Ioane Petritsi

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Ioane Petritsi (Georgian: იოანე პეტრიწი, also transliterated as Johannes Petritzi, and Joane Petrizi) was a Georgian Neo-Platonist philosopher of the 11th or 12th century, best known for his translations of Proclus, with an extensive commentary. In later sources, he is also referred to as Ioane Chimchimeli (იოანე ჭიმჭიმელი).

There is no reliable information on Petritsi's biography except for indirect indications in his own works and a few details provided by the 18th-century Georgian scholarship. He is reported to have been born into an aristocratic family from the province of Samtskhe, and educated at Constantinople under the tutelage of Michael Psellos and John Italus. After the fall of Italus, Ioane seems to have fled to the Georgian monastery of Petritsoni in Bulgaria, whence comes his epithet Petritsi. He translated many philosophical works, principally Neo-Platonist, with the aim of reconciling the Classical ideas with the principal message of Christianity. His broad philosophic outlook brought him into collision with the Georgian patristic orthodoxy, until the king David IV of Georgia eventually established him at Gelati Academy. He translated Aristotle, Proclus, Nemesius, Ammonius Hermiae, components of the Bible, hagiography, and some other pieces. Of his few original works, an extensive commentary to Proclus and Neo-Platonism is the most important. But he also composed ascetic and mystic poetry, and hymns.

Both in his philosophy and his literary style, Petritsi had a long lasting influence on Georgian philosophic thought and literature, which became more prominent in the 18th century under the reformist scholar Catholicos Anton I.^[1]