Bessarion’s Orations against the Turks and Crusade Propaganda at the Große Christentag of Regensburg (1471)

Abstract

This chapter refines the argument for the publication of Bessarion’s Orations by the Sorbonne press in 1471 constituting an act of propaganda on behalf of a crusade. First, it views the initiation for the printing as resting with a triumvirate: Bessarion himself, the Paris academic and publisher Guillaume Fichet, and the Cardinal of Burgundy, Jean Rolin. All three men had an interest in promoting a crusade, and the argument highlights Rolin’s association with Burgundian aspirations. Second, the chapter establishes the links between Fichet’s publication and the great diet of Regensburg. The context here was not just the first Ottoman raids into Imperial territory, but the hopes of Bessarion’s impressive circle of friends that the Greek cardinal might be elected as successor to Pope Paul II.