Marsilio Ficino
Florentine philosopher and translator of Plato and Hermes
- Born
- 1433, Figline Valdarno, near Florence
- Died
- 1499, Careggi
- Patron
- Cosimo de' Medici
- Translated
- Corpus Hermeticum (1463); complete Plato (1484)
- Known for
- Renaissance Platonism
The Renaissance scholar who, at Cosimo de' Medici's request, translated the Hermetic writings into Latin before finishing Plato.
What is Marsilio Ficino known for?
Marsilio Ficino was a Florentine priest, physician and philosopher and the central figure of Renaissance Platonism. Cosimo de' Medici supported him and gave him a villa at Careggi, where a circle later known as the Platonic Academy gathered.
Around 1460 a manuscript of the Corpus Hermeticum, Greek treatises attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, reached Florence. Cosimo wanted it in Latin, and by the traditional account, drawn from Ficino's own later writings, Ficino set aside his Plato to translate Hermes first, finishing in 1463; it was printed in 1471 as the Pimander. Ficino believed Hermes was an ancient sage, roughly a contemporary of Moses, at the head of a chain of wisdom leading to Plato.
He completed the first full Latin translation of Plato in 1484. Isaac Casaubon later showed that the Hermetic texts were written in the Christian era.
Translated the Corpus Hermeticum for Cosimo de' Medici in 1463.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holeHermes Trismegistus
- PersonCosimo de' Medici
- PersonIsaac Casaubon
Sources
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 'Marsilio Ficino'Reference
- Rocha Parker and Szönyi, 'Classical and Christian Auctoritas in Marsilio Ficino's preface to the Corpus Hermeticum', Clotho (University of Ljubljana)Reference
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