Giorgius Gemistus Pletho, the leading Byzantine scholar and philosopher of the fifteenth century, was born in Constantinople, the son of a cleric. Pletho is noted primarily for advocating a restoration of ancient Greek polytheism and, above all, for inspiring the interest of the Italian humanists of the quattrocento in the study of Plato. His studies followed the usual pattern of Byzantine education, emphasizing the classical Greek heritage. Influenced by certain of his teachers, Pletho became interested primarily in the philosophy of Plato, whose writings had again been brought into vogue in Byzantium during the eleventh-century renaissance under the influence of the Neoplatonic philosopher-statesman Michael Psellus. In 1380, Pletho went to the Turkish court at Brusa, or Adrianople, where he is reputed to have studied under the Jewish scholar Elisaeus. There Pletho presumably received training in the Muslim commentators on Aristotle, in...