John Italus

John Italus or Italos was a neoplatonic Byzantine philosopher of the eleventh century. He was Calabrian in origin, his father being a soldier. He came to Constantinople, where he became a student of Michael Psellus in classical Greek philosophy. He succeeded Psellus in his position as head of the philosophical school. Subsequently, some of his tenets were found heretic in 1076-77 by Patriarch Cosmas I of Constantinople, and in 1082 he was personally condemned, having come into conflict with Emperor Alexios I Komnenos.