Abstract
In Ficino’s vision, we are a microcosm of the universe. We are bound to it by a ‘holy pact’. The little world of our inner selves is a mirror reflection in minutiae of the larger self of our universe.s To put it another way, just as the macrocosm is an expression, through a series of reflections, of God, so we too reflect him in an internal emanation of ‘worlds’. Our souls are created as a new universe in its entirety. We reflect every level internally. Externally, we have been given a central place in the hierarchy of being with the power to look both up and down. We can move in both directions and, to a certain extent, choose our place in the universe.
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Notes
- 1.
P. Watts (1987) ‘Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and three Renaissance Neoplatonists: Cusanus, Ficino, and Pico on Mind and Cosmos’ in Supplementum Festivum, J. Hankins, J. Monfasani and F. Purnell Jr (eds) (Binghamton, New York: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies), p. 293.
- 2.
‘Similiter imago in speculo eodem actu vultum respicit quo a vultu aspicitur, et sicut aspiciendo fit, ita respiciendo servatur. Eadem est animae ad deum similitudo…’ Theologia Platonica IV, pp. 48–9. Please note the similarities here to both the Kabbalistic story of creation and the work of Levinas.
- 3.
1 Corinthians 13:12.
- 4.
‘Timaeus Commentary’ summa 29, cited by Allen, ‘Cultura Hominis’, Garfagnini Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, p. 184.
- 5.
Allen ‘Phaedrus’, p. 3.
- 6.
Domandi Individual and the Cosmos, p. vii. See also Allen Nuptial Arithmetic, p. 109. Allen explores the difficulty Ficino has in differentiating between providence, fate and nature, and the human faculties of mens, ratio, idolum and natura: ‘Not only does he encounter problems in integrating the ancient concept of the idolum, but he is intent on schematically isolating our ratio; whereas our mens is tied (subnectatur) to providence, our idolum to fate, and our single natura to universal nature, our ratio is free to ally itself now with this faculty, now with that (“per rationem nostri iuris sumus omnino”)’ Nuptial Arithmetic, p. 211.
- 7.
‘Et quia ipsa vera est universorum connexio, dum in alia migrat, non deserit alia, sed migrat in singula ac semper cuncta conservat, ut merito dici possit centrum naturae, universorum medium, mundi series, vultus omnium nodusque et copula mundi.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 242–3.
- 8.
‘Reliqua enim sub Deo unum quiddam in se singula sunt, haec omnia simul. Imagines in se possidet divinorum, a quibus ipsa dependet, inferiorum rationes et exemplaria, quae quodammodo et ipsa producit. Et cum media omnium sit, vires possidet omnium. [Quod] si ita est, transit in omnia.’ from Raymond Marcel’s edition and translation of ThéologiePlatonicienne de l’immortalité des âmes (Paris, 1964–70) cited and translated into English by Allen, ‘Marsilio Ficino’s Interpretation of Plato’s Timaeus’, pp. 339–400 and p. 339, n. 1.
- 9.
‘Anima movet quidem aliud, sed a seipsa movetur… …id est sua proprietate mutabilem.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 222–5.
- 10.
So Ernst Cassirer states that the being and value of man ‘can only be described dynamically, and not statically’. Our essence lies in the ‘meaning and the movement of pure becoming’, Individual and the Cosmos, p. 84.
- 11.
‘Quoniam autem ipsum rationalis animae genus, inter gradus huiusmodi medium obtinens, vinculum naturae totius apparet, regit qualitates et corpora, angelo se iungit et deo, ostendemus id esse prorsus indissolubile, dum gradus naturae connectit; praestantissimum, dum mundi machinae praesidet; beatissimum, dum se divinis insinuate.’ Theologia Platonica I, pp. 16–7.
- 12.
G. Pico della Mirandola (1956) ‘Oration on the Dignity of Man’, E.L. Forbes (trans.) in E. Cassirer, P.O. Kristeller and J.H. Randall Jr. (eds) The Renaissance Philosophy of Man (Chicago: Phoenix Books, Univ. of Chicago), pp. 224–5.
- 13.
Allen contrasts Pico’s and Ficino’s positions: ‘Ficino speculates that we are or mirror all things, not because of what we will, but in that we share in the variety and order of, and within, the cosmic spheres because we are compounded from intellectual and physical parts which are similarly ordered’; whereas Pico stresses Adam’s freedom to choose. Allen, ‘Cultura Hominis’, pp. 185–6.
- 14.
G. Pico della Mirandola (1965) Heptaplus, D. Carmichael (trans.) (Indianapolis, New York and Kansas City: The Babbs-Merrill Company), p. 135.
- 15.
Allen believes that Pico is not talking about being outside but that we are able to move around, unlike other beings. This would ‘platonise’ Pico’s idea of man: it ‘is indebted, I am suggesting, not only to the notions of limit and the indeterminate in the Philebus and correlatively to the ontology of the Sophist, but more particularly to the great myths of the Timaeus and Phaedrus, and to the notions of the universal paradigm, the intelligible world, and the Idea of Man in the Timaeus and Parmenides; in other words, to Platonic anthropology and cosmology and to their accompanying epistemology.’ Allen, ‘Cultura Hominis’, pp. 186–7, p. 192.
- 16.
Hankins and Allen refer to a pentadic structure of One, Mind, Soul, Quality and Body that derives from Proclus, but is then read back into Plotinus, and then reread through Zoroaster by Ficino, Theologia Platonica, I, p. xv.
- 17.
‘The corporeal world is perceived through sensation and the imagination, the animate through the reason (with the intellect), the intellectual through the intellect (with the reason), and the intelligible with the intellect alone....’ (‘Mundus corporeus sensu et imaginatione percipitur, animalis autem ratione cum intellectu, intellectualis vero intellectu cum ratione, intelligibilis autem intellectu solo....’) Commentaries on Plato vol 1 ‘Phaedrus’, pp. 94–5.
- 18.
‘Timaeus Commentary’ summa 29, Allen, ‘Cultura Hominis’, p. 184.
- 19.
Allen, ‘Marsilio Ficino’s Interpretation of Plato’s Timaeus’, p. 401.
- 20.
‘Infusio quae a supernis manat in animam una stabilis subita fit et aeterna, et quantum, in se est, similia quoque in anima operatur, id est subita et stabilia et aeterna.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 228–31.
- 21.
‘Similiter apud Platonicos anima rationalis perpetuo quodam lumine deum quodammodo et angelum cogitat sive auguratur, seque ipsam appetit ad eorum similitudinem pingere, tum speculatione, tum moribus atque actione. Sese paulatim formando se movet.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 228–9.
- 22.
‘So the third essence, starting from itself, circles perpetually back to itself, by unfolding its powers from the highest powers, through the middle and down to the lowest, and likewise by enfolding them again commencing from the lowest, through the middle, and up to the highest. If this is so, it must be aware of itself and what it contains within itself.’ (‘Igitur essentia illa a seipsa incipiens perpetuo in seipsam revolvitur, vires suas a summis per medias ad infimas explicando, ac rursus infimas per medias ad summas similiter replicando. Si ita est, seipsam et quae possidet intus animadvertit.’) Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 244–5.
- 23.
‘Dum divinis haeret, quia spiritaliter illis unitur et spiritalis unio gignit cognitionem, illa cognoscit. Dum implet corpora, intrinsecus illa movens, illa vivificat. Est igitur divinorum speculum, vita mortalium, utrorumque connexio.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 236–7.
- 24.
‘Third, it is undivided, because it looks up at things above which are fully unified; but it is divided, because it sinks down towards things below which are utterly divided.’ (‘Individua tertio, quia suspicit superiora quae admodum sunt unita; dividua, quia ad inferiora declinat, quae plurimum dividuntur.’) Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 240–1.
- 25.
‘Talis quaedam natura in ordine mundi videtur summopere necessaria, ut post deum angelumque, qui neque secundum tempus neque secundum dimensionem dividui sunt, ac supra corpus et qualitates quae tempore dimensioneque dissipantur, sit medium competens, quod temporali quidem discursione quodammodo dividatur, non tamen sit dimensione divisum; neque rursus in sua quadam natura collectum maneat semper ut illi, neque in partes discerpatur ut ista, sed individuum sit pariter et dividuum.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 240–1.
- 26.
‘Fons unitatis deus, fons multitudinis angelus, fons motionis est anima. Deus per seipsum unitas, angelus per deum est unus, per se multiplex. Anima per deum una, per dei umbram—id est, quia sub deo est simul cum angelo—multiplex, per seipsum mobilis.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 222–3.
- 27.
‘…man is mortal through the body but immortal through the soul.’ ‘Timaeus Commentary’ summa 29, Allen, ‘Cultura Hominis’, p. 184. Pico agrees: ‘…man is not this weak and earthbound thing we see, but a soul, an intelligence, which transcends all the boundaries of heaven and all the passage of time.’ Heptaplus, p. 104.
- 28.
Allen, ‘Ficino’s indebtedness to Hermias’, p. 127.
- 29.
‘…the light of the intellect for understanding all things is the same God himself, by whom all things are made’ Ficino, ‘Symposium’, p. 134
- 30.
‘Quo enim propinquior mens est unitati divinae, eo est unita magis et simplex; quo remotior, contra.’ Theologia Platonica, V, p. 238–9.
- 31.
‘Alterum vero huic subinde contiguum uniens maxime Cum intelligibili mundo, summus videlicet actus intelligentiae intuitusque subitus.’ Commentaries on Plato vol 1, pp. 68–71.
- 32.
Bruce Gordon argues that our highest part can participate in the contemplation of God by emulating the angels. ‘The Renaissance Angel’, p. 52.
- 33.
‘Mens autem illa, quae est animae caput et auriga, suapte natura angelos imitata, non successione sed momento quod cupit assequitur, immo habitu quodam et, ut vult Plotinus, actu simul continet omnia.’ Theologia Platonica, IV, pp. 140–1.
- 34.
‘The Platonists compare our mind to a private sun, our reason to this sun’s light, our idolum to a ray of this light, our nature to the ray’s reflection or splendor, or (to put it more accurately) its shadow.’ (‘Mentem nostram soli cuidam nostro, rationem solis huius lumini, idolum luminis huius radio, naturam radii reflexioni, id est splendori et, ut rectius loquar, umbrae Platonici comparant.’) Theologia Platonica, IV, pp. 140–1.
- 35.
Theologia Platonica, III, pp. 206–7.
- 36.
Allen Synoptic Art, p. 143.
- 37.
‘But just as the life-giving part [of the soul] brings about change, generates, nourishes, and causes growth by means of inborn seeds, so the internal sense and the mind make all their judgements by means of innate formulae, and yet aroused by external objects. Judgement indeed is nothing other than the formula’s passage from some potency into act.’ (‘Sed quemadmodum pars vivifica per insita semina alterat, generat, nutrit et auget, ita interior sensus et mens per formulas innatas quidem et ab extrinsecis excitatas omnia iudicant. Neque aliud quicquam est hoc iudicium quam transitus formulae a potentia quadam in actum.’) Theologia Platonica, III, pp. 212–3. ‘The formulae help us to ‘flee’ from simple external objects towards what is common to them (communia) and to seek the inmost recesses of the mind (intima mentis penetralia) where we encounter the intelligibles closest to us, (the remote ones are the Ideas). Closest intelligibles are infused in us by the prime ideas because they are more perfect. The formulae can also be activated imperfectly.’ Allen, Synoptic, p. 169.
- 38.
‘...cuius essentia semper eadem permanet. Quod significat stabilitas voluntatis atque memoriae. Operatio autem ex eo mutatur quod non simul cogitat omnia, sed gradatim, neque momento alit, auget et generat corpus, sed tempore.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 58–9.
- 39.
Theologia Platonica, III, pp. 224–5.
- 40.
‘Knowledge, because it deals with such principles, is therefore incorporeal; therefore truth is incorporeal too. Consequently judgements about the truth of things—what it is, and is discovered, what is close to it or far from it—are made not by any of the senses but comes about by reason alone, and particularly when it removes itself from the illusions of the senses and of bodies.’ (‘Quapropter scientia, cum in his versetur, est incorporea; igitur et veritas incorporea. Quo fit ut de ipsa veritate rerum quid sit, qua ratione constet inveniaturque, quid ipsi sit propinquius quidve remotius, non sensus ullus, immo sola ratio iudicet, et tunc potissimum quando sese a sensuum corporumque fallacia sevocat’) Theologia Platonica, II, pp. 282–5.
- 41.
(‘Quandoque ratio menti cohaeret, ubi surgit in providentiam, quandoque idolo obsequitur et naturae, ubi fatum suo quodam subit amore, dum sensibus confisa huc et illuc rerum sensibilium occursu distrahitur, quandoque omissis aliis in se ipsam se recipit, ubi aut res alias perquirit argumentando aut indagat semetipsam. Usque adeo vis haec media propriaque animae et libera est et inquieta,’) Theologia Platonica, IV, pp. 142–3.
- 42.
Ficino, in a Letter to Giovanni Cavalcanti, Letters, I, pp. 80–1.
- 43.
‘Letter’, V, p. 25
- 44.
Theologia Platonica, V, pp. 36–7: ‘The order of nature requires, moreover, that there exist: (i) a pure [or absolute] good; (ii) an intellectual good, a pure intellect, (iii) an ensouled intellect, a pure soul, and (iv) a corporeal soul. In this hierarchy the first is God, the second, angel, the third, rational soul, but the fourth, irrational soul.’ (‘Requirit insuper ordo naturae ut sit bonum purum et bonum intellectuale (intellectus purus) et intellectus animalis (anima pura) et anima corporalis. Primum deus est, secundum angelus, tertium anima rationalis. Anima vero irrationalis est quartum.’)
- 45.
‘...quae alit corpus in corpore, sentit corporalia per corpus, movet corpus per locum regitque in loco, quam vim idolum, id est simulacrum rationalis animae Platonici nuncupant. In hoc idolo insunt semina motionum et qualitatum omnium quae in corpore explicantur ab anima.’ Theologia Platonica, IV, pp. 134–5. Idola are conceptually from ancient Greece. They are the images from objects that we see in mirrors. Allen tells us that the later Platonists describe the idolum ‘as the densest and most visible form of the spiritual body, to its being in some respects the shadow self or the other residual self.’ So what we might read as a ‘shade’ of a once living person appearing is an idolum. There is almost the sense of the doppelganger effect, what Allen calls a ‘demonic duality’ to people where we are not souls tied to bodies, but higher souls tied to lower secondary souls that are ‘images or reflections of themselves.’ ‘At Variance’, p. 42. Hankins argues that Ficino is using a very Plotinian definition of the idolum as ‘an image or irradiation of itself [the soul] projected into the body’, which experiences bodily passions and by which the body is controlled. Clucas, Forshaw and Rees, introduction to Laus Platonici discussing Hankins, ‘Monstrous Melancholy’, pp. 5–6.
- 46.
‘Haec ratio est, quam inter mentem animae caput et idolum animae pedem mediam collocamus.’ Theologia Platonica, IV, pp. 138–41.
- 47.
Republic, X, 595–602
- 48.
‘Hence sight, which is purer than the other senses, perceives more swiftly and sharply, and impresses the marks of objects more deeply on us.’ (‘Unde visus, quia est purior reliquis, sentit celerius et acutius altiusque nobis infingit rerum notas.’) Theologia Platonica, III, pp. 156–7.
- 49.
‘Certainly, love (as all philosophers define it) is the longing for beauty. But we come to that light, that grace, proportion, number and measure [of the body] only through thinking, seeing and hearing. It is thus far that the true passion of a true lover extends.’ Letters, I, p. 91, Letter to Giovanni Cavalcanti. There is one exception, kissing, which we shall examine in Chap. 6.
- 50.
De Amore (1468–1469) in ‘Phaedrus’, p. 224.
- 51.
Ficino does not always distinguish, as here, between imagination and phantasia, Theologia Platonica, II, p. 388, n. 2. See, for instance, Theologia Platonica, III, pp. 214–5: ‘…for the imagination or phantasy judges in one way, the reason in another…’ (‘…aliter enim imaginatio sive phantasia, aliter ratio iudicat…’). Allen also argues (from Kristeller) that Ficino’s notion of common senses (communis sensus) can be related to the imagination, distinguishing it from phantasy, Theologia Platonica, II, p. 387 n. 3.
- 52.
Theologia Platonica, IV, pp. 140–1.
- 53.
R.E. Harvey (1975) The Inward Wits: Psychological Theory in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (London: The Warburg Institute, University of London), p. 17.
- 54.
Harvey Inward Wits, p. 12.
- 55.
Harvey Inward Wits, p. 51.
- 56.
‘Quapropter sensus circa corpora versatur, imaginatio circa simulacra corporum, phantasia circa sinulas simulacrorum intentiones, intellectus circa singularum intentionum naturas communes ac rationes penitus incorporeas.’ Theologia Platonica, II, p. 270–1.
- 57.
Theologia Platonica, III, pp. 58–9.
- 58.
‘Deinde hanc perceptionem animadvertit et iudicat. Quam animadversionem phantasiam esse volumnus.’ Theologia Platonica, II, pp. 234–5.
- 59.
Allen Icastes, p 124. Klein argues for the influence of Avicenna and Albertus Magnus on Ficino’s distinction between ‘imagination as a faculty of the sensitive soul and the phantasy as a faculty of rational soul that forms intentiones, that is, preliminary judgement of the images arrived at by the imagination from sense perceptions’ R. Klein (1956) ‘L’imagination comme vêtement de l’âme chez Marsile Ficin et Giordano Bruno’, Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, LXI.
- 60.
‘Imaginatio neque substantiam rei suspicatur quidem, sed rei superficiem exterioremque picturam. Phantasia substantiam saltem auguratur, dum pronuntiat: “Obvius ille homo aliquis est et Plato”. Atque etiam res incorporales quodammodo somniare videtur, dum Platonem iudicat pulchrum, bonum, amicum, discipulum. Pulchritudo enim, bonitas, amicitia, disciplina incorporalia sunt, neque sensibus, neque imaginationi patentia. Huiusmodi quidam conceptus phantasiae incorporales quodammodo corporum intentiones vocantur.’ Theologia Platonica, II, pp. 264–5. See also: ‘Ascendit enim per sensum, imaginationem, phantasiam, intellegentiam. Per sensum quidem videt Socrates Platonem, ubi incorporale Platonis simulacrum absque Platonis materia attingit per oculos, ea tamen conditione, ut oculus Platonem non videat aliter quam corpore ipso Platonis praesente. Deinde, etiam absente Platone, per internam imaginationem Platonis cogitat colorem figuramque quam viderat, item Platonis suavem illam quam audiverat vocem et reliqua, quae per quinque sensus acceperat. Surgit huiusmodi imaginatio supra materiam magis quam sensus, tum quia, ut cogitet corpora, praesentia illorum non indiget, tum quia ipsa una facit quicquid quinque sensus omnes efficiunt. At enim non omnino pura est, quia nihil aliud sapit quam quod sensus accepit sive concepit. Sensus quidem circa corpora, imaginatio circa imagines corporum per sensus acceptas sive conceptas sese volutat.’ Theologia Platonica, II, pp. 262–3.
- 61.
‘Verum nondum super materiam prorsus animus evolat, tum quia phantasia intentiones huiusmodi esse incorporeas non agnoscit, tum quia huiusmodi Socratis phantasia inspicit proprie hominem hunc, Platonem scilicet, hoc in loco et situ, in hoc tempore et hora diei, hanc pulchritudinem, hanc bonitatem et reliqua eodem pacto, ubi Platonem sub eisdem conditionibus in se ipsa depingit, quibus extat et in materia. At enim dum phantasia circa singulares hominis huius conditiones vagatur, intellectus communes concipit rationes....’ Theologia Platonica, II, pp. 264–6.
- 62.
‘Quando animus noster, quid deus sit cupiens invenire, a magistris huiusmodi sciscitatur, phantasia praeceptor et faber nimium temerarius statuam aliquam machinatur ex quinque materiis, quas aliarum omnium pulcherrimas externi sensus ipsi obtulerint, acceptas a mundo, eo tamen pacto ut materias illas excellentiores reddat quodammodo quam a mundo per sensus acceperit. Offert igitur phantasia nobis lumen adeo clarum ut nullum aliud videri possit fulgentius, adeo ingens ut nullum amplius, ac ferme per immensum inane diffusum, quod innumerabilibus sit coloribus exornatum et in circulum revolvatur....’ Theologia Platonica, II, pp. 18–9.
- 63.
Theologia Platonica, III, pp. 206–7.
- 64.
‘Quando phantasia, excitata per hominis alicuius figuram visu haustam, simulacro formatur humano, tunc humanae speciei formula, quae latebat in mentis arcanis, instigata coruscat....’ Theologia Platonica, IV, pp. 26–7.
- 65.
‘Quod phantasia videt in pluribus imaginibus, intellectus in una videt et clarius: videt singula quae et phantasia, videt insuper rerum rationes universales quas illa nescit.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 154–5.
- 66.
Del Poema Heroico, quoted in Gombrich Symbolic Images, pp. 157–8.
- 67.
Harvey The Inward Wits, p. 5.
- 68.
Ficino Three Books on Life, p. 111. For a different discussion of the three types of spirit see Allen Icastes, p. 201, who is using Theologia Platonica as his reference.
- 69.
‘Symposium’, p. 115.
- 70.
‘Ac merito immortalis anima per immortale corpus illud aethereum mortalibus corporibus iungitur. Perpetuum quidem illud colit semper, haec ad breve tempus mortalia…’ Theologia Platonica, III, pp. 130–1.
- 71.
Theologia Platonica, IV, pp. 206–7.
- 72.
‘The Magi call this body the vehicle of the soul, that is, the little aethereal body received from the aether, the soul’s immortal garment; it is round in its natural shape because of the [rotundity of] the aether’s region, but it transforms itself into our [angular] human shape when it enters the human body, and restores itself to its former shape when it departs from it. This body is the chariot in Phaedrus.’ (‘Hoc vocant Magi vehiculum animae, aethereum scilicet corpusculum acceptum ab aethere, immortale animae indumentum, naturali quidem figura rotundum propter aetheris regionem, sed in humanam effigiem sese transferens quando corpus humanum ingreditur atque in priorem se restituens cum egreditur.’) Theologia Platonica, VI, pp. 104–7, and Allen, ‘At Variance’, pp. 39–40.
- 73.
‘It follows from all this that body in itself is not act but solely is acted upon.’ (‘...consequens est ut corpus ipsum, quatenus corpus, agat quidem nihil, sed soli passioni subiiciatur.’) Theologia Platonica, I, p. 18–9.
- 74.
Ficino Letters, I, p. 84. See also Letter to Gismondo della Stufa, Letters, I, p. 54.
- 75.
‘Symposium’, p. 88.
- 76.
Celenza ‘The revival of Platonic philosophy’, p. 88 and further p. 95, n. 70.
- 77.
‘Qualitatem vero more platonico omnem formam divisam in corpore appellamus.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 28–9.
- 78.
‘affectiones videlicet umbratiles et labentes, tamquam umbras quasdam eminentium arborum in torrente.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 40–1.
- 79.
‘Natura huiusmodi in materiae inficitur gremio: ex simplici divisibilis impuraque, ex activa passioni obnoxia, ex agili fit inepta. Ideo neque mera forma haec est, neque vera, neque perfecta. Non potest haec prima forma esse, si mera non est.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 40–1. Snyder reads Ficino to mean that quality in the body is diseased or corrupted form. ‘J.G. Snyder (2011) ‘Marsilio Ficino’s critique of the Lucretian alternative’, Journal of the History of Ideas, LXXII, 2, pp. 165-81. Proquest 2015d, http://search.proquest.com/ accessed2January2015.
- 80.
‘Qualitas per superiora habet ut moveat aliquid, per se habet ut materiae misceatur. Corpus per qualitatem ut agat; per se solum, ut patriatur.’ Theologia Platonica, I, pp. 222–3.
- 81.
Hankins, ‘Monstrous Melancholy’, p. 32, and see further, p. 31.
- 82.
‘…a collection of cures for viri studiosi, ingeniosi and literati whose activity as thinkers makes them suffer from melancholia.’ Hankins, ‘Monstrous Melancholy’, p. 41.
- 83.
‘...vertigines aegrotantium, dormientium somnia, insanorum deliramenta’ Theologia Platonica, IV, pp. 278–9.
- 84.
Snyder uses Theologia Platonica Bk VI to show how Ficino argues against Lucretian materialism. Snyder ‘Marsilio Ficino’s critique of the Lucretian alternative’.
- 85.
The full quotation: ‘Ubi Socrates ideam animae aggreditur effingendam, tu ideam animae hic intellige non supernum eius exemplar, sed formam ipsius intimam dispositionemque virium suarum et quasi figuram, quae quidem tanquam divina solis nota est divinis. Nos autem hanc per comparationes excogitamus.’ Commentaries on Plato vol. 1, ‘Phaedrus’, pp. 66–7.
- 86.
Allen Commentaries on Plato vol. 1, p. xxxv.
- 87.
‘Deorum equi et aurige omnes boni sunt atque ex bonis, aliorum vero permixti. Principio quidem noster princeps bigas habenis moderatur, deinde equorum alter bonus et pulcher et ex talibus, alter contrarius et ex contrariis. Quo fit ut dura et difficilis necessario sit aurigatio nostra.’ Commentaries on Plato vol 1, ‘Phaedrus’, pp. 8–9. This connection between the charioteers and gods allows the charioteer also to be a symbol for Jupiter (or Jove) as World Soul, see Allen, ‘Phaedrus’, p. 4.
- 88.
Commentaries on Plato I: from ‘Phaedrus’, pp. 11–13.
- 89.
‘Virtus autem elevans in intellectu vel ratione animae nominatur ala: erigit haec animam ad divinum amandum et contemplandum atque venerandum.’ Commentaries on Plato vol 1, ‘Phaedrus’, pp. 78–9.
- 90.
Plato Phaedrus, 246.
- 91.
See Allen Commentaries on Plato I, p. xxxi.
- 92.
Letters, I, p. 43, Letter to Peregrina Agli.
- 93.
‘The good horse has an excellent disposition, is upright in form, finely articulated, with arching neck, slightly aquiline nostrils, a bright sheen and black eyes; it is eager for honour, sharing in temperance and modesty, a friend of true opinion, needing no spurs and ruled by exhortation alone and by reason. The other is twisted and multiform, broad and confusedly articulated, with a stiff thick neck and one that is lowered, with a snub nose, swarthy in colour, and with grey eyes that are bloodshot; it is morose and obstinate, with ears that are shaggy and deaf, a horse scarcely controlled by the whip and spurs. So when the charioteer sees the beloved’s face and the goads of pricking and desire set his whole soul on fire with excitement, then the horse that obeys the charioteer, held back as usual by modesty, restrains itself and does not leap upon the beloved. The other horse cannot be curbed by spurs or whips but runs riot; carried away by violence, it upsets both the horse yoked with it and the charioteer, hauling them towards the pleasure of Venus.’ (‘Bonus excellentiori habitu est, specie rectus, et articulatim distinctus, ardua cervice, naribus modice aquilinis, nitido colore, nigris oculis, honoris cupidus, temperantie pudorisque particeps, ac vere opinionis amicus, nullis stimulis indigens, cohortatione sola rationeque regitur. Alter intortus et multiplex remereque delatus fususque et confuse compositus, rigenti et dura cervice atque demisso collo, simo vultu, fusco colore, oculis cesiis sanguineque suffusis, morosus et contumax, irsutis auribus atque surdis, vix flagello stimulisque obtemperans. Quando igitur auriga amatorium aspiciens vultum, totamque sensu inflammans animam titillationis et desiderii stimulis concitatur, tum qui aurige obediens est equorum ut consuevit pudore cohibitus seipsum continet ne prosiliat in amatum. Alter neque stimulis neque verberibus coherceri potest, sed exultat; ac violentia delatus coniunctum sibi equum aurigamque perturbat rapitque ad veneris voluptatem.’) Commentaries on Plato I, ‘Phaedrus’, pp. 28–9.
- 94.
‘Est in anima potentia deorsum ad sensibilia trahens, scilicet imaginalis simul atque vegetalis, est item hac superior virtus elevans ad divina.’ Commentaries on Plato I, ‘Phaedrus’, pp. 78–9.
- 95.
‘Quando circa corporalia occupamur, intellectus aut nihil cernit omnino aut non sincere discernit, sensibus et phantasia deceptus,’ Commentaries on Plato I, ‘Phaedrus’, pp. 12–13.
- 96.
‘Perfecta quidem dum est et alata sublimis incedit, ac totum gubernat mundum. Cui vero ale defluxerint fertur quoad solidum aliquid apprehenderit, ubi habitaculum sortita corpusve terrenum suscipit, sese movere apparens propter illius potentiam, animalque totum vocatur….’ Commentaries on Plato I, p. xvi.
- 97.
‘Alae potissimum sunt aurigae, mox melioris aqui, consequenter vero deterioris, quoniam per melioram attolli potest atque cum ipso beatitudinis cuiusdam esse particeps. Equi utriusque potentia est connata; uterque enim simul est ab opifice mundi genitus atque sempiternus.’ Commentaries on Plato I, ‘Phaedrus’, pp. 68–9.
- 98.
‘Currum vero proprie corpus caeleste vocamus cum immortali qualibet anima...’, Commentaries on Plato I, ‘Phaedrus’, pp. 68–9.
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Theologia Platonica, IV, pp. 206–7.
- 100.
Theologia Platonica, IV, pp. 140–1.
- 101.
Commentaries on Plato I, ‘Phaedrus’, pp. 68–9.
- 102.
‘Auriga quidem est intellectus congruens cum essentia. Caput autem aurigae est unifica virtus ad ipsum universi principium, intellectui praesidens, cum unitate conveniens. Melior equus est virtus ipsa rationalis, sive per universalia discurrat, sive per singula. Dicitur equus etiam appetitus eius comes.’ Commentaries on Plato I, ‘Phaedrus’, pp. 66–7.
- 103.
‘Phaedrus’, p. 148.
- 104.
‘Symposium’, p. 73.
- 105.
‘Symposium’, p. 76.
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‘Symposium’, p. 78.
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‘Symposium’, p. 79.
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Ficino Letters, Members, II, p. 6.
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Howlett, S. (2016). The Microcosm. In: Marsilio Ficino and His World. Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53946-5_4
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