O R I E N TA L I A L OVA N I E N S I A A N A L E C TA John Plousiadenos (1423?-1500) A Time-Space Geography of his Life and Career by ELEFTHERIOS DESPOTAKIS PEETERS JOHN PLOUSIADENOS (1423?-1500) Questi sono gli huomini et religiosi di Candia, ritratti dal suo naturale (Houghton Library, MS Riant 6, 15th c.) ORIENTALIA LOVANIENSIA ANALECTA ————— 284 ————— BIBLIOTHÈQUE DE BYZANTION 21 JOHN PLOUSIADENOS (1423?-1500) A Time-Space Geography of his Life and Career by ELEFTHERIOS DESPOTAKIS PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT 2020 A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. © 2020, Peeters Publishers, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven/Louvain (Belgium) All rights reserved, including the rights to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form. ISBN 978-90-429-3787-1 eISBN 978-90-429-3788-8 D/2020/0602/13 To Polyvios & Zoi CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XI LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XIII 1. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 I. The ecclesiastical state in Crete after the Fourth Crusade . . . 1 II. Crete and the Union of the Churches: Uniate trends and anti-Uniate resistance in the first half of the 15th century . . . . . . . 6 2. THE FIRST STEPS OF CAREER PLANNING . . . . . . . . . . 13 I. The Cretan background of his education . . . . . . . . 13 II. The establishment of Bessarion’s Bequest . . . . . . . 24 III. The codex Ambrosianus H 41 sup. (Martini-Bassi 429) . . . 29 3. PERCEPTIONS AND REALITIES IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF CHANDAX. . . 41 I. The encyclical monitory letter to the Orthodox priests of Chandax 41 II. The letter of Bessarion in 1465 and the Uniates’ everyday life . 44 III. Fifteen years of contest for the office of vice-protopapas . . . 50 4. INTELLECTUAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL LANDSCAPE . . . . . . . . 61 I. Crete, Rome and the “codices Marciani” . . . . . . . 61 II. The project of the Castle Montauto and the Greek community of Venice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 III. The hegoumenìa at St Demetrios’ de Perati monastery and the ascension to the bishopric throne of Methone . . . . . . . 87 APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 I. The Prayer to the Holy Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 II. The Pattern for the Catholic confession . . . . . . . . 115 III. Manuscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 IV. Archival documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 V. Tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 INDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 I. Index of manuscripts cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 II. Index of names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to numerous teachers, colleagues and friends who have gener- ously given off themselves to advice, support and encourage me during this project. First and foremost, I owe my deepest debt of gratitude to Antonio Rigo who has patiently and kindly directed the development of this work during my postdoctoral fellowship at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. I am also profoundly grateful to Thierry Ganchou, who has so generously given of his time and shared his erudition at every stage of my research and at this book in particular. This work is also a product of my research fellowship at the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-byzantine Studies in Venice where I benefited of the supervision of Chryssa Maltezou who first inspired my interest in the archival research and supported me with consistent care and quality. For all of her contributions, I express my warmest gratitude. My sincere gratitude also goes to my academic supervisor at Athens, Anastasia Papadia-Lala, for guiding me through my Ph.D. dissertation on the Uniates of Crete (15th c.) and offering me several very helpful suggestions. Last but not least, I would like to thank Peter Van Deun for his careful reading of the manuscript and for his valuable comments and corrections. Finally, I want to thank all those who have facili- tated my work and supported the conclusion of this book: Panagiotis Athana- sopoulos, Olivier Delouis, Marina Detoraki, Paolo Eleuteri, Christian Förstel, Ciro Giacomelli, Ottavia Mazzon, Brigitte Mondrain, Symeon Paschalidis and Arnold Van Gemert.