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Marsilio Ficino (Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 name: Marsilius Ficinus; October 19 1433 - October 1 1499) was one of the most influential humanist
Humanism

Humanism is a broad category of ethics that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appealing to universal human qualities, particularly rationalism, without resorting to the supernatural or alleged divine authority from religious texts....
 philosophers
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 of the early Italian Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
, an astrologer
Astrologer

An astrologer practices one or more forms of astrology. Typically an astrologer draws a horoscope for the time of an event, such as a person's birth, and interprets celestial points and their placements at the time of the event to better understand someone, determine the auspiciousness of an undertaking's beginning, etc....
, a reviver of Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism

Neoplatonism is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonism....
 who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
's complete extant works into Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
. His Florentine Academy, an attempt to revive Plato's school, had enormous influence on the direction and tenor of the Italian Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 and the development of European philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
.

no was born at Figline Valdarno
Figline Valdarno

Figline Valdarno is a comune in the Province of Florence in the Italy region Tuscany, located about 25 km southeast of Florence. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 16,769 and an area of 71.7 km?....
.






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Marsilio Ficino (Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 name: Marsilius Ficinus; October 19 1433 - October 1 1499) was one of the most influential humanist
Humanism

Humanism is a broad category of ethics that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appealing to universal human qualities, particularly rationalism, without resorting to the supernatural or alleged divine authority from religious texts....
 philosophers
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 of the early Italian Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
, an astrologer
Astrologer

An astrologer practices one or more forms of astrology. Typically an astrologer draws a horoscope for the time of an event, such as a person's birth, and interprets celestial points and their placements at the time of the event to better understand someone, determine the auspiciousness of an undertaking's beginning, etc....
, a reviver of Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism

Neoplatonism is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonism....
 who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
's complete extant works into Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
. His Florentine Academy, an attempt to revive Plato's school, had enormous influence on the direction and tenor of the Italian Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 and the development of European philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
.

Early life

Ficino was born at Figline Valdarno
Figline Valdarno

Figline Valdarno is a comune in the Province of Florence in the Italy region Tuscany, located about 25 km southeast of Florence. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 16,769 and an area of 71.7 km?....
. His father was a physician under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici
Cosimo de' Medici

C?simo di Giovanni degli M?dici , was the first of the Medici political dynasty, de facto rulers of Florence during most of the Italian Renaissance; also known as "Cosimo 'the Elder'" and "Cosimo Pater Patriae."...
, 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.

During the sessions at Florence of the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438-1445, during the failed attempts to heal the schism of the Orthodox and Catholic churches
Great Schism

The term Great Schism may refer to one of several events in Christianity:* The East-West Schism , between Western Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church Christianity....
, Cosimo de' Medici
Cosimo de' Medici

C?simo di Giovanni degli M?dici , was the first of the Medici political dynasty, de facto rulers of Florence during most of the Italian Renaissance; also known as "Cosimo 'the Elder'" and "Cosimo Pater Patriae."...
 and his intellectual circle had made acquaintance with the Neoplatonic philosopher George Gemistos Plethon
Gemistus Pletho

Georgius Gemistus , in Greek language Ge?????? ?????? Ge??st??, was a Greece Neoplatonism philosopher and scholar, one of the chief pioneers of the revival of Greek learning in Western Europe....
, whose discourses upon Plato and the Alexandrian mystics so fascinated the learned society of Florence that they named him the second Plato. In 1459 John Argyropoulos
John Argyropoulos

John Argyropoulos was a Greeks lecturer, philosopher and humanist, one of the ?migr? scholars who Greek scholars in the Renaissance the revival of learning in Western Europe in the 15th century....
 was lecturing on Greek language and literature at Florence, and Marsilio became his pupil.

When Cosimo decided to refound Plato's Academy at Florence, his choice to head it was Marsilio, who made the classic translation of Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
 from Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 to Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 (published in 1484), as well as a translation of a collection of Hellenistic Greek documents of the Hermetic Corpus - particularly the "Corpus Hermeticum" of Hermes Trismegistos
Hermetica

Hermetica is a category of popular Late Antiquity literature purporting to contain secret wisdom, and generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes", a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth....
, and the writings of many of the Neoplatonists, for example Porphyry
Porphyry (philosopher)

Porphyry of Tyre was a Phoenician Neoplatonism philosopher. He is important in the history of mathematics because of his Life of Pythagoras and his commentary on Euclid's Euclid's Elements, used by Pappus of Alexandria when he wrote his own commentary....
, Iamblichus, Plotinus
Plotinus

Plotinus was a major Philosophy of the ancient world who is widely considered the founder of Neoplatonism . Much of our biographical information about him comes from Porphyry 's preface to his edition of Plotinus' Enneads....
, et al. Following suggestions laid out by Gemistos Plethon, Ficino tried to synthesize
Syncretism

Syncretism consists of the attempt to reconcile disparate or contrary beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term may refer to attempts to merge and analogy several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, and thus assert an underlying unity allowing for an inclu...
 Christianity
Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
 and Platonism
Platonism

Platonism is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In a narrower sense the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism....
.

Work

Marsilio Ficino's main original work was his treatise on the immortality of the soul (Theologia Platonica de immortalitate animae). In the rush of enthusiasm for every rediscovery from Antiquity, Marsilio exhibited a great interest in the arts of astrology
Astrology

Astrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs which hold that the relative positions of astronomical object and related details can provide useful information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters....
, which landed him in trouble with the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church, officially known as the Catholic Church is the world's largest Christianity Ecclesia , representing over half of all Christians and one-sixth of the world population....
. In 1489 he was accused of magic before Pope Innocent VIII
Pope Innocent VIII

Pope Innocent VIII , born Giovanni Battista Cybo , was Pope from 1484 until his death....
 and needed strong defense to preserve him from the condemnation of heresy
Christian heresy

Heresy is the rejection of one or more established beliefs of a religious body, or adherence to "other beliefs." Christian heresy refers to unorthodox practices and beliefs that were deemed to be heretical by one or more of the Christian churches....
. However, in 1513, fourteen years after Ficino's death, the Roman Catholic Church declared the natural immortality of the soul as dogma; a doctrine followed later by the Protestant Church.

Zaccaria in the Temple By Dghirlandaio
Marsilio Ficino, writing in 1492, proclaimed, "This century, like a golden age
Golden age

The term Golden age in ancient Greece mythology and legend but can also be found in other ancient cultures . It refers either to the highest age in the Greek spectrum of Iron, Bronze, Silver and Golden ages, or to a time in the beginnings of Humanity which was perceived as an ideal state, or utopia, when mankind was pure and immortal....
, has restored to light the liberal arts
Liberal arts

The term liberal arts refers to the education derived from the Classical education curriculum....
, which were almost extinct: grammar
Grammar

Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics....
, poetry
Poetry

Poetry is a form of literature art in which language is used for its aesthetics and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning ....
, rhetoric
Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of using language as a means to persuade. Along with logic and dialectic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse....
, painting
Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting....
, sculpture
Sculpture

Sculpture is Three-dimensional space artwork created by shaping or combining hard and or plastic material, sound, and or text and or light, commonly Stone sculpture , metal, glass, or wood....
, architecture
Architecture

The term architecture can refer to a process, a profession or documentation.As a process, architecture is the activity of designing and construction buildings and other physical structures by a person or a computer, primarily to provide shelter....
, music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
... this century appears to have perfected astrology
Astrology

Astrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs which hold that the relative positions of astronomical object and related details can provide useful information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters....
."

His letters, extending over the years 1474 – 1494, survive and have been published. He also wrote De amore
De amore

De amore may refer to:* De amore * De amore by Marsilio FicinoSee also*D'Amore*Amor*Love...
 and the influential De vita libri tres
De vita libri tres

The De vita libri tres or Three Books on Life was written in the years 1480-1489 by Italian Platonist Marsilio Ficino. It was first circulated in manuscript form and then published in 1489....
 (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." One metaphor for this integrated "aliveness" is Ficino's astrology.

In the Book of Life, Marsilio details the interlinks between behavior and consequence. It talks about a list of things that hold sway over a man's destiny.

Death

Ficino died at Careggi
Villa Medici at Careggi

The Villa Medici at Careggi is a patrician villa in the hills near Florence, Tuscany, Italy. It was among the first of a number of Medici villas, notable as the site of the Platonic academy founded by Cosimo de' Medici, who died at the villa in 1464....
. His memory has been honored with a bust in the north side of the nave in the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore
Santa Maria del Fiore

The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is the cathedral church of Florence, Italy, begun in 1296 in the Gothic architecture style to the design of Arnolfo di Cambio and completed structurally in 1436 with the dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi....
 in Florence
Florence

Florence is the Capital city of the Italy Regions of Italy of Tuscany and of the provinces of Italy Province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany and has a population of 364,779 ....
.

See also

  • Platonic love
    Platonic love

    Platonic love is a deep and spiritual connection between two individuals: within such a relationship there does not exist any form of sexual connection or sexual elements....


Books

  • Theologia Platonica de immortalitate animae (Platonic Theology). Harvard University Press, Latin with English translation.
    • vol. I, 2001. ISBN 0-674-00345-4
    • vol. II, 2002. ISBN 0-674-00764-6
    • vol. III, 2003. ISBN 0-674-01065-5
    • vol. IV, 2004. ISBN 0-674-01482-0
    • vol. V, 2005. ISBN 0-674-01719-6
    • vol. VI with index, 2006. ISBN 0-674-01986-5
  • The Letters of Marsilio Ficino Shepheard-Walwyn, English translation with extensive notes.
    • vol. I, 1975. ISBN 0-85683-010-0
    • vol. II, 1978. ISBN 0-85683-036-4
    • vol. III, 1981. ISBN 0-85683-052-6
    • vol. IV, 1988. ISBN 0-85683-070-4
    • vol. V, 1994. ISBN 0-85683-129-8
    • vol. VI, 1999. ISBN 0-85683-167-0
    • vol. VII, 2003 ISBN 0-85683-192-1
  • De vita libri tres
    De vita libri tres

    The De vita libri tres or Three Books on Life was written in the years 1480-1489 by Italian Platonist Marsilio Ficino. It was first circulated in manuscript form and then published in 1489....
     (Three Books on Life, 1489) translated by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clarke, Tempe, Arizona: The Renaissance Society of America, 2002. with notes, commentaries and Latin text on facing pages. ISBN 0-86698-041-5
  • De religione Christiana et fidei pietate (1475–6), dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici.
  • In Epistolas Pauli commentaria, Marsilii Ficini Epistolae (Venice, 1491; Florence, 1497).
  • Meditations on the Soul: Selected letters of Marsilio Ficino, tr. by the Language Department of the School of Economic Science, London. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International, 1996. ISBN 0-89281-658-9. Note for instance, letter 31: A man is not rightly formed who does not delight in harmony, pp. 5-60; letter 9: One can have patience without religion, pp. 16-18; Medicine heals the body, music the spirit, theology the soul, pp.63-64; letter 77: The good will rule over the stars, p. 166.
  • Commentary on Plato's Symposium on Love, tr. by Sears Jayne. Spring Publications, 2nd edition, 2000. ISBN 0-88214-601-7
  • Collected works: Opera (Florence,1491, Venice, 1516, Basel, 1561).


Further reading

  • Allen, Michael J. B., Nuptial Arithmetic: Marsilio Ficino's Commentary on the Fatal Number in Book VIII of Plato's Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. ISBN 0-520-08143-9
  • Ernst Cassirer
    Ernst Cassirer

    Ernst Cassirer was a Germany Jewish philosopher. Coming out of the Marburg tradition of neo-Kantianism, he developed a philosophy of culture as a theory of symbols founded in a Phenomenology of epistemology....
    , Paul Oskar Kristeller
    Paul Oskar Kristeller

    Paul Oskar Kristeller was an important scholar of Renaissance humanism. He was last active as Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University in New York City....
    , John Herman Randall, Jr.
    John Herman Randall, Jr.

    John Herman Randall Jr. was an United States philosopher, author and educator.Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan as the son of a Baptist minister, he graduated from Morris High School in New York City and obtained his A.B....
    , The Renaissance Philosophy of Man. The University of Chicago Press (Chicago, 1948.) Marsilio Ficino, Five Questions Concerning the Mind, pp. 193-214.
  • Anthony Gottlieb, The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance (Penguin, London, 2001) ISBN 0-14-025274-6
  • Paul Oskar Kristeller
    Paul Oskar Kristeller

    Paul Oskar Kristeller was an important scholar of Renaissance humanism. He was last active as Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University in New York City....
    , Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance. Stanford University Press (Stanford California, 1964) Chapter 3, "Ficino," pp.37-53.
  • Thomas Moore, The Planets Within: The Astrological Psychology of Marsilio Ficino. Lindisfarne Books 1990: ISBN 0-940262-28-2
  • Raffini, Christine, "Marsilio Ficino, Pietro Bembo, Baldassare Castiglione: Philosophical, Aesthetic, and Political Approaches in Renaissance Platonism", Renaissance and Baroque Studies and Texts, v.21, Peter Lang Publishing, 1998. ISBN 0-8204-3023-4
  • Robb, Nesca A., Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance, New York: Octagon Books, Inc., 1968.
  • Field, Arthur, The Origins of the Platonic Academy of Florence, New Jersey: Princeton, 1988.
  • (ed) Michael Shepherd, Friend to Mankind : Marsilio Ficino, 1433-1499'. 18 essays celebrating Ficino's quincentenary in 1999. London : Shepheard-Walwyn, 1999.ISBN 0 85683 184 0
  • Allen, Michael J.B., and Valery Rees, with Martin Davies, eds. Marsilio Ficino : His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy.Leiden : E.J.Brill, 2002. A wide range of new essays.ISBN 9004118551


External links

  • Short Biography of Ficino
  • Ficino
  • Website of the International Ficino Society


Category:1433 births