 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the Italian humanist philosopher and scholar was another of his students.During the sessions at Florence of the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438–1445, during the failed attempts to heal the schism of the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches, Cosimo de' Medici and his intellectual circle had made acquaintance with the Neoplatonic philosopher George Gemistos Plethon, whose discourses upon Plato and the Alexandrian mystics so fascinated the learned society of Florence that they named him the second Plato.In 1459 John Argyropoulos was lecturing on Greek language and literature at Florence, and Ficino became his pupil.