Editing Academy (section)

===15th-century ''academies''===
During the [[Florentine Renaissance]], [[Cosimo de' Medici]] took a personal interest in the new [[Platonic Academy (Florence)|Platonic Academy]] that he determined to re-establish in 1439, centered on the marvellous promise shown by the young [[Marsilio Ficino]]. Cosimo had been inspired by the arrival at the otherwise ineffective [[Council of Florence]] of [[Gemistos Plethon]], who seemed a dazzling figure to the Florentine intellectuals.{{Citation needed|date=February 2008}} In 1462 Cosimo gave Ficino a villa at [[Careggi]] for the academy's use, situated where Cosimo could see it from his own villa, and drop by for visits. The academy remained a wholly informal group, but one which had a great influence on [[Platonism in the Renaissance|Renaissance Neo-Platonism]].

{{main|Roman academies}}
In Rome, after unity was restored following the [[Western Schism]], humanist circles, cultivating philosophy and searching out and sharing ancient texts tended to gather where there was access to a library. The [[Vatican Library]] was not coordinated until 1475 and was never catalogued or widely accessible: not all popes looked with satisfaction at gatherings of unsupervised intellectuals. At the head of this movement for renewal in Rome was [[Cardinal Bessarion]], whose house from the mid-century was the centre of a flourishing academy of Neoplatonic philosophy and a varied intellectual culture. His valuable Greek as well as Latin library (eventually bequeathed to the city of [[Venice]] after he withdrew from Rome) was at the disposal of the academicians. Bessarion, in the latter years of his life, retired from Rome to [[Ravenna]], but he left behind him ardent adherents of the classic philosophy.

The next generation of humanists were bolder admirers of pagan culture, especially in the highly personal academy of [[Julius Pomponius Laetus|Pomponius Leto]], the natural son of a nobleman of the [[House of Sanseverino|Sanseverino]] family, born in [[Calabria]] but known by his academic name, who devoted his energies to the enthusiastic study of classical antiquity, and attracted a great number of disciples and admirers. He was a worshipper not merely of the literary and artistic form, but also of the ideas and spirit of classic paganism, which made him appear a condemner of [[Christianity]] and an enemy of the Church. In his academy every member assumed a classical name. Its principal members were humanists, like Bessarion's protégé [[Giovanni Antonio Campani]] (Campanus), [[Bartolomeo Platina]], the papal librarian, and [[Filippo Buonaccorsi]], and young visitors who received polish in the academic circle, like [[Publio Fausto Andrelini]] of Bologna who took the [[New Learning]] to the [[University of Paris]], to the discomfiture of his friend [[Erasmus]]. In their self-confidence, these first intellectual [[Neopaganism|neopagans]] compromised themselves politically, at a time when Rome was full of conspiracies fomented by the Roman barons and the neighbouring princes: [[Pope Paul II|Paul II]] (1464–71) caused [[Julius Pomponius Laetus|Pomponio]] and the leaders of the academy to be arrested on charges of irreligion, immorality, and conspiracy against the [[Pope]]. The prisoners begged so earnestly for mercy, and with such protestations of repentance, that they were pardoned. The Letonian academy, however, collapsed.<ref>[[Ludwig Pastor]], ''History of the Popes, ii, 2, gives an unsympathetic account.</ref>

In Naples, the ''[[Quattrocento]]'' academy founded by [[Alfonso V of Aragon|Alfonso of Aragon]] and guided by [[Antonio Beccadelli (poet)|Antonio Beccadelli]] was the ''Porticus Antoniana'', later known as the ''[[Accademia Pontaniana]]'', after [[Giovanni Pontano]].