England contains much interesting detail, including
seeing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the Globe in London
on September 21, 1599.
Plautus, Titus Maccius (c. 254–184 BCE) Roman comic
playwright
Twenty of his plays, which are largely based on earlier
Greek comedies, have survived. They have a background
of Roman middle-class life and generally feature a number
of stock characters: the young lovers (whose romance is
complicated by the girl’s being a slave until it is discovered
that she is really of free birth), a devious slave who pro-
motes their interests, a braggart soldier, a miserly or lech-
erous old man, and a grasping pimp. Eight of Plautus’s
plays were known in the 14th century, and Nicholas CU-
SANUSfound a manuscript with 12 more in Cologne in
- The staging of Plautine comedies began in earnest
in Ferrara, in 1486, under the patronage of the Este fam-
ily. Meanwhile translations and imitations of Plautus
began to proliferate, and, with TERENCE, he can be ac-
counted the founder of the modern tradition of COMEDY.
Pléiade A group of seven French poets of the 16th cen-
tury. They were Pierre RONSARD, Joachim DU BELLAY, Rémy
BELLEAU, Jean-Antoine de BAÏF, Pontus de TYARD, Étienne
JODELLE, and either Peletier du Mans or Jean DAURAT(ac-
cording to some scholars Daurat became a member of the
Pléiade after the death of Peletier; others reject his mem-
bership altogether). The name was originally applied to
seven tragic poets of the third century BCEand is ulti-
mately derived from the seven stars of the constellation
known as the Pleiades. Originally known as the “Brigade,”
the group was formed by Ronsard with some of Daurat’s
other students at the Collège de Coqueret; the name “Pléi-
ade” was adopted in 1556. Its principal aims, set out in Du
Bellay’s manifesto Défense et illustration de la langue
française (1549), involved the reform of French poetry
and the French language through imitation of the linguis-
tic and stylistic techniques of classical antiquity and the
Italian Renaissance, notably the odes of Pindar and Ho-
race, the epics of Virgil and Homer, and the sonnets of PE-
TRARCH, and through the revival of archaisms, the
adoption of dialect words and technical terms, and the
coining of neologisms.
Further reading: Grahame Castor, Pléiade Politics: A
Study in Sixteenth-Century Thought and Terminology (Cam-
bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1964).
Plethon, George Gemistus (c. 1355–1450) Greek
philosopher
Plethon was born in Constantinople and became the
leader of the Platonic school of philosophy at Mistra.
Brought to the Council of FLORENCE(1438) by Emperor
John Palaeologus, he vigorously opposed the prevailing
Aristotelianism of the Italians. In Florence he became an
inspiration to the circle of humanists around Cosimo de’
MEDICI. Plethon (the name is a synonym for Gemistus—
both mean “full”—and also close to Plato in pronuncia-
tion) developed a philosophical system that owed much to
the Neoplatonism of Alexandria. He emphasized the mys-
tical side of Plato’s teaching and evolved a system in which
Greek mythology fused with Greek logic. This blend
struck a chord in the Florentines; his followers regarded
him as the reincarnation of Plato. Some time before 1441
Plethon returned to Greece where his ideas were attacked
by GENNADIUS, who accused him of paganism. In 1455
Plethon’s body was exhumed and reburied in the TEMPIO
MALATESTIANO at Rimini by Sigismondo MALATESTA.
Plethon’s influence on FICINOand PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA
was fundamental in determining the mystical character of
Florentine Platonism.
See also: PLATONISM, RENAISSANCE
Further reading: C. M. Woodhouse, George Gemistus
Plethon: The Last of the Hellenes (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon
Press, 1992).Plotinus (c. 205–c. 262) Egyptian-born philosopher
He settled around 244 at Rome, where he included among
his disciples the Greek philosopher Porphyry, who later
edited his Enneads. His profoundly mystical nature
strongly influenced his interpretation of Platonic philoso-
phy, and he is hailed as the founder of Neoplatonism. A
Latin translation with commentary was published (1492)
by Marsilio FICINO, but the Greek text was not printed
until 1580.
See also: NEOPLATONISM, RENAISSANCEPlutarch (c. 46–c. 120) Greek biographer and moral
philosopher
Plutarch exercised a major influence on two Renaissance
literary genres: on BIOGRAPHYthrough his Parallel Lives of
Greek and Roman notables and on the prose treatise
through his Moralia. The Lives appealed to the Renais-
sance emphasis on the individual and the Moralia to the
prevailing interest in ethics. Lost to the Middle Ages,
Plutarch’s works first became accessible to humanists
through epitomes and through the Latin translations of
Leonardo BRUNI, GUARINO DA VERONA, and others, and
these texts, of variable accuracy, became the basis for sub-
sequent vernacular versions. The translations of the Lives
into French (see AMYOT, JACQUES) and English (see NORTH,
THOMAS) were enormously influential in their respective
countries, and MONTAIGNEand Francis BACONwere in-
debted to the Moralia in their development of the ESSAY
form. The editiones principes of the Greek texts were the
work of the ALDINE PRESS, the Moralia appearing in 1509
and the Lives in 1519.podestà An administrator responsible for law and order
in an Italian city. If conditions were right, an opportunistppooddeessttaaìì 3 38855