Ronchey, S. “Bessarion Venetus.” Philanagnostes. Studi in onore di Marino Zorzi, Eds. C. Maltezou, P. Schreiner and M. Losacco. Venice: Edizioni dell'Istituto Ellenico di Studi Bizantini e Postbizantini, 2008. 375-401.

Bessarion’s love for Venice, which he considered quasi alterum Byzantium, materialised in his library donation to establish a state public library in the city.  However, the Bessarion donation, the nucleus of the future Marcian Library, remained inaccessible for over eighty years beyond the Nicene Cardinal’s death.  This confirms the general diffidence of at least a part of the Venetian aristocracy toward Bessarion as well as his plan to “save Byzantium in the West.” This attitude is borne out also in the iconography of Bessarion: the Venetian portraits of the cardinal, in primis the most well-known by Gentile Bellini, reveal a grotesque image, almost a caricature. The images captured in portraits produced in the “friendly” courts of Rome, Naples, Urbino, where Bessarion resided in old-age, and Ferrara, source of more youthful portrayals, seem to be more accurate.  The sequence of depictions of the cardinal originated in these four courts offer comparison of his physiognomy, especially that of his most characteristic feature: his nose, perhaps deformed in later years by swelling caused by an infectious disease. If the iconography of Bessarion’s nose – sometimes grotesquely exaggerated, sometimes refined – on the one hand makes it difficult to establish a reliable identikit, on the other most certainly reflects the changeable attitudes towards him of the patrons of the paintings.

The essay includes plates with reproductions of some of the portraits mentioned in the text.