But in the first reaction against the now barren Peripatetic philosophy, the school to which Bruno turned, with so many of his fellow-countrymen, was that which nominally derived from Aristotle's immediate predecessor. The revival of Platonism in its secondary form of Neoplatonism was one of the most marked traits of the time. In connection with the attempt to unite the Greek and Latin Churches in 1438, a Greek scholar came from Constantinople,--one _Georgius Gemistus_ (Gemistus Plethon),--to the court at Florence, and there opened the minds of the Italians to the beauty of the Platonic philosophy. Its mystical world of ideas charmed all who were embued with the new spirit--romantic, adventurous, hopeful, self-confident. The Ideas, it is true, were materialised and personified in the transition through Neoplatonism, and it was as spirits of the stars and worlds, demons of the earth and sea, the living souls of plants and stones, that they appealed to minds fed on the grosser fare of mediæval superstition. Plethon's lectures, uncritical as they were, ensured the spread of Platonism in Italy. Bessarion of Trebizond, Marsilio Ficino, who became head of the Platonist Academy at Florence, and Pico of Mirandula followed in his steps. Both Ficino and Pico are mentioned by Bruno, and his knowledge of Plato, as of Plotinus, Porphyry, and other Neoplatonists, was derived, almost certainly, from Ficino's translations. The teaching of Plato was interpreted in the light of, and confused by admixture with, the mystical ideas of Philo and Plotinus, of Porphyry and Iamblichus, of the Jewish Cabala, and the mythical sayings of Egyptian, Chaldean, Indian, and Persian sages. The new world was struggling for light, and it rushed towards every gleam of brightness, however feeble. Thus in the address to the senate at Wittenberg before leaving the university, Bruno named the foremost of those whom he regarded as Builders of the Temple of Wisdom: the list begins with the Chaldeans among the Egyptians and Assyrians; there follow Zoroaster and the Magi among the Persians, the Gymnosophists of India, Orpheus and Atlas among Thracians and Libyans, Thales and other wise men among the Greeks,--and so down to Paracelsus in Bruno's own century. The fantastic grouping is characteristic of the uncritical syncretism of this last phase of Neoplatonism: Plethon had conjoined the dogmas of Plato with those of Zoroaster, and had confirmed both by illustrations from Greek mythology. Among the most widely read works were those of Iamblichus the Platonist, who died early in the fourth century,--the _Life of Pythagoras_, and especially the _Mysteries of the Egyptians_.[181] Another work, in many books, which has not come down to us, but which penetrated into the literature of the middle ages, was on the _Perfect Theology of the Chaldaeans_. To Iamblichus, as to Plotinus, the Ideal world was a hierarchy of Gods, from the