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This volume consists of 21 essays on Marsilio Ficino (1433-99), the great Florentine scholar, philosopher and priest who was the architect of Renaissance Platonism and whose long-lasting influence on philosophy, love and music theory, medicine and magic extended across Europe. Grouped into three sections, they cover such topics as priesthood, the influence of Hermetic monism, Plotinus and Augustine, Jewish transmission of the "prisca theologia, the 15th c. Plato-Aristotle controversy, the soul and its afterlife, the primacy of the will, "theriac and musical therapy, the notions of matter, seeds, mirrors and clocks, and other fascinating philosophical and theological issues. Also considered are Ficino's critics, his relationship to the Camaldolese Order, his letters to princes, his influence on art, on Copernicus, on Chapman, and the nature of the Platonic Academy.
Contributors: Tamara Albertini, Michael J.B. Allen, Francis Ames-Lewis, Donald Beecher, Christopher S. Celenza, Stephen Clucas, Arthur Field, Hiroshi Hirai, Moshe Idel, Dilwyn Knox, Sergius Kodera, Jill Kraye, Dennis F. Lackner, Jvrg Lauster and Anthony Lev.
About the author
Michael J.B. Allen, DLitt (Oxon), Ph.D. (Michigan) is Professor of English at UCLA, and an Editor of Renaissance Quarterly. His books include
The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino (1984),
Icastes (1989),
Nuptial Arithmetic (1994),
Plato's Third Eye (1995) and
Synoptic Art (1998).
Valery Rees, MA (Cantab) has been a member of the translation team working on Ficino's Letters at the School of Economic Science, London since 1975 and is currently researching Ficino's relationship with the court of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary.
