Pietro Balbi

Pietro Balbi or Petrus Balbus (1399 – 1479) of Pisa [His contemporary, the Venetian senator Pietro Balbi, consul at Damascus, died in Damascus 6-7 December 1502 (Andrew A. Paton, "Researches on the Danube and the Adriatic" [reprinted] 2002:421f).] was an Italian humanist, a longtime member of the "familia" of Cardinal Bessarion who moved in the same circle as Nicolas Cusanus, whom he served with his expertise in Greek. During Pius II's pontificate, Balbi was the most prolific translator of Greek patristics in Rome, [Irena Dorota Backus, "The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West: From the : From the Carolingians to the Maurists" (Brill) 1997.] probably using the Greek manuscripts in Bessarion's own library. One of the "quattrocento" defenders of Plato, he translated for Cusanus [John Monfasani, "Nicholas of Cusa, the Byzantines and the Greek language", in "Nicolaus Casanus zwischen Deutschland und Italian", Martin Thurmer, ed. 2002:218f.] the epitome of Platonic Philosophy, "Disciplinarium Platonis epitome", of the second-century philosopher Albinus [Though in Balbi's Latin translation, this was the first Greek work to appear in print, as its modern editor Dillon notes. ] and the immense "Theologica Platonica" of Proclus [ H.D. Saffrey, "Pietro Balbi et la première traduction latine de la Théologie platonicienne de Proclus," "Miscellanea codicologia F.." (1979), reprinted in Saffrey, "L’Héritage des anciens".] in 1462, and circulated it in manuscript. [ At least three manuscripts of Balbi's translation survive, according to James Hankins, "Plato in the Italian Renaissance" 1990:261 note 245.] Giovanni Andrea Bussi printed his translation of Alcinous, and Cusanus cast Balbi and Bussi as interlocutors in his dialogue "De lì non aliud" in the winter of 1462.

Balbi played a role in the deconstructing of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, unmasking the dionysian corpus as apocryphal. [Recognised by John Monfasani, in "Supplementum Festivum: Studies in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller"]

In 1463 Balbi, who was bishop of Nicotera, was appointed bishop of Tropea in Calabria.

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