Marsilio Ficino - Biography, Note

Philosopher, born in Figline, NC Italy. A Latin and Greek scholar, Cosimo de' Medici appointed him head of the Platonic Academy in Florence in 1462. He devoted most of his life to translating the works of Plato and his successors into Latin from the original Greek, and trying to reconcile Platonism with Christianity.

Western Philosophers Renaissance philosophy
Bust of Marsilio Ficino by Andrea Ferrucci in Florence's Cathedral.
Name:	Marsilio Ficino
Birth:	Figline Valdarno, October 19, 1433
Death:	Careggi, October 1, 1499
School/tradition:	Neoplatonism

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.

Biography

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, 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 learned society of Florence that they named him the second Plato. In 1459 John Argyropoulos 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 from Greek to Latin (published in 1484), as well as a translation of a collection of Hellenistic Greek documents of the Hermetic Corpus (Yates 1964), and the writings of many of the Neoplatonists, for example Porphyry, Iamblichus, Plotinus, et al.

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, which landed him in trouble with the Roman Church.

His father 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.

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."

In Book of Life, Marsilio details the interlinks between behavior and consequence.

Note

^ Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life [translated by Carol V. B., Nuptial Arithmetic: Marsilio Ficino's Commentary on the Fatal Number in Book VIII of Plato's Republic. Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller, John Herman Randall, Jr., The Renaissance Philosophy of Man. The University of Chicago Press (Chicago, 1948.) Marsilio Ficino, Five Questions Concerning the Mind, pp. Paul Oskar Kristeller, 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 (Associated University Presses, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, 1982.) Robb, Nesca A., Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance, New York: Octogon Books, Inc., 1968. Meditations on the Soul: Selected letters of Marsilio Ficino, translated from the Latin by members of the Language Department of the School of Economic Studies, London. Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life (De vita libri tres) translated by Carol V.