Biography

John Italos was born in southern Italy in c. 1025. In 1049, he came to Constantinople with his father, a Norman mercenary, who had been hired to assist the emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (1042-1055) in his campaign against the semi-nomadic Pechenegs. There is no reliable information about his education in Italy, but upon his arrival in Constantinople, he became a pupil of Michael Psellos. In 1055, he succeeded Psellos in the Imperial School of Constantinople as ‘‘Consul of the Philosophers” and taught all branches of philosophy. The emperor Michael VII (10711078) and his brother Andronikos Doukas were among his students as well as Eustratios of Nicaea and possibly Theodore of Smyrna. In 1076/1077, Italos was accused of teachings contrary to the Christian dogma, but the emperor Michael VII Doukas (1071-1078) intervened, and he was acquitted. However, in 1082, he was again put on trial and this time he was condemned. The precise date ofhis death is unknown. It is telling that to this day, during the mass ofthe first Sunday in Lent, the so-called Synodikon of the Greek Orthodox Church is read, in which Italos is anathematized in 11 articles.

Anna Komnene refers to Italos in the Alexiad (5.8), the history she wrote of the events during the reign of her father Alexios I (1081-1118). Although in general her report is not at all complimentary about Italos’ physical appearance, character, and rhetorical abilities, she nevertheless admits that his courses attracted crowds of students and that he was better than anyone else in teaching and interpreting Aristotle’s logic. Michael Psellos (Oratoria minora 18 & 19), too, acknowledges that Italos’ style was not at all graceful, but praises him without reservation for his passionate quest for truth, the clarity of his thinking and the careful construction of his logical arguments. A negative portrait of Italos is also to be found in the twelfth century Timarion (1075-1130, ed. R. Romano). It is interesting, however, that in this text Psellos is portrayed as happy to be counted among the rhetoricians, whereas Italos is seen as someone who viewed himself as a philosopher; he tries to sit next to Pythagoras, though the latter accuses him of not getting rid of his Christian garment, and when the rhetoricians start throwing stones at him accusing him of not writing elegant speeches, Italos appeals to Aristotle and the syllogisms for assistance.