 Basil Bessarion (d. 1472) was, before Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), the not so grey eminence responsible for the return of Plato in the Western world. Defending Plato’s reputation from the attacks of the arch-Aristotelian George of Trebizond—attacks which were founded in a long anti-Platonic tradition—Bessarion introduced Christianized readings of Plato’s dialogues, characterizing him as the pagan philosopher best suited to Roman theology. Bessarion’s argumentative strategy not only rescued Plato, but also opened the path to an anti-metaphysical approach to Aristotelianism, while revealing to the Latin world a wealth of knowledge from his Greek cultural heritage.