Marsilio Ficino Explained

Honorific Prefix:The Reverend
Marsilio T. Ficino
Birth Date:19 October 1433
Birth Place:Figline Valdarno, Republic of Florence
Era:Renaissance philosophy
School Tradition:Christian humanism
Neohermeticism
Neoplatonism
Augustinianism
Thomism
Notable Works:
Main Interests:Theology, astrology, metaphysics
Notable Ideas:Platonic love
Prisca theologia[1]

Marsilio T. Ficino (pronounced as /it/; Latin name: Latin: Marsilius Ficinus; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism in touch with the major academics of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin.[2] His Florentine Academy, an attempt to revive Plato's Academy, influenced the direction and tenor of the Italian Renaissance and the development of European philosophy.

Early life

Ficino was born at Figline Valdarno. His father, Diotifeci d'Agnolo, was a physician under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici, who took the young man into his household and became the lifelong patron of Marsilio, who was made tutor to his grandson, Lorenzo de' Medici. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the Italian humanist philosopher and scholar, was another of his students.

Career and thought

Platonic Academy

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 humanists 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.

When Cosimo decided to refound Plato's Academy at Florence, he chose Ficino as its head. In 1462, Cosimo supplied Ficino with Greek manuscripts of Plato's work, whereupon Ficino started translating the entire corpus into Latin[3] (draft translation of the dialogues finished 1468–9;[4] published 1484). Ficino also produced a translation of a collection of Hellenistic Greek documents found by Leonardo da Pistoia later called Hermetica,[5] and the writings of many of the Neoplatonists, including Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Plotinus.

Among his many students were Niccolo Valori[6] [7] and Francesco Cattani da Diacceto. The latter was considered by Ficino to be his successor as the head of the Florentine Platonic Academy.[8] Diacceto's student, Giovanni di Bardo Corsi, produced a short biography of Ficino in 1506.[9]

Theology, astrology, and the soul

Though trained as a physician, Ficino became a priest in 1473.[10] [11] [12] In 1474 Ficino completed his treatise on the immortality of the soul, Theologia Platonica de immortalitate animae (Platonic Theology) and De Christiana Religione (On the Christian Religion), a history of religions and defense of Christianity.[13] In the rush of enthusiasm for every rediscovery from Antiquity, he exhibited some interest in the arts of astrology (despite denigrating it in relation to divine revelation), which landed him in trouble with the Catholic Church. In 1489 he was accused of heresy before Pope Innocent VIII and was acquitted.

Writing in 1492 Ficino proclaimed:

Ficino's letters, extending over the years 1474–1494, survive and have been published. He wrote De amore (Of Love) in 1484. De vita libri tres (Three books on life), or De triplici vita[14] (The Book of Life), published in 1489, provides a great deal of medical and astrological advice for maintaining health and vigor, as well as espousing the Neoplatonist view of the world's ensoulment and its integration with the human soul:

One metaphor for this integrated "aliveness" is Ficino's astrology. In the Book of Life, he details the interlinks between behavior and consequence. It talks about a list of things that hold sway over a man's destiny.

Medical works

Probably due to early influences from his father, Diotifeci, who was a doctor to Cosimo de' Medici, Ficino published Latin and Italian treatises on medical subjects such as Consiglio contro la pestilenza (Recommendations for the treatment of the plague) and De vita libri tres (Three books on life). His medical works exerted considerable influence on Renaissance physicians such as Paracelsus, with whom he shared the perception on the unity of the microcosmos and macrocosmos, and their interactions, through somatic and psychological manifestations, with the aim to investigate their signatures to cure diseases. Those works, which were very popular at the time, dealt with astrological and alchemical concepts. Thus Ficino came under the suspicion of heresy; especially after the publication of the third book in 1489, which contained specific instructions on healthful living in a world of demons and other spirits.[15]

Platonic love

Notably, Ficino coined the term Platonic love, which first appeared in his letter to Alamanno Donati in 1476. In 1492, Ficino published Epistulae (Epistles), which contained Platonic love letters, written in Latin, to his academic colleague and life-long friend, Giovanni Cavalcanti, concerning the nature of Platonic love. Because of this, some have alleged Ficino was a homosexual, but this finds little basis in his letters.[16] In his commentary on the Republic, too, he specifically denies to his readers that the homosexual references made in Plato's dialogue were anything more than jokes "spoken merely to relieve the feeling of heaviness".[17] Regardless, Ficino's letters to Cavalcanti resulted in the popularization of the term Platonic love in Western Europe.

Death

Ficino died on 1 October 1499 at Careggi. In 1521 his memory was honored with a bust sculpted by Andrea Ferrucci, which is located in the south side of the nave in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.

Works

Commentaries

The Desire for Gain

Wisdom

Virtue

Nature of Man

Prayer

Law

Holiness

The Beautiful and Noble

Friendship

Knowledge

Kingship

Virtue

The Views of the Sophists

Truthfulness

Temperance

Courage

Names

Rhetoric

Socrates' Defense

Socrates' Way of Life

Nature of the Soul

Love for One's Country

Story of Atlantis

Other translations of commentaries

Other works

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Heiser, James D., Prisci Theologi and the Hermetic Reformation in the Fifteenth Century, Repristination Press, 2011.
  2. Book: Marsilio Ficino. 2006. North Atlantic Books. Voss, Angela.. 1556435606. Berkeley, Calif.. ix–x. 65407018.
  3. Book: The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance: A Sourcebook . Kenneth R. Bartlett . K. R. . Bartlett . . 2011 . 978-1442604858.
  4. Book: Hankins, J. . Plato in the Italian Renaissance . 1990 . 300. BRILL . 9004091610 .
  5. [Frances A. Yates|Yates, Frances A]
  6. https://books.google.com/books?id=XmMRAGJVHzAC Nuovo Dizionario Istorico
  7. Niccolo Valori (died 1527) wrote a biography of Lorenzo de' Medici the elder and published posthumously in 1568.
  8. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ficino/#LifStyPlaAca Marsilio Ficino
  9. http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~orpheus/corsi.htm Annotated English translation of Corsi's biography of Ficino
  10. [Christiane Joost-Gaugier|Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier]
  11. Oskar, Kristeller Paul. Studies in Renaissance thought and letters. IV. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, 1996: 565.
  12. Web site: Three Books on Life. World Digital Library. 2014-03-01. 26 February 2014.
  13. Book: Deitz. Luc. Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts. Kraye. Jill. Marsilio Ficino. 1997. 147–155. 10.1017/CBO9780511803048.014. 9780511803048.
  14. Book: Daniel Pickering Walker. Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella. January 2000. Penn State Press. 0-271-02045-8. 3.
  15. Marsilio Ficino. Biography and introduction to The Letters of Marsilio Ficino, Volume 1 1975 Fellowship of the School of Economic Science, London. Retrieved 26 April 2014.
  16. Kaske . Carol . 2006 . Review: Marsilio Ficino. The Letters of Marsilio Ficino. . Renaissance Quarterly . 59 . 3 . 829 . 10.1353/ren.2008.0389 . 10.1353/ren.2008.0389 . 164146779 . "I find no evidence in his letters of the homosexuality of which some contemporaries and some scholars over the last fifty years have suspected him." . JSTOR.
  17. Ficino, Marsilio, "The Commentary of Marsilio Ficino to Plato's Republic", in Arthur Farndell, ed. and transl., When Philosophers Rule: Ficino on Plato's Republic, Laws, and Epinomis (Shepheard-Walwyn, 2009), p. 24.

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