ABSTRACT
This essay offers an analysis of the Greek epistolary poems composed by the Italian humanist Francesco Filelfo (1398–1481). Filelfo’s so-called De psychagogia, which is dedicated to Bessarion, consists of 44 Greek poems in elegiac and Sapphic meters. The epistolary character of these poems is indicated by their abundant use of direct address and of the “friendship” topos, which is characteristic of both Byzantine and Latin letters. Filelfo’s addressees include intellectuals and leading figures of his time such as Bessarion, John Argyropoulos, Theodore Gazes, and Isidore of Kiev. The Ottoman question plays an important role in his oeuvre. While most of the verse letters deal with the Ottoman expansion in very negative terms, the poem addressed to sultan Mehmed II is more ambivalent: while full of praise, Filelfo also states that the sultan cannot fully exploit his power because he is not a Christian.
