Linacre's influence on English medicine / by Sir George Newman.

  • George Newman
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Linacre's influence on English medicine / by Sir George Newman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    proved the seed-ground of the Platonic Academy of the Medicis, which exerted an influence which altered the course of English Medicine. The Council opened its proceedings at Ferrara for the purpose of determining some contested points, both of doctrine and discipline, between the Greek and Latin Churches, preparatory to a proposed union; but the plague made its appearance at Ferrara and the Council was transferred to Florence. On this occasion not only the Pope and several of his cardinals, but the Greek patriarch and his metro¬ politans, and the Emperor of the East, John Paleologus, attended in person. For the purpose of conducting these important debates each of the parties had selected representative disputants emin¬ ent for their rank and learning. Among those chosen on the part of the Greeks were Gemisthos Pletho of Constantinople and Cardinal Bessarion.* Gemisthos was 84 and proved himself an eloquent defender of Plato against Aristotle, and indeed it was he who, in Italy, differentiated the respective claims of the two and initiated the grand dispute in the West continued to our own time. He was sup¬ ported by Bessarion, who though commending the Hellenic Aristotle in contradistinction to the Arabic Aristotle, sought a harmony in Plato. Both Gemisthos and Bessarion declared in favour of the original Greek, but looked upon Plato as the idealis¬ tic and transcendental interpreter and Aristotle as the naturalistic. The issue in Florence, according to Villari, was whether Nature be the manifestation of the divine and universal spirit informing and ruling the world, or whether Nature was merely * See Robertson’s History of the Christian Church, 1858, vols. i.-iv.; Greek Medicine in Rome, T. C. Allbutt, 1921; and Life of Lorenzo de Medici, W. Roscoe, 1796, for origins of Greek influence in Italy from seventh century, B.C., to 1439-
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