Marsilio Ficino

Italian philosopher and theologian

• Born: October 19, 1433
• Birthplace: Figline, Republic of Florence (now in Italy)
• Died: October 1, 1499
• Place of death: Careggi, near Florence, Republic of Florence (now in Italy)

The foremost Platonic philosopher of the Renaissance, Ficino translated the writings of Plato and the Neoplatonists, headed the Platonic Academy in Florence, attempted to reconcile Plato’s thought with Christianity, and wrote voluminously about a variety of philosophical issues.

Early Life

Marsilio Ficino (mahr-SEEL-yoh fee-CHEE-noh) was the eldest son of Diotifeci Ficino, a respected doctor to the ruler of Florence, Cosimo I de’ Medici. Little is known about Ficino’s mother, Alessandra, except that she lived to an advanced age and was greatly admired by her son. With his upper-class background, he had the advantage of a good education in religion and philosophy. In Pisa, he studied under an Aristotelian scholar, Niccolo Tignosi, and he also was a student at Florence University. Despite his brilliance, Ficino apparently never completed an advanced degree.

By 1452, Ficino had become fascinated by Plato’s writings, which were being avidly discussed by Humanists in Italy. About 1456, before learning to read classical Greek, Ficino wrote a long essay entitled “Platonic Institutions” (now lost). Cosimo, who had long admired Plato, convinced Ficino to perfect his Greek before trying to publish in the field. The archbishop of Florence, Saint Antoninus, concerned about the dangers of heresy, cautioned Ficino that he should study less of Plato and more of Saint Thomas Aquinas advice that he followed partially.

By 1460, Ficino was widely recognized as an outstanding scholar of classical works. His surviving essays of the period are devoted to a large variety of ancient thinkers, including the materialist Lucretius and the legendary occultist Hermes Trismegistus. Because of Ficino’s seriousness as a scholar, Cosimo chose him as tutor to the young Lorenzo de’ Medici, who would later rule Florence. In 1462, Cosimo provided Ficino with many Greek texts and a rural home a few miles outside Florence at the Medici’s villa in Careggi, thus establishing the Platonic Academy. It was at about this time that Ficino decided also to prepare for the priesthood.

Life’s Work

Ficino was called a “translating machine” because of his many translations of classical Greek writings into Latin. By about 1464, he had completed his first major translation, which attained wide circulation, of Corpus Hermeticum, a collection of works attributed to Hermes Trismegistus but most likely a compilation by various Alexandrian scholars from the second and third centuries.

Ficino then began to translate all the known works of Plato. By about 1469, he had finished the first complete translation of Plato’s dialogues, which was finally published in 1484. Ficino also published a commentary on Plato’s Symposion (399-390 b.c.e.; Symposium, 1701). His translation and commentary of Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus (205-270) was begun in 1484 and published in 1492. His translations of Porphyry (c. 234-c. 305), Proclus (c. 410-485), and other classical writers appeared in the late 1490’s.

In 1473, Ficino was ordained a Dominican priest, and he later became a canon at the Florence cathedral. He wrote frequently that priests performed God’s work among humans. Large numbers of people flocked to hear his sermons at the cathedral. Ficino spent most of his time as the leader and guiding spirit of the Platonic Academy, which developed into one of the intellectual centers of the Italian Renaissance. Rather than being a structured institution with a formal curriculum, the academy was a loosely organized community of friends who held conversations and delivered public lectures about Platonic and Neoplatonic topics. Several distinguished scholars, such as Giovanni Pico della Mirandola , spent considerable time at the academy.

Ficino’s most important work, Theologia platonica (1482; Platonic Theology , 2001-2003), was primarily a series of Platonic arguments in favor of the soul’s immortality. His treatise, De Christiana religione (1474; the Christian religion), presented a rather abstract interpretation of Christianity. His controversial book about medicine and astrology, De vita libri tres (1489; The Three Books of Life , 1980), led to many charges of heresy. He also published his personal correspondence, Epistolae (1495; The Letters of Marsilio Ficino , 1975), which is now recognized as a rich source of Renaissance thought.

One of Ficino’s major goals was to reconcile Christianity and Platonic philosophy. As a Catholic priest, he acknowledged the truthfulness of the Christian religion, and he asserted that Christianity and Platonic philosophy believed in the same universal truth. While endeavoring to be orthodox, he expressed a tolerant attitude toward other religions, and his approach to Catholic dogma tended to be metaphorical rather than literal. He considered Plato and Plotinus to have been divinely inspired, usually quoting them in preference to Christian theologians. He simply ignored topics such as the Inquisition, and he implicitly defended a syncretistic concept of natural religion, anticipating the perspective of Edward Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648) and the eighteenth century deists.

Ficino emphasized the doctrine of the soul’s immortality, which he considered a natural desire implanted in all people. Without this hope, in his view, human existence could have no ultimate meaning. He argued that the nonexistence of an afterlife was inconsistent with the perfection of natural order and the goodness of God. Skeptical critics responded that such arguments were circular. Ficino tended to minimize and spiritualize the Church’s teachings on future punishment, interpreting hell as an absence of the divine presence rather than a place of physical torment.

Ficino emphasized the concept of love, which he approached from a mystical than an ethical perspective. He believed that love among human beings was preparation for the love of God the ultimate goal of human existence. True love among persons was a product of love for God more than a practical outgrowth of social conditions. Although coining the term “Platonic love” to describe to Plato’s teachings about the topic, he preferred to speak of “divine love,” which he described as the force holding the universe together.

With his Neoplatonic way of looking at the universe, Ficino declared that the source of all existence was God, from which all things originate and to which all things aspire to return. The elements of nature, including the human soul and physical matter, were part of a chain of being that proceeded, by emanation, from the divine mind. The idea that the human soul was midway between the divine and the carnal provided Ficino with a metaphysical foundation for an optimistic view of human dignity. He therefore downplayed the Christian doctrines of human sinfulness and Christ’s atonement. Based on a Neoplatonic idea of a world soul, he emphasized the value of spiritual meditation as a means for attaining a direct understanding and enjoyment of divine love. Perceiving the stars and planets to be a part of this unified cosmos, moreover, he often applied principles of astrology to predict future events.

The personal life of Ficino was relatively uneventful. He devoted most of his energy to studying, discussing, and writing about philosophical matters. Following the expulsion of the Medici regime from Florence in 1494, he retired to his villa in Careggi. Although initially admiring some of Girolamo Savonarola’s reforms, he was soon shocked by their fanatical excesses. He was bitter and depressed about political conditions at the time of his death in 1499.

Significance

Ficino’s writings, translations, and correspondence had tremendous influence during his own lifetime and in subsequent centuries. Because of the particular time that the printing press was brought to Italy, he became the first important philosopher to have his writings published for widespread circulation. Ficino did more than any other person to expand knowledge about Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy.

Several of his associates and pupils, such as Pico della Mirandola and John Colet, became outstanding Humanist writers of the period. Ficino’s doctrine of Platonic love inspired poets, while his philosophical speculations about immortality and other issues elicited debate among philosophers. Even Aristotelians such as Pietro Pomponazzi were indirectly influenced by some of his ideas.

During the sixteenth century, Ficino’s writings were reprinted, discussed, and quoted throughout Europe. His influence was especially strong on Giordano Bruno and other speculative thinkers. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, philosophers tended to neglect Ficino’s original writings, even though his translations of Plato and Plotinus continued to exercise a powerful influence. In the nineteenth century, historians of the Renaissance became fascinated by Ficino, and they recognized the critical distinction between his own ideas and those of Plato. As Ficino’s work is increasingly translated into English and other languages, many find Ficino’s ideas relevant to their own concerns today.

Bibliography

Allen, Michael J. B., and Valery Rees, eds. Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy. Boston: Brill, 2001. Essays about various aspects of Ficino’s thought and influence. Allen is recognized as the greatest Ficino scholar of his generation.

Collins, Ardis. The Secular Is Sacred: Platonism and Thomism in Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology. The Hague, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhof, 1974. Arguing that Ficino relied on Thomas Aquinas, Collins unfortunately does not address adequately the differences between Ficino’s tolerance and Saint Thomas’s condemnation of unorthodox doctrines.

Copenhaven, Brian, and Charles Schmitt. Renaissance Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Chapter 3 of this useful synthesis has an excellent and readable summary of Ficino’s ideas.

Kristeller, Paul Oscar. The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino. 1943. Reprint. Gloucester, England: Peter Smith, 1987. A classic work, often reprinted, written by an outstanding specialist on the intellectual history of the Italian Renaissance. During more than half a century, Kristeller published many valuable books and specialized articles devoted to Ficino.

Raffini, Christine. Marsilio Ficino, Pietro Bembo, and Baldassare Castiglione. New York: Peter Lang, 1998. A good summary of the life and thought of three major Platonists of the Renaissance.

School of Economic Science, London, trans. The Letters of Marsilio Ficino. 7 vols. London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1975. A translation of Epistolae. The first volume contains an excellent introduction to Ficino’s life and ideas. Many of Ficino’s letters summarize his large books.

Shepherd, Michael, ed. Friend to Mankind: Marsilio Ficino, 1433-1499. London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 2000. A sympathetic analysis of Ficino’s vision of creation as a loving unity, with interesting selections from his writings.