George of Trebizond

George of Trebizond (; 1395–1486) was a Byzantine Greek philosopher, scholar, and humanist.

Life

He was born on the Greek island of Crete (then a Venetian colony known as the Kingdom of Candia), and derived his surname Trapezuntius (Τραπεζούντιος) from the fact that his ancestors were from the Byzantine Greek Trapezuntine Empire.

When he went to Italy is not certain; according to some accounts he was summoned to Venice about 1430 to act as amanuensis to Francesco Barbaro, who appears to have already made his acquaintance; according to others he did not visit Italy until the time of the Council of Florence (1438–1439).

He learned Latin from Vittorino da Feltre, and made such rapid progress that in three years he was able to teach Latin literature and rhetoric. and the manifestly hurried and inaccurate character of his translations of Plato, Aristotle and other classical authors, combined to ruin his fame as a scholar, and to endanger his position as a teacher of philosophy. (Pope Pius II was among the critics of George's translations.) The indignation against George on account of his first-named work was so great that he would probably have been compelled to leave Italy had not Alfonso V of Aragon given him protection at the court of Naples.

Works Rhetoricorum libri V. A synthesis of the Rhetorica ad Herennium and the Hermogenean corpus. Isagoge dialectica. De artificio Ciceronianae orationis pro Quinto Ligario. Rhetoricorum. A translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric.

For a complete list of his numerous works, consisting of translations from Greek into Latin (Plato, Aristotle and the Fathers) and original essays in Greek (chiefly theological) and Latin (grammatical and rhetorical), see Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca (ed. Harles), xii.

Two works of his have been translated into English: Protectio Aristotelis Problematum (The Protection of Aristotle’s Problemata) and Comparatio Philosophorum Platonis et Aristotelis (A Comparison of the Philosophers Plato and Aristotle). These can both be found in Vindicatio Aristotelis.