John Monfasani

Monfasani has a broad interest in European intellectual history, with a special focus on Renaissance intellectual and religious history, but his expertise includes also Byzantine history, the history of early and medieval Christianity, and Early Modern Political and Social history. He has published mainly on Greek and Latin humanists in fifteenth-century Italy, particularly the enigmatic Greek émigré George of Trebizond. After the book George of Trebizond: A Biography and a Study of His Rhetoric and Logic (1976; John Nicholas Brown prize of the Medieval Academy of America in 1980) he also published Collectanea Trapezuntiana. Texts, Documents, and Bibliographies of George of Trebizond (1984). In his work through the years, Monfasani has been hunting for original texts and has made discoveries that correct the accepted historical record. The Variorum collection of his essays (Language and Learning in Renaissance Italy, 1994; Byzantine Scholars in Renaissance Italy: Cardinal Bessarion and Other Emigrés: Selected Essays, 1995; Greeks and Latins in Renaissance Italy: Studies on Humanism and Philosophy in the 15^thCentury, 2004) remains an invaluable reference in the field of Renaissance studies. His most recent book is entitled George Amiroutzes: The Philosopher and His Tractates (2011). He has been the Executive Director of the Renaissance Society of America from 1994 to 2010.