Marsilio Ficino

Domenico Ghirlandaio. 1486-1490. Zachariah in the Temple [detail]: Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino, Angelo Poliziano and Demetrios Chalkondyles (detail). Fresco. Santa Maria Novella, Tornabuoni Cappella, Florence, Italy.

Marsilio Ficino (also known by his Latin name, Marsilius Ficinus) (Figline Valdarno, October 19, 1433 - Careggi, October 1, 1499) was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin. Marsilio Ficino worked with Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, under the patronage of Lorenzo de’Medici, at the Academy of Florentine, an attempt to revive Plato's school. He greatly influenced the direction and tenor of the Italian Renaissance and the development of European philosophy. His commentary on Plato’s “Symposium”is said to be the origin of the common term “Platonic love”.

Life

Ficino was born in 1433 at Figline in the Val d’Arno. His father, Diotifeci, was a physician under the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici. Ficino became acquainted with Cosimo de’Medici, then the leader and supporter of scholarship at the Academia of Florence. Cosimo de’ Medici 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.

Ficino studied under Niccolo Tignosi, a scholar of Aristotle, at Florence University, where he mastered Latin language and literature, and continued to study medicine. During the sessions at Florence of the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1445), a failed attempt to heal the schism between the Latin and Greek churches, Cosimo de' Medici and his intellectual circle made the acquaintance of the Neoplatonic philosopher George Gemistus Plethon (1355-1452). His discourses on Plato and the Alexandrian mystics so fascinated the learned society of Florence that they named him the second Plato. In 1459 Marsilio became the pupil of John Argyropoulos, who was lecturing on Greek language and literature at Florence. In 1462, Cosimo decided to refound Plato's Academy, situated at the Medici villa at Careggi, outside Florence, and chose Marsilio to lead it. In the Academy Ficino’s major role was translator of the philosophy of Plato from Greek into Latin. In 1470 he completed the first translation of Plato; however it was not printed until 1484. A Latin version of the works of Plotinus was accomplished in 1492. Ficino’s translations of both Plato and Plotinus remained in general use until the 18th century.

Ficino translated a collection of Hellenistic Greek documents of the Hermetic Corpus (Yates 1964), and the writings of many of the Neoplatonists, including Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Plotinus. Following suggestions laid out by Gemistos Plethon, Ficino tried to synthesize Christianity and Platonism.

In 1473 Ficino was ordained as a priest and later a Canon of Florence Cathedral.

His sermons in the Cathedral, attracted large and enthusiastic audiences. He did not hesitate to send letters to the leaders of religious orders and even to the Pope. Marsilio Ficino's most important philosophical accomplishment was his treatise on Theologia Platonica de immortalitate animae (Platonic Theology, On the immortality of the Soul)(1474). In his enthusiasm for every rediscovery from Antiquity, Marsilio exhibited an interest in the art of astrology, which aroused the suspicions of the Roman Church. In 1489 he was accused of magic before Pope Innocent VIII and only a strong defense preserved him from the condemnation of heresy.

Bust of Marsilio Ficino by Andrea Ferrucci in Florence's Cathedral.

Marsilio Ficino, writing in 1492, proclaimed, "This century, like a golden age, has restored to light the liberal arts, which were almost extinct: grammar, poetry, rhetoric, painting, sculpture, architecture, music...this century appears to have perfected astrology."

His letters, written between 1474 and 1494, survive and have been published. He also wrote De amore and the influential De vita libri tres (Three books on life.) De vita, published in 1489, provides a great deal of curious contemporary 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. "... There will be some men or other, superstitious and blind, who see life plain in even the lowest animals and the meanest plants, but do not see life in the heavens or the world ... Now if those little men grant life to the smallest particles of the world, what folly! what envy! neither to know that the Whole, in which 'we live and move and have our being,' is itself alive, nor to wish this to be so." Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life [translated by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark] (The Renaissance Society of America, Tempe AZ, 2002.) From the Apologia, p. 399. (The internal quote is from Acts 17:28.)</ref> One metaphor for this integrated "aliveness" is Ficino's astrology.

In the Book of Life, Marsilio details the interconnections between behavior and consequence, listing a number of influences that hold sway over a man's destiny.

His memory has been honored with a bust in the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.

Unity of Plato and Christ

Marsilius Ficino was ordained as a priest when he was forty years old. He desired to attract atheists and skeptics to Christ by the instrumentalities of the philosophy of Plato. Ficino initiated the merger of Christianity and Platonism.

According to legend, one day Ficino, by a miracle, recognized of the almightiness of the Virgin Mary and was suddenly converted from a heathen to a soldier of Christ. He abandoned pagan literature and became especially involved in the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. (Through history, a series of famous mystical works applying Neoplatonic language to the interpretation of Christian theological and mystical ideas, has been attributed to the Areopagite.), and in the Epistles of St. Paul. Ficino asserted that "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite" was in a the philosophical lineage of St. Paul. In his commentary on the “Phaedrus,” Ficino suggested that the love spoken of by Plato and by St. Paul are equivalent. God is absolute Beauty and absolute Good. On this topic Plato and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite are reconciled.

Ficino’s important work, the “Theologia Platonica,” in which he explained that reasonable verification of the Christian belief could be discovered in the theories of the Platonists, was completed just after his ordination. In “Theologia Platonica” the universe is described, in accordance with neo-Platonic thinking, as a harmonious and beautiful system, composed of degrees of being which range from material things up to God. Ficino emphasized the position of man as the link between the spiritual and the material. Ficino regarded the theory of Aristotle as beginning from the same philosophical heritage as the theory of Plato, and appropriated St.Augustine’s theory of Ideas, as explained in Augustinian’s Illumination. Ficino did not think it was necessary to choose between the beauty of classical thought and Christianity; people could relish both.

Influence of Ficino

Marsilio Ficino and his Plato Academy of Florence exerted a long-lasting influence on the Renaissance and on European society. Under his influence, an eminent and brilliant group of people, including Lorenzo de’ Medici, Alberti, Pico della Mirandola, assembled centered upon the Academy. Many Renaissance artists were also inspired by Ficino. The Academy became a center of pilgrimage for intellectuals.

Ficino had many talents as a philosopher, scholar, doctor, priest and musician, As a scholar he translated the whole works of Plato and many of the Greek classical writings into Latin. He was an inexhaustible worker, tried at remain true to the original meaning of the texts, and translated at amazing speed. Although he sometimes made mistakes in his translations, there can be no doubt of the advantage he bestowed on the men of his age.

He was a skilled artist and musician. When Ficino attended a certain meeting where everyone was gloomy and pessimistic because of a crusade facing the unconquerable Turks, he picked up his lyre and played a beautiful melody to create an atmosphere of self-reliance and courage. In his explanation of Platonic theology, Ficino included his theory of art and the significance of imagery in painting. In his commentary on “Symposium, De Amore” he introduced a new concept of love, Platonic love, which added grace to Renaissance art.

Ficino emphasized the immortality of the soul, which had been overlooked during the medieval period, and thus influenced the religious revival which took place during the next century. In 1512 immortality of the soul was added for the first time to the dogma of the Catholic Church by proclamation of the Lateran Council.

His memory has been honored with a bust in the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.

Note

External links

http://www.renaissanceastrology.com/ficino.html Short Biography of Ficino
Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911: Ficino
Catholic Encyclopedia entry
The Influence of Marsilio Ficino
ISBN 0-674-00345-4 Platonic Theology, vol I, Latin with English translation, 2001.
ISBN 0-674-00764-6 Platonic Theology, vol II, Latin with English translation, 2002.
ISBN 0-674-01065-5 Platonic Theology, vol III, Latin with English translation, 2003.

Reference

Yates, Frances A. 1964. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

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