Together with Eustratius of Nicaea, he was part of a circle organized by Anna Comnena.
[2] As Michael suggests at the end of his Parva Naturalia commentary, his goal was to provide coverage of texts in the Corpus Aristotelicum that had been neglected by earlier commentators;[3] this was "part of a cooperative scholarly undertaking conceived and guided by Anna Comnena.
[5] Michael's commentaries draw on Neoplatonist ideas and on the exegetical tradition of Stephen of Alexandria.
At times they allude to contemporary Byzantine matters and include criticism of the emperor and of the current state of education.
James of Venice may have collected texts from Michael's workshop for translation into Latin.