In this emergency, the College, sought, and found, a neutral; a partizan neither of Colonna nor of Orsini. There were two Byzantine cardinals; the one, the Lord Ioannes Bessarione, Cardinal-Bishop of Tusculum, Monk of the Religion[6] of St. Basil, Archbishop of Trebizond; the other, the Lord Isidoro of Thessalonika, Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina, Monk of the Religion of St. Basil, Archbishop of Ruthenia. Of these two, Cardinal Bessarione had many recommendations. He was a convert from the Greek Schism; he had been a pupil of Gemisthos Plethon at Constantinople; no one was of higher repute in Christian piety, more admirable in doctrine, more ornate in generous manners. (Ciacconi II. 906.) He had no enemy in the Conclave. At a juncture, like the present, the election of a Byzantine Pontiff, who naturally sympathised with the hapless Byzantines, would have secured for Christendom a champion against the triumphant Muslim Infidel. When night closed the Conclave’s deliberations, it appeared certain that Cardinal Bessarione would ascend the Throne of St. Peter on the morrow; indeed his brother-cardinals asked favours of him, as though he were already in possession of the Keys. Had he condescended to canvass the other fourteen electors, or to make the slightest exertion on his own behalf, his election would have been secure. But, in the morning of that Easter Monday, the French Archbishop of Avignon, the Lord Alain Coëtivy Britto, Cardinal-Presbyter of the Title of Santa Prassede, created a diversion against Cardinal Bessarione. “Shall we Latins,” he protested, “shall we Latins go to Greece for the Head of the Latin Church? My Lord of Trebizond has not been among us long enough to shave off his beard[7]; he is a mere neophyte, a newcomer to Italy and to the Holy Roman Church, and shall we set him over us?” All day long the cardinals debated; but no election was achieved. Night came, bringing no solution of the difficulty.