In medieval times, dilemma does not seem to have attracted much theoretical reflection, though there was an extensive literature on related genres such as insolubilia and paradoxes, which were generally treated in a logical manner. It is, therefore, interesting to see Valla discussing a whole range of examples of dilemma. The rhetoric textbook by the Byzantine émigré George of Trebizond (1396–1486), composed about 1433, was probably an important source for him. This work might also have led Vall