On the banishment of Psellus from the capital, and his enforced entrance on a monastic life, Italus obtained the honorary title of "Chief of the Philosophers" (ὕπατος τῶν φιλοσόφων, hýpatos tōn philosóphōn); and filled the office with great appearance of learning; though he was better skilled in logic and in the Aristotelian philosophy than in other parts of science, and had little acquaintance with grammar and rhetoric.
Though protected by the patriarch Eustratius, whose favour he had won, he narrowly escaped death from the violence of the mob of Constantinople, and he was forced publicly and bareheaded to retract and anathematize eleven propositions, embodying the sentiments which he was charged with holding.
He was charged with teaching the transmigration of souls, with holding some erroneous opinions about ideas, and with ridiculing the use of images in worship; and he is said to have succeeded in diffusing his heresies among many of the nobles and officers of the palace, to the great grief of the orthodox emperor.
Notwithstanding his enforced retractation, he still continued to inculcate his sentiments, until, after a vain attempt by the emperor to restrain him, he was himself sentenced to be anathematized and banished to the Monastery Zoödochos Pege;[5] but as he professed repentance, the anathema was not pronounced publicly, nor in all its extent.
The above account rests on the authority of Anna Comnena, whose anxiety to exalt the reputation of her father, and her disposition to disparage the people of Western Europe, prevents our relying implicitly on her statements.