ABSTRACT
The Renaissance witnessed a brain drain of Greeks to Italy. Statistically the number of Greeks who settled in Italy was very modest. Even in Venice, emigres from Dalmatia easily outnumbered Greek emigres, and, at most, Greeks made up only 2–3% of the population of Venice, the only Italian city with a measurable Greek minority. All the pro-Latin treatises of the Greek emigres and visitors were originally written in Greek, though some, specifically those of Cardinal Bessarion and George of Trebizond, were subsequently translated into Latin. The most interesting of all the pro-Latin writings are probably those of Scholarius. Plusiadenus is a faithful and also final witness that the axiom of the consensus patrum rather than any other set of theological arguments or patristic interpretations was the decisive reason for the Union of the Council of Florence.
