John, titular patriarch of Constantinople, archbishop of Nice, and one of those illustrious persons who contributed to the revival of letters in the fifteenth century, was born at Trebizond in 1389, or, according to Bandini, in 1395. He was very zealous to reunite the Greek with the Latin church, and induced the Emperor John Palaeologus to interest himself in bringing about this great work. He passed into Italy, appeared at the council of Florence, harangued the fathers, and made himself admired as well by his modesty as by his uncommon abilities. The Greek schismatics conceived so great an aversion for him, that he was obliged to remain in Italy, where Pope Eugenius IV. honoured him with the purple in 1439. He fixed his abode at Rome, and would have been raised to the papal chair if Cardinal Alain had not represented it as injurious to the Latin church to choose a Greek, however illustrious. He was employed in several embassies; but that to France proved fatal to him. When legate at this court, he happened to visit the Duke of Burgundy before he saw Louis XI., which so displeased the capricious and tyrannical monarch, that he gave the cardinal a very ungracious reception, and even took him by his magnificent beard, saying, in his Latin patois, *Barbara Graeca genius retinent quod habere solent*; an affront which so chagrined the cardinal, as, according to Matthien, to occasion his death at Ravenna upon his return, in 1472. Bessarion loved literary men and protected them. Argropulus, Theodorus Gaza, Poggio, Laurentius Valla, and others, formed in his house a kind of academy, and pursued their studies in some measure under his direction. He left some works, as *Defensio Doctrinae Platonicae*, translations of some pieces of Aristotle, orations, epistles, &c.; and he bequeathed his valuable collection of books to the Venetian senate. He laid the foundation of the celebrated library of St Mark.