Marsilio Ficino

“ In the circle of Lorenzo the Magnificent, among his most distinguished Platonists, opinions were divided on this question. Marsilio Ficino defended astrology, and drew the horoscope of the children of the house, promising the little Giovanni, afterwards Leo X, that he would one day be Pope. Pico della Mirandola, on the other hand, made an epoch in the subject by his famous refutation. He detects in this belief the root of all impiety and immorality. If the astrologer, he maintains, believes in anything at all, he must worship not God, but the planets, from which all good and evil are derived. ”

“ When Marsilio was a youth of eighteen, he entered the Medicean household, and began to learn Greek, in order that he might qualify himself for translating Plato into Latin. His health was delicate, his sensibilities acute; the temper of his intellect, inclined to mysticism and theology, fitted him for the arduous task of unifying religion with philosophy. It would be unfair to class him with the paganising humanists, who sought to justify their unbelief or want of morals by the authority of the classics. Ficino remained throughout his life an earnest Christian. ”

“ The last months of Cosimo’s life were passed chiefly at Careggi, and his great solace was in study, as the following letter shows:
Cosimo de’ Medici to the Reverend Master Marsilio Ficino, Platonist
Yesterday I came to the villa of Careggi, not to cultivate my fields but my soul. Come to us, Marsilio, as soon as possible. Bring with thee our Plato’s book De Summo Bono. This, I suppose, you have already translated from the Greek language into Latin as you promised. I desire nothing so much as to know the best road to happiness. ”

“ GUICCIARDINI, FRANCESCO (1483–1540) , the celebrated Italian historian and statesman, was born at Florence in the year 1483, when Marsilio Ficino held him at the font of baptism. His family was illustrious and noble; and his ancestors for many generations had held the highest posts of honour in the state, as may be seen in his own genealogical Ricordi autobiografici e di famiglia (Op. ined. vol. x.) . After the usual education of a boy in grammar and elementary classical studies, his father, Piero, sent him to the universities of Ferrara and Padua, where he stayed until the year 1505. ”

“ Far more interesting are the men of light and learning who gathered round Lorenzo dei Medici in the latter half of the century. This is the epoch of the Platonic Academy, which Marsilio Ficino had founded under the auspices of Cosimo. The discussions held in the convent retreat among the forests of Camaldoli, the meetings in the Badia at the foot of Fiesole, the mystical banquets celebrated in Lorenzo's villa at Careggi in honour of the anniversary of Plato's birth and death, may have added little to the sum of man's philosophic thought ”

“ The charming disciple of Socrates whom we all know and love—the literary and dramatic artist, the brilliant parodist, the sceptical railleur from the shafts of whose irony even his own theories are not safe, the penetrating observer of human life, the far-seeing critic and reformer of social institutions—is a discovery of modern scholarship. Not as such did the master of idealism appear to Marsilio Ficino and Michael Angelo, to Lady Jane Grey and Cudworth and Henry More, to Berkeley and Hume and Thomas Taylor, to all the great English poets from Spenser to Shelley ”

“ Giovanni, born in 1457, had Francesco da Diacceto as his master in philosophy and literature, and he was brought up with his cousin, Giovanni de’ Medici, afterwards Leo X., Bibbiena and Machiavelli, in the society of such men as Poliziano, Marsilio Ficino, the Pulci and Pico della Mirandola. Palla and Giovanni were sent to France to finish their education, and a charming letter written from Avignon by the latter is still extant.87 “I seem to be in the Promised Land,” exclaims the young Florentine, “abounding in every good thing that can be desired in this world. ”

“ In this effort to tranquillise and sweeten life by idealising its vehement sentiments, there were two great traditional types, either of which an Italian of the sixteenth century might have followed. There was Dante, whose little book of the Vita Nuova had early become a pattern of imaginative love, maintained somewhat feebly by the later followers of Petrarch; and, since Plato had become something more than a name in Italy by the publication of the Latin translation of his works by Marsilio Ficino, there was the Platonic tradition also. ”

“ Giuliano Vespucci was Gonfalonier of Justice in 1462, and his son Piero commanded the Florentine galleys on the coast of Barbary and of Syria. From him no doubt his young cousin Amerigo, who gave his name to America, heard many seafaring tales. Born in 1451 and brought up by his uncle, a learned Dominican in S. Marco to whom Marsilio Ficino entrusted the revision of his Platonic Theology, Amerigo studied languages, physics and geometry. Admitted to the Platonic Academy he became intimate with Toscanelli, who expounded to him his ideas as to the existence of another hemisphere. ”

“ For it is ill living for the rich in Florence unless they rule the State. Until now we have succeeded with honour and renown, which I attribute, not to prudence, but to the grace of God and the good conduct of my ancestors.”
Lorenzo was then in his twenty-second year and Giuliano was sixteen. Few princes of that time had received such an education as the sons of Piero de’ Medici. Messer Gentile Becchi of Urbino, a man of great learning, pure life and high moral character, was their tutor, Landino taught them Italian literature, Argyropolos Greek, and Marsilio Ficino the philosophy of Plato. ”

“ FICINO, MARSILIO (1433–1499) , Italian philosopher and writer, was born at Figline, in the upper Arno valley, in the year 1433. His father, a physician of some eminence, settled in Florence, and attached himself to the person of Cosimo de’ Medici. Here the young Marsilio received his elementary education in grammar and Latin literature at the high school or studio pubblico. While still a boy, he showed promise of rare literary gifts, and distinguished himself by his facility in the acquisition of knowledge. Not only literature, but the physical sciences, as then taught, had a charm for him ”

“ Meanwhile he received a careful education at Lorenzo’s brilliant humanistic court under such men as Angelo Poliziano, the classical scholar, Pico della Mirandola, the philosopher and theologian, the pious Marsilio Ficino who endeavoured to unite the Platonic cult with Christianity and the poet Bernardo Dovizio Bibbiena. ”

“ In its valleys rise the Elbe, Rhine, and Danube; considerable quantities of iron, copper, and lead are found, which give rise to a smelting industry, while mother-of-pearl is obtained from the streams. The climate is cold and damp, but the district has of late become a favourite resort of tourists.
Ficino, Marsilio, an eminent Italian Platonist, born at Florence; in 1463 became president of a Platonic school, founded by Cosmo de' Medici, where he spent many years spreading and instilling the doctrines of Plato, and, indeed, ancient philosophy generally ”

“ He used to invite the contadini who had served Cosimo to a banquet on the day of Saints Cosimo and Damiano (the patron saints of the Medici) , and entertained them with music and singing. This affection was amply returned. Cosimo employed almost the last hours of his life in listening to Ficino’s reading of a treatise on the highest good; while Lorenzo, in a poem on true happiness, described him as the mirror of the world, the nursling of sacred muses, the harmonizer of wisdom and beauty in complete accord. Ficino died at Florence in 1499. ”

“ At the age of forty Ficino took orders, and was honoured with a canonry of S. Lorenzo. He was henceforth assiduous in the performance of his duties, preaching in his cure of Novoli, and also in the cathedral and the church of the Angeli at Florence. He used to say that no man was better than a good priest, and none worse than a bad one. His life corresponded in all points to his principles. It was the life of a sincere Christian and a real sage,—of one who found the best fruits of philosophy in the practice of the Christian virtues. A more amiable and a more harmless man never lived ”

“ About twenty days before his death, when his strength was visibly on the decline, he entered into conversation with Ficino, and whilst the faint beams of a setting sun seemed to accord with his situation and his feelings, began to lament the miseries of life and the imperfections inseparable from human nature. ”

“ LOMELLINO. Fiesco has become a mere votary of pleasure. The great world has lost much in you.
FIESCO. But Fiesco has lost nothing in giving up the world. To live is to dream, and to dream pleasantly is to be wise. Can this be done more certainly amid the thunders of a throne, where the wheels of government creak incessantly upon the tortured ear, than on the heaving bosom of an enamored woman? Let Gianettino rule over Genoa; Fiesco shall devote himself to love. ”

“ She looked at me very oddly.
“You are a gentleman, Felix Dane,” she said.
“I may be the incomparable Bayard himself, Marion; but jealousy has denied me his reputation.”
“‘As thy days, so shall thy strength be,’ Felix” (it was her only concession to the old Marion) . “For the rest, she must not be known, of course, for whom she is. Call her simply Fifine.”
“And Madame Crussol and the others?”
“What does it matter? When she leaves you, it will be to resume herself—to disappear from all imaginary associations.” ”

“ But Fifine struck in immediately, in a very cold voice:—
“We have presumed too much already on M. Cabarus’s good-nature. Please leave him, Felix, to make his own arrangements.”
“They are made, Mademoiselle,” said Carabas gallantly, and with a most charming and ingratiatory smile. “Can Mademoiselle doubt it?”
“I am at a loss for your meaning, Monsieur,” said Fifine. “I have no claim upon your confidence, nor any desire to share my own with a stranger—” and she turned icily away from him.
I never saw a man more taken aback. ”

“ We would make a compromise of our theories, our principles, with even perhaps a slight leaning of the balance towards the traditional; and in the result—well, those were but plans, elevations, as it were. The whole, into which the infinite parts were compacted, exists for any one to see who likes.1 It is the only work of mine in which heart and soul and brain made a common cause of it to achieve perfection. It has not achieved it, of course, for Fifine was not perfection. But what approach to it it makes was her doing and hers alone. There is sunshine in it, which they call sunshine. ”

“ In all else but that we were wholly one and inseparable, in trust, in truth, in perfect confidence.
We had it all out, of course, on the subject of those erst-peevish perversities and misunderstandings. There is no joy like a converted jealousy; quarrels become relishes when they can be discussed impartially. I told Fifine of my savage decision, on the hill that fateful night, to achieve the world-conquering work which was to refute and overwhelm her with a sense of what she had thrown away. ”

“ For myself I am a little tired of the eternal cult. He is as great a nuisance in his place as the Dairyman’s daughter is in hers, or as Kingsley at Westward Ho, where the very engines carry his name about. Mistral did not create Provence, any more than Stevenson created childhood, as some of his fatuous adorers would have us believe. But, come.”
“All that is Greek to me,” said Fifine, as we sought the front of the statue. “But if it means England——”
“It does.”
“Do you ever wish for your own country again, Felix? You have been a great traveller, have you not?” ”

“ He was a rich and influential citizen of Chiavari and desired a family alliance with the Fieschi, in order to secure their assistance against count Agostino Lando, with whom he was contesting the jurisdiction of a castle in the duchy of Piacenza. The marriage was celebrated with the splendour to which the Fieschi were habituated, and Claudia took up her residence in Chiavari, acquiring through the purity of her life and the charms of her conversation the admiration of all who knew her. ”

“ But the fashionable convention, I supposed, when once acquired was ineradicable; and, no doubt, to have dined in undress would have seemed tantamount with Fifine to bathing in public.
But, to my surprise, she took my sarcasm, if sarcasm it was, in good part.
“This apparition is of your own invoking,” she said. “And I did not want to deny you that pride in yourself which you had a right to feel. The strange comrade who has come to you out of the shadows is, after all, only your own lay-figure, Cousin; and—and the dress is very pretty.” ”

“ We find in the long history of their political power in Genoa that the Fieschi never struggled for supreme position as did the Adorni, Fregosi, Spinola, and Doria. Carlo Fieschi, as the chief of the Guelphs, was, in 1318, placed at the head of the government, with Gasparo Grimaldi for colleague, but he never attempted any legislative or constitutional charges for the sake of remaining in office. Bonfadio himself, though their enemy, declares that, though the Fieschi surpassed in power all other families, they never laid hands on popular rights. ”

“ Could orthodoxy have shewn a better case for love? But let the matter rest there. If stones are to be cast, here am I, blithe to be made their target. I am jealous for her good fame; not a copper farthing for my own.
But, while I insist on that specific truth, I make generally no pretence of drawing the portrait of any Fifine but the one commonly known to me. ”