ABSTRACT
What is usually invoked as a proof of George Gemistos’ paganism is the change of his name to Plethon, which supposedly happened in 1439 in Florence during his lectures on Plato to the humanists. The name itself, which is just a classicized form of Gemistos, certainly associates its bearer with Plato. More important is the fact that during the controversy Gemistos is never mentioned as a person influential at the court of Mistra, an eminent humanist and teacher or someone suspect of polytheism, but rather as an extreme Platonist and radical anti-Aristotelian. He thus appears as an abstract character, rather than a living person and a late colleague of the debaters. The Differences and the Reply to Scholarios whose autographs have ‘Gemistos’ written in their headings, had to be gradually subsumed under the name ‘Plethon’, which, because of its form, was naturally very appropriate to designate a determined Platonist.
