BARLAAM OF CALABRIA (c. 1290–c. 1350), humanist, philologist, and theologian; one of the forerunners of the Renaissance. Barlaam was born in Seminara commune, Calabria, a Greek by ethnic descent and language, and a member of the religious groups that still preserved the memory of their Orthodox Christian past in southern Italy. With the passage of time the inhabitants of the region were obliged to submit to Rome, but they felt themselves to be Orthodox as a result of their long tradition. The religious duality of the Greek communities of southern Italy explains the oscillation in Barlaam's advocacy of the two competing traditions. He was possessed of a sentimental love of Orthodoxy on account of his Greek ancestry, but as a theologian and philosopher, he was influenced by Western Scholasticism.

In 1326, traveling from Italy to the Greek peninsula, Barlaam doffed the clothes of a Western monk...