1. Birth – Education

Georgios Trapezountios was born in Khandaq, Crete, on April 3, 1395. He was probably given the epithet “Trapezountios” due to the fact that his great-great-grandfather had migrated from Trebizond to Crete. However, Georgios used to sign as “Georgius Trapesundius Cretensis” from the earliest until his latest work, while in some cases he signed as “Georgius Trapesunda”. In Crete, Trapezountios must have received a deep knowledge of grammar and rhetoric as well as some elements of philosophy.¹

2. In Italy

Trapezountios went to Italy invited by the Venetian patrician and humanist Francesco Barbaro, possibly in April 1416,² where he studied the Latin language. Within a few years – as he claimed – he mastered the Latin language. Thus, in early 1420, he replaced the retired Francesco Filelfo as a teacher of Latin at Vicenza.³

In the early 1426, Trapezountios adopted Roman Catholicism; one year later he published a Latin encouragement to belligerent Constantinople. Towards the end of the same year, for an unknown reason, he was expelled from Vicenza. He returned to Venice, where he opened his own private school and taught Greek as well, although the main subject of his teaching was Latin. Among the subsequently famous students of the Cretan philosopher was Pietro Barbo, the later Pope Paul II. However, Trapezountios was not satisfied mainly because his profession was not very rewarding.

Towards the late 1433 (or in January 1434), Trapezountios published “Rhetoricum Libri V”, thus introducing for the first time, to a large degree, the Byzantine rhetoric tradition into the Latin West. At the same time, the work “De Patribus orationis ex Prisciano compendium”, the product of his teaching, was his most popular writing in the 15^th century. It was dedicated to his eldest son, Andrew.⁴

3. At Papal Service

At the same time, Francesco Barbaro set the scene for Trapezountios to serve the Pope. In a letter dated May 11, 1436, to Ludovico Trevisan – a close acquaintance of Pope Eugene IV – Barbaro suggested that Trapezountios should be included in the representatives of the Roman Catholic side in view of the following Council concerning the union of the Churches. In that letter he also enclosed a letter by Trapezountios under the title ‘De unione ecclesiarum’, which proved his unionist views and dedication to the Pope. In 1437, Trapezountios settled in Bologna.

It was in 1437 that Trapezountios sent a letter to the Byzantine emperor, John V Palaiologos, advocating the Union of the Churches and making it clear that otherwise both the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church would perish. Μonfasani believes that in this way Trapezountios wanted to provide his services to the Pope,⁵ although he was not a papal official at the time.

The time when Trapezountios was admitted by the papal Curia remains unknown; it was possibly in the summer of 1440.⁶ In any case, when Eugene IV arrived in Rome on September 28, 1443, Trapezountios followed him four months later along with the rest of the papal officials. He settled in Rome and on February 7, 1444, was sworn in as apostolic secretary. He also held the post of scriptor litterarum apostolicarum, but resigned on November 5, 1450, and was succeeded by his young son, Iakovos.⁷

In May 1452, following a bitter quarrel with Poggio Bracciolini, Trapezountios was imprisoned for a few days and was released when he wrote a letter of apology to Poggio. Finally, on June 17, 1452, he left for Naples.⁸

It is interesting that even after Nicholas V assumed the papal throne Trapezountios continued to advocate the idea of campaigning for rescuing Constantinople. In October 1452, while in Naples, he wrote to the Pope and requested help for Constantinople. His main argument was that Constantinople was the key bastion of Catholic Christianity against the Turks. In his letters to Alfonso of Aragon and Frederick III, he suggested that the Holy Land be occupied and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem be reestablished.⁹

4. Attempts to Approach Mehmed II

A few months after the Fall of Constantinople, in July 1453, Trapezountios wrote a discourse titled “On the Truth of the Christian Faith”, which he sent to Mehmed II. The main idea in his writing was that there is no actual difference between the Bible and the Koran; any diversity is superficial and should be attributed to the different languages or to deliberate actions or even to inability to understand the meaning of the texts. Therefore he suggested that a joint committee consisting of both Christians and Muslims should be formed in order to study the sacred texts; he also proposed the way in which this committee should operate. In addition, he asked to participate in the proceedings.¹⁰ However, the attempt was fruitless.

In November 1465, Trapezountios visited Constantinople. Pope Paul II – enthroned on August 31, 1464 – covered the cost of Trapezountios’ journey, which must have aimed at establishing communication with the Ottoman sultan and bringing him closer to Christianity, thus making his Christianisation possible. In Constantinople, Trapezountios met Georgios Amiroutzis, who encouraged him to translate for the sultan from Latin to Greek the “Introductio” he had written for the Latin translation of Almagest by Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus of Alexandria). He also wrote a letter about Almagest dedicated to Mehmed II, while – after he returned to Rome – he also dedicated “Comparatio Platonis et Aristotelis” to the sultan. Trapezountios left Constantinople on March 18, 1466.¹¹

In both letters, through which he dedicated Almagest and Comparatio to the sultan, Trapezountios, among others, provided a lot of information about the political situation and the disagreements among the Christian states of the West, while he wished that Mehmed II could conquer the entire world; he also summons him to occupy Italy, for he was sure that there would be no resistance to that venture. As a result, Trapezountios was imprisoned for 4 months. Then –from mid-February 1467– he was placed under house arrest. The unsubstantiated accusations of treachery or apostasy or sect against Mehmed II must have contributed to the above development.¹²

After he was released from prison, Trapezountios tried to approach Matthias I (Matthias Corvinus), the king of Hungary, praising him as the one and only bastion of Europe against the Turks.¹³ Monfasani believes that Trapezountios hated Islam more than he admired Mehmed II, and Corvinus could delay things until Trapezountios returned to Constantinople in order to Christianise the Ottoman sultan.¹⁴

5. Trapezountios’ Death

Monfasani believes that the version supporting that Trapezountios died shortly before 1484 must be wrong by at least ten years. According to his son, Andrew, the Cretan philosopher must have died between 1472 and 1473.¹⁵