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Florentine Neoplatonism
Florentine Neoplatonism
Florentine Neoplatonism is the Italian Renaissance
revival of Neoplatonism, led by Marsilio Ficino
(1433–99) and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
(1463–94), that flourished in 15th century Florence.
This renewed interest in Neoplatonism, or the philosophy formulated by Plotinus (205–270 c.e.) and founded upon the thought of Plato (427–347 b.c.e.), was
due both to the waning religious values of the time and
to the aristocratic shift of emphasis under members of
the Medici family from worldly affairs to a life of contemplation. Plato’s portrayal of Socrates in the Republic as a sage critical of Greek democracy and devoted to
meditation on timeless and immaterial truths lent itself
so well to the new social sentiment that it supplanted
the Roman statesman as the ideal of human life. Fascinated by the humanist rediscovery of classical ideals
Cosimo de’ Medici selected his doctor’s gifted young
son, Marsilio Ficino, to become a Greek scholar and
Platonic philosopher.
An intellectual giant whose mind comprehended
and synthesized complete philosophical systems, Ficino
opened his Platonic Academy, not a school in the formal sense, but a salon where he oversaw the scholarly
discussions of friends and visitors, at Careggi in 1466.
Two years later he edited the entire corpus of Plato,
published by the Aldine Press in Venice, and translated
Plato’s Dialogues into Latin. In 1469 Ficino composed
his commentary on Plato’s Symposium and translated
various treatises of Plotinus, Proclus, Porphyry, and
Dionysius the Areopagite. From 1469 to 1474, he developed his “pious philosophy” or “learned religion,” an
elaborate Neoplatonic philosophical edifice, in his masterpiece, the Theologia Platonica. Emphasizing that
divine poetry and allegory furnish the veil of true religion, which can only be expressed mystically and not in
precise syllogisms, Ficino’s system proved quite congenial to several Renaissance poets, authors, and artists.
Central to Ficino’s system were the twin suppositions that the individual constitutes the center of the
universe and that the goal of human life lies in the internal ascent of the soul toward the divine or God. Drawing heavily on Plotinus’s Enneads, Ficino pictured the
cosmos and everything within it as a great hierarchy of
being and described the “One,” or God, as the absolute universal essence. God is the coincidentia oppositorum, or the reconciliation of all opposites, in whom
all things find unity. Embracing infinity within himself,
God brings the lesser orders into being through emanations from his substance, resulting in a ladder of bodies,
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natural attributes, souls, and angelic minds that delineates the way of ascent to the One. At the center of this
ladder, humanity is bound to the material realm by the
body and to the intelligible, or spiritual, realm by the
soul, which facilitates its rise to divine reunion through
contemplation. For Ficino such philosophical contemplation comprises a spiritual experience in which the
soul retreats from the body and from all external things
into its own being, learning that it is a product of divine
emanation and that God is therefore immanent.
Derivative from this conception is the immortality of
the soul, as Ficino insists that no mortal entity can partake of the beatific vision. At this juncture Ficino imports
Christian theology into his system: Where Plotinus had
envisaged a mediator, or demiurge, between the untainted
One and the subdivided intelligible and material realm,
Ficino identified this mediator with the divine Logos, or
Christ, “the Word who became flesh and tabernacled
among us” (John 1:14). As the intermediary between
God and humanity, Christ both serves as an archetype
of sanctified humanity and leads fallen humanity to love
God. Moreover Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross
proves God’s unfailing love for humanity and frees all
human souls for the ascent to God.
In order for the individual to reach the divine, however, Ficino contended that the soul must make a leap of
spiritual love by loving God for his own sake, thereby
attaining participation in the One, who is, by nature,
love. This notion of “Platonic love” is the nucleus of
Ficino’s philosophy, since the universe is formed and
ruled by the ideal of love. Accordingly, four spheres of
aesthetic values find their center in the good, the moral
nature of God, which is immovable and emanates divine
majesty throughout the universe.
Ficino maintained that body and soul could only be
inseparable, as they will be in the general resurrection,
if they are merged into the activity of love. Therefore
love originates in God and manifests as spiritual love in
the angelic minds and becomes sensual, pleasurable, and
erotic love in the corporeal realm. Since humans possess
free will, they can choose between the spiritual love of
the intelligible realm and the erotic love of the physical
domain. Ficino postulated a “light metaphysic” in which
light is the laughter of heaven and expresses the joy of
the communion of saints. This cosmology harmonized
nicely with prevailing astrological theories already exerting a profound influence on many Renaissance thinkers.
Most brilliant of Ficino’s pupils was Giovanni Pico
della Mirandola, the youngest son of Francesco Pico,
count of Mirandola and Concordia, a small principality just west of Ferrara. Although matriculating at the
