Description
This volume casts a new light on Marsilio Ficino, an extraordinary Renaissance man. Sometimes he has been thought of as an ivory-tower philosopher, who retired from the hurly-burly of life to contemplate God in the seclusion of his academy. It is true that he was a man of devotion; but when the need was there he could be a highly effective man of action. We see him using his significant influence in Florence and beyond to defend his philosophy against opposition from the Church. In this he was successful. The collected letters were first printed in Venice in 1495. This may have been because the fundamentalist priest Savonarola and the party opposed to the Medici, Ficino’s patrons, were then powerful in Florence – Lorenzo’s son and heir, Piero, had been expelled the previous year. Some material that would have been in this book on chronological grounds may also have been excluded for the same reason. This material has been included here in the Appendix together with some letters to Ficino and prefaces added to his work published at this time. The letters cover topics from friendship to healthy living and from the ancient philosophical tradition to biblical scholarship and medicine; there is discussion of the influence of the stars on human life, recommendations for reading books related to the Platonic tradition and reflections on the art of good writing and speaking.