands of manuscripts another.

**********
But both shouldn't have been in Florence 1439

Perhaps this man, who definitely was in Florence 1439, was of importance ...
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia...ossombrone-malatesta_(Dizionario-Biografico)/
He caused peace between Domenico Malatesta and Montefeltro and both became later famous cause of their libraries.
There wasn't peace between Sigismondo Malatesta and Montefeltro.

The reported peace should have happened in 1440 (or 1444 ?, but I doubt this latter) ... compare search "Domenico" in ...
http://www.condottieridiventura.it/condottieri/m/1159 FEDERICO DA MONTEFELTRO Di Gubbio.htm
.. the life of Montefeltro. In October 1439 Domenico and Sigismondo together attack Urbino, and young Montefeltro comes to help his father. In April 1440 peace is concluded, and Domenico gets the promise to marry Violante (young Montefeltro's half-sister; Federico Montefeltro was an illegitimate son).

http://genealogy.euweb.cz/italy/mtfeltro.html

In July 1444 Oddantonio was murdered, after the death of father Montefeltro and the marriage of the heir Oddantonio with Isotta d'Este ... which is of special Trionfi card interests, as Isotta was one of the "three girls in Ferrara", when the documents report the
production of "14 figure" at 1.1.1441 as a present for Bianca Maia Visconti.

The reason for the assassination is a mystery ...

flagellation700.jpg

http://www.storiain.net/arret/num149/artic1.asp

... which is discussed in relation to this picture of Piero della Francesca. Some see Federico Malatesta negatively involved in the story. As Montefeltro definitely profited from the development, the suspicion is understandable.

Violante (* 1430, in 1444 14 year old) then left home and the marriage with Domenico is recorded for 1446.

******************

In relation to Milan, there is the Filelfo-Bessarion connection, which I learn from the Cizewski article goes back further than I realized. Cizewski says Filelfo has many letters to Bessarion in the link that Huck gave earlier. All are from the post-Visconti era. But there's no reason to limit Plethon's influence to just the 1440s.

Plethon and Bessarion were close, when they arrived in January 1438; but in mid 1439 (when Plethon left) Plethon clearly had a different opinion.

Bessarion returned to Greece, but during the same year is found once more at Florence with Eugenius IV, who, in the consistory of 18 December, 1439 (according to others 8 January, 1440), created him cardinal of the title of the Twelve Holy Apostles. At the same time another Greek, Archbishop Isidore, received the sacred purple. The brief duration of the union of the churches is well known. Bessarion himself, having changed to the Latin Rite was cordially hated by the schismatic Greeks.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02527b.htm

Well, one cannot compare the relations of the post-Visconti time with those of 1439.
Cosimo loved Sforza, and Sforza loved Cosimo .. before, and especially, when Sforza took Milan in 1450. So at least a part of Florence had good feelings about Milan. This wasn't the case in 1439.
Filelfo worked for Sforza then ... it was not a reason to be not friendly to Bessarion. Pope Nicolaus hadn't been Pope Eugen.
 

MikeH

Huck wrote
Plethon and Bessarion were close, when they arrived in January 1438; but in mid 1439 (when Plethon left) Plethon clearly had a different opinion.
Bessarion returned to Greece, but during the same year is found once more at Florence with Eugenius IV, who, in the consistory of 18 December, 1439 (according to others 8 January, 1440), created him cardinal of the title of the Twelve Holy Apostles. At the same time another Greek, Archbishop Isidore, received the sacred purple. The brief duration of the union of the churches is well known. Bessarion himself, having changed to the Latin Rite was cordially hated by the schismatic Greeks.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02527b.htm

I don't think you can use a generic statement about "the schismatic Greeks" to show anything about Plethon. Plethon was pretty aloof from such groups, and the schismatics in general distanced themselves from Plethon, whom they considered a pagan. An example is Plethon's nemesis Scholarios, who became a schismatic after the Council (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennadius_Scholarius).

That Bessarion and Plethon took different positions on the question of unification doesn’t show much about how much of a pupil of Plethon Bessarion continued to be, and how much Bessarion fostered Plethon’s continued influence in Italy. It might have just been that Bessarion knew a good career move when he saw one—in Italy—whereas Plethon viewed the Latins as people who might burn his writings if they could, and he’d rather take his chances with the Turks. But the question is complicated; I haven’t done enough research.

I got a chance to look at Woodhouse’s Gemistos Plethon: The Last Hellene. He is good about citing documents, especially letters. I have not read much of what he has to say about Plethon and Bessarion yet, but I did notice that in one letter to Plethon in the period 1440-1444, Bessarion asks Plethon to resolve a contradiction among the interpreters of Plato, in the course of which he addresses Plethon as ‘the sole living leader of initiates and initiate of Plato’s innermost circle” (Woodhouse p. 234; Woodhouse gives the Greek terms). That sounds fairly respectful, not just of him but also of Plethon’s “mystery school” orientation. Plethon's reply is also respectful of Bessarion.

Along the same lines, of course, is Bessarion's letter to the sons of Plethon, which I have already quoted.

However I have mostly been looking into Plethon's relationship to Filelfo, Cyriaco, and Sigismondo Malatesta.

Woodhouse notes that Filelfo knew about Gemistos Plethon’s lectures and their general thrust by March of 1439, having been informed of them by the scandalized George Scholarios, who was a friend from Constantinople. Then in around August of 1439 Filelfo met Plethon personally in Bologna, where Filelfo taught during the first six months of the year. Filelfo wrote a six hexameter epigram in praise of Plethon at that time, which has been preserved. The details are on Woodhouse pp. 158f, of which I have posted a scan at http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wuXdEap_k1k/Tk6-YQUgy-I/AAAAAAAADfE/smaZm2w763E/s1600/Woodhouse158.jpg.

Also, there were former pupils of Filelfo’s in Florence at the time of the Council, although Woodhouse doesn’t say whether they communicated with Filelfo. Besides personal contact, Plethon wrote a synopsis of his lectures while in Florence, which probably circulated widely. Woodhouse includes a translation in his book.

As for Malatesta, Woodhouse says he might have learned of Plethon from Alberti, his architect, or from Cyriac of Ancona, who visited Rimini ten years later, after his last visit to Plethon in Mistra. Or Malatesta could have learned of Plethon from Toscanelli, whose astrological advice had led to Sigismundo’s appointment as Florence’s condottiere in 1453. Woodhouse discusses all this on pp. 160-161 (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jqIURPqG2hs/Tk6-YsihcgI/AAAAAAAADfM/YQgXiPGBSNc/s1600/Woodhouse160.jpg), with more about Toscanelli and Plethon.

Plethon introduced the geographical work of Strabo to Toscanelli and other Italians, who before then had known only Ptolemy. Woodhouse writes that Cyriac had
made Gemistos’ acquaintance during his first visit to Mistra in 1437, and perhaps helped to persuade the old man to come to Italy. Cyriac was certainly at Florence in 1439, attracted by the Council. (p. 165)
Alberti, of course, had been in Florence as a member of the Curia.

Later in the book, Woodhouse writes about Plethon’s last years. One visitor to Mistra known to Filelfo was the Greek Andronikos Kallistos (Callistus). Woodhouse says
...he probably spent some time as Mistra, for Francesco Filelfo, who befriended him in Italy, addressed a poem to him saying that he ‘left the land of Lycurgus, having great ambitions in his soul.’...he was evidently not an adherent of Plethon’s esoteric philosophy (p. 226)
Woodhouse adds, about others in his last years
Fragmentary though the evidence is, it seems clear that Plethon’s last years were sustained by many intellectual friendships, whether in person or by correspondence, and that some of his friends may be described as pupils or adherents, and others as neutrals or even critics. The tributes to his fame in the two funeral orations were justified. So was their claim that admiration for him extended beyond the Greek world to what the monk Gregorios called ‘the best of the Romans’ and Charitonymos called ‘the barbarians’.

Chief among his Italian admirers was Sigismondo Malatesta, although it is questionable whether they ever met. Another was Francesco Filelfo, who sent Plethon a flattering letter in Greek on 1 March 1441. In another letter to his friend Sassuolo of Prato, dated 7 June of the same year, he spoke warmly of Plethon, whom he still called Gemistos (or rather, Gemystus), but at the same time he advised his friend against visiting the Peloponnese.
What Filelfo did advise was that Sassuolo “might make a brief digression to visit ‘Gemystus’ on the way” to Constantinople. Plethon was “the only man in the Peloponnese worth visiting,” Filelfo had written Sassuolo (p. 158f). Sassuolo is another who was in Florence in 1439, although the confirmation is only for the date of Filflelfo’s earlier letter (from Pavia), 1 November 1439.

Woodhouse adds (p. 227f) that Cyriac of Ancona visited Plethon twice in 1447-1448. The first visit, summer 1447, was for several months; among other things, they compared manuscripts of Strabo. The other in was in Feb. 1448, when they discussed the Roman calendar. Cyriac’s visit to Rimini was in June of 1449.

Also (Woodhouse p. 228):
Thanks to Plethon’s Italian admirers, there grew up a kind of cult of humanism at Mistra which drew young Italians to study there under John Moschos in the following generation. It survived for a time even after the Turks captured the little city in 1460. But by then the tradition of Neoplatonism had shifted to Italy, where Plethon’s bones were also transferred in 1464. Plethon’s devoted friends, even more than the writings of his later years, ensured an extraordinary vitality for that tradition.