 In addition to his linguistic skills, Bessarion was aided in this enterprise by a deep knowledge of the Aristotelian works, cultivated since his Bildungsjahre, as a number of studies on the contents of his library have revealed. Bessarion was not only receptive to the Aristotelian tradition, but also to its recent Latin development, as represented by Scholasticism. Again, studies of Bessarion’s library have revealed this only apparently surprising aspect of his philosophical training: Thomas Aquinas in particular was a well-known author in Byzantium, mostly because of the Greek translations of the Summa contra gentiles and of the Summa theologiae made by Demetrios Kydones in the fourteenth century. Bessarion’s familiarity with these matters also influenced the In calumniatorem Platonis, where one of the Cardinal’s recurring arguments is that George of Trebizond was essentially ignorant of the traditions (Aristotelianism and Scholasticism) he claimed were superior to Platonism (see below).