John Italus

John Italus or Italos (, Iōánnēs ho Italós; ; c. 1025 – after 1082) was a Byzantine Neoplatonic philosopher.

He was Calabrian in origin, his father being a soldier. He came to Constantinople, where he became a student of Michael Psellus in classical Greek philosophy. He succeeded Psellus in his position as head of the philosophical school. Subsequently, some of his tenets were found heretic in 1076–77 by Patriarch Cosmas I of Constantinople, and in 1082 he was personally condemned, having come into conflict with Emperor Alexios I Komnenos.

Life

John Italus was born in Italy from where he derived his name. His religious and cultural background remains uncertain, though it is likely that he was bilingual in Greek and Italian. but as he professed repentance, the anathema was not pronounced publicly, nor in all its extent. He afterwards fully renounced his errors, and made the sincerity of his renunciation manifest.

The above account rests on the authority of Anna Comnena, whose anxiety to exalt the reputation of her father, and her disposition to disparage the people of Western Europe, prevents our relying implicitly on her statements.

Some works of Italus are extant: Ἐκδόσεις εἰς διάφορα Ζητήματα, Expositiones in varias quas varii proposuerunt Quaestiones, Capp. xciii. s. Responsa ad xciii. Quaestiones philosophicas Miscellaneas. The questions were proposed chiefly by the emperor Michael Doukas and his brother Andronicus. Ἕκδοσις εἰς τὰ Τοπικά, Expositio Topicorum Aristotelis Περὶ διαλεκτικῆς, De Dialectica Μέθοδος ῥητορικῆς ἐκδοθεῖσα κατὰ σύνοψιν, Methodus Synoptica Rhetoricae, an art of which Anna Comnena says he was altogether ignorant. Epitome Aristotelis de Interpretatione Orationes Synopsis quinque vocum Porphyrii

Editions Wallies, M.: Die gr. Ausleger der Arist. Topik, Berl. 1891 Успенский, Ф. Ив.: Синодик в неделю Праволсавия, Одесса, 1893 Cereteli, Gregorius: Joannis Itali Opuscula selecta. Vol. I: De arte dialectica & II: De syllogismis, De arte rhetorica. Tbilisi: -, 1924 & 1926. Ioannou, P.: Ioannes Italos, Quaestiones Quodlibetales. Studia Patristica et Byzantina 4. Ettal: Buch-Kunstverlag, 1956. Ketschakmadze, N.: Ioannis Itali Opera, Tbilisi, 1966 Kotsabassi, S.: Joannes Italos & Leon Magentinos: Byzantinische Kommentatoren der aristotelischen Topik. Thessaloniki: Vanias, 1999.