Ficino (1433-1499) and Pico Della Mirandola (1464-1495): Platonic and Hermetic Theology
Presented on: Thursday, November 17, 1983
Presented by: Roger Weir
Italian Renaissance
Presentation 7 of 13
Ficino (1433-1499) and Pico Della Mirandola (1464-1495): Platonic and Hermetic Theology
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, November 17, 1983
Transcript:
The date is November 17 1983. This is the seventh lecture in a series of lectures by Roger Weir on the Italian Renaissance. Tonight's lecture is on Ficino, F-I-C-I-N-O, who lived 1433-1499 and Pico della Mirandola who lived 1464-1495 Platonic and Hermetic theology.
The, the rolling Middle Ages inherited a system of education from antiquity that was based on the scheme of the seven liberal arts. And they served as a background for the transition of thought from the classical late classical era all the way up to the 13th century. And in the 13th century we see the founding of the great universities. University of Paris and the University of Oxford. Both them both of them founded in the 13th century and they change the nature of education. Now the seven liberal arts were divided into two sets and all education was according to these seven. There were three that went together and were called the Trivium. And that was grammar, rhetoric and dialectic. And so, you would, you would learn these three together and that was the Trivium. The...the four the quadrivium was arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.
So, the quadrivium was actually concerning itself with structures that went up and out. And the Trivium concerned itself with structures that were like tools of apperception, grammar, rhetoric, dialectic. So, with one hand you learned how to grasp and with the other you learned how to point to the order. This formulation was a travesty of education. And I think in the series that we went into that went from Plotinus to The Book of Kells, I tried to bring out somewhat how that transpired. The history of education of course is very important all the way through. And it's important to us because we suffer from a real schizophrenic problem in our time in terms of education. Which is not perceptible to most educators in thus we are languishing very badly now in formal education.
But the case in point is that by the 13th century by the founding of the great universities by the genius of Robert Grosseteste largely, he was there at Paris and helped formulate the founding of the University. And then he was the first Chancellor for Oxford University. And the quality of Grosseteste is just verifiable all over the place. The lecture on him I think would be good to review in this context. The fact that he had students like Roger Bacon.
So, what happened there in the 13th century was quite interesting because there were arts developed that were not in the seven liberal arts. That is the curricula in the Universities stressed subjects that were not able to be squeezed into the liberal arts. And they became quite formative. Some of these were medicine, jurisprudence, philosophy. So that you see that these areas not only did not fit into the seven liberal arts but they distorted the whole structure of education so that would never stand again.
The attempts in the 14th century were pointed in a different direction from practical education. We went into the whole history of the human psyche in the 14th century over at the gnostic society. We did about 12 or 13 lectures and showed that they were concerned with an inner mysticism and an outer social philosophy. And that the problems of education were largely circumvented and not looked to. So that by the time we come to the 15th century with a nascent renaissance, it suddenly became a crisis in the early renaissance of what to do about education. That the structures that had been inadequate for several hundred years. Suddenly it became a paramount issue in the societies.
That is to say you were having the most talented individuals, largely young men, who were being trained to come in and take over the reins of economic power and take over the family businesses and so forth. And their outlook outside of the schools was wide open and their training in the school was so narrow that it was producing a generation that was almost incapable of reconciling this. So, there were a lot of dropouts, put it mildly.
It is to the undying Fame and credit of Cosimo de Medici being very practical Godfather type of an individual, paying attention to every aspect that really counted in life. Never left anything out. But when it came to education, he was convinced that there needed to be a massive reform of education. The restructuring, a recutting of it. But that instead of trying to reform like the University of Florence, it was better to start a whole new institute separate from regular education. And then use the good offices of his influence to amplify the discoveries and experiments and successes of the Institute. And that institute was called the Florentine Platonic Academy. And the person that headed that was Marcilio Ficino and that's who we're talking about tonight.
So that Ficino had many problems that were given to him by Cosimo. And Ficino, a real first-class genius. It's not particularly well known in the English-speaking countries, but Ficino is a very major thinker. And for those who took the Hermetic science course earlier this year you realize that Ficino was the father of the whole European Hermetic tradition. That it starts again with him and that there wasn't really a hermetic tradition before him. Because he is the one who makes the first translations. He's the one that first finds the manuscripts given to him by Cosimo who had searched them out. So that Western occult history begins all over again with Ficino. Western educational history begins all over again with Ficino. The whole notion of what a human being would be capable of in terms of a liberal education, a humanistic outlook, all begins with Ficino.
And thus, Ficino is a very central figure. he is in fact I think best characterized as using this phrase, he was the mind of Cosimo de Medici that lived on after Cosimo himself died. I have some letters; Ficino's letters were collected in his life in twelve volumes by himself. There were a lot of surreptitious letters coming out and he wished to have the legitimate letters collected. And pursuant to this, the first letters that he had collected were concerning Cosimo de Medici. And the very first letter was from Cosimo to Ficino. So that his whole cycle of letters begins with this short paragraph from Cosimo to Ficino. And its Ficino's way of saying I have the baton of civilization because it was given to me by the man who had the most right in our time to hold it. And it was given to me and therefore what I am doing is not out of egotism for myself. It is not out of speculation, hopefully. But is out of a sense of responsibility handed to me by the man in charge. If there was any man in charge in Europe at this time it was Cosmo.
Cosmo writes to Marcilio, this is about 1462 near the end of his life. He says, "Greetings. Yesterday I went to my estate at Careggi but for the sake of cultivating my mind and not the estate. Come to us Marcilio as soon as possible. Bring with you Plato's book on the highest good. Which I suppose you have translated from Greek into Latin as you promised. I want nothing more wholeheartedly than to know which way leads most surely to happiness. Farewell come and bring your Orphic lyre with you."
Cosimo was dying and the estate was one of three villas just outside of Florence in the hills. And the reference to the Orphic lyre is to Ficino's wonderful singing voice and sense of music. And he used to play the lyre. And in fact, he translated some of the old Orphic hymns from the Greek and was able to sing them. As he says in some of his letters, "For the first time in a thousand years somebody knows how to do this. Not only how to play the lyre. Not only how to translate them out of Greek. And even sing them in Greek. But understand the hierarchical ordering of the universe that is made by the human voice able to generate consonants and harmony according to rational number proportion."
So, the Ficino is being alluded to here by Cosimo saying, I want to view at the end of my life my prize. And of course, Ficino responding in the second letter in his corpus of letters, Yes Marcilio Ficino to Cosimo de Medici, "Greetings I shall come to you as quickly as I can. Most willingly. What could be pleasanter than to be in Careggi the land of the graces talking with Cosimo the father of the graces. Meanwhile please accept in these few words what the Plotinus say about the most convenient way to happiness. Although I do not think it necessary to show you the way. To a man who has already nearly reached the goal. I think your desire must be obeyed in your absence as well as in your presence. All men want to act well which is to live well. But they live well if they are endowed with as many good as possible. Now these good things are said to be riches, health, beauty, strength, nobility of birth, honors, power, prudence as well as justice, fortitude and temperance. And above all else wisdom which indeed comprehends the whole essence of happiness. For happiness consists in the successful achievement of the desired goal but wisdom does this for every activity."
Now he's using language here in a very precise way. Essence for instance is the attribute of the angelic mind. and it is the angelic mind that is articulated in time in the nine celestial orders. So, when he says above all else wisdom which indeed comprehends the whole essence of happiness, he means a wisdom of the mind which is mobile. Which can journey through the different levels, the nine levels. And this is one of the keys to Ficino's Renaissance Platonic philosophy. And the key of the Hermetic tradition. That man's mind is the key to the universe. Not in its static structure. Not in its accrued power. Not in its psychic configuration. But because of its mobility because it can jump like the voice, all the different notes including them in its range the entire octave and beyond of the possibilities of knowing. And thus, man himself free to develop himself is the mercuric messenger. He is that Hermes who can move from level to level freely. And what are these levels. These are the levels of the angelic orders. So that man in his mobility, according to Ficino, is superior to the angelic orders. Insofar as he can acquaint himself with each and all of them in their turn and rise above them. Herein lies the dignity of man. Herein also lies the travesty of uneducated man. That he does not know this. That he grubbles on the earth in the material world. And distorts himself through greed and lust and anger to trying to acquire with his cosmic powers things. When the cosmic powers are there to enable him to transcend, note by note the octave of reality to the highest good. To the divine.
Therefore, this whole fulcrum of possibility for men rests upon the capacity for a generation to teach the upcoming generation the dignity of man. The technique by which this can be learned. And the gracefulness by which this can be performed. This the Greeks called Paideia. That education in its cultural completeness is a responsibility of the utmost importance. For if we do not educate those coming up, they will not know, and man becomes brutish. His cosmic powers muddied by lust, anger and greed, seek then to tear apart the material world in a frenetic chase to try and find within some material thing that which he is seeking.
And Cosimo stressing constantly in his thought that misunderstanding love as angered or lustful or greedy desire is at the core of man's problem as a being. An understanding love is at the core of his capacity to rise through the celestial hierarchies to the attitude. This was not always apparent. and it was something that he had to learn again and discover.
Now he had been born in 1433 just outside in fig line up the Arno a little way. His father was a physician and in fact lived quite long. When Ficino did a translation in the commentary of Plato's Symposium towards the end of the 1470s, he included his father as one of the members acting out Plato's Symposium. That is to say one of the elements of Ficino's education technique was to recreate with the students of the present the learning conditions of late antiquity. So that they would not just read Plato's Symposium, but they would act it out. In fact, they would act it out quite frequently. Every year on Plato's birthday November 7th, they would enact the Symposium at a banquet. And the document that we have, Ficino's commentary on Plato's Symposium, very hard to find so I had to have a Xerox copy about 20 years ago. This is actually a document of both Plato's Symposium and Ficino acting out of the Symposium. His father was one of the actors at this particular event. His mother lived to be 84 because Ficino also was a very good doctor among other things and kept her in very good health.
But when he was young, he searched through all the books that he could find all the little tidbits on Plato. And he had no idea of why he was obsessed with them. And he made a collation when he was about 20, 21 years of age. But the father insisting that he become a doctor, a physician, sent him off to the University of Bologna. And there he languished until he was about 26 years of age. Trying to study medicine. Trying to study Aristotelian outlook on things, Galen and so forth. Not very happy at all. Given to fits of melancholia.
He visited his father in Florence. And his father when Ficino was in his mid-20s was the personal physician of Cosimo de Medici. And Cosimo ever on the outlook for human beings. He was one of those individuals who could see human nature human character like a jeweler sees gems. He could see the facets potentially there. He had that capacity there are persons who have that and Cosimo was one of them. He saw in Ficino this divine spark. And he said to his father that you have been trying to make young Marcilio a physician of bodies but lo he really should be a physician of souls. And therefore, allow me to lighten up the financial burden of your family to take care of him.
And so, in 1459 Ficino past under the tutelage Cosimo's beautiful outlook on life. And Cosimo began procuring for Ficino various elements that would go together and make a life for him. Cosimo for the first few years realized that Ficino had to have a transition period. And so, he gave him an assignment which would take care of him for the next 10 or 15 years. He said I would like you to learn Greek to make a translation of all of Plato's dialogues. Yeah and the conversation might have been something like this. I have my men out buying all over the world and when you're ready to do it. We'll have the books there for you. So, learn Greek and as you learn this, we will feed material to you. And before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I guess he probably wouldn't have said that Shakespeare hadn't coined that...(laughter).
So, he did this and Ficino as we've seen from this cross of letters became a real the gem, the diamond-in-the-rough that Cosimo felt that he was. But while he was working on Plato the industrial spies that Cosimo had out in the aftermath of the fall of Constantinople turned up a manuscript which took precedence over Plato. It was the discovery for the first time in about 1,200 years that there were writings do ascribe to and due to Hermes Trismegistus.
And for the significance of this we have to dwell just for a moment on a fabulous conception. The idea of antiquity was that it had formulated itself upon the great mind of Plato. But that Plato had been but his first historical manifestation of a secret tradition that had existed back into the misty origins of civilization. There had been before Plato the great Hebrew prophets, Moses among them. There had been Zoroaster. But there had been especially before all of them at some time in the dim mists of archaic Egypt. Hermes Trismegistus who had been the first great civilizing voice. So that when this document turned up in Greek, third century Greek, it was actually the first translation that Ficino made was from a little missive called On the Highest Good. Very elegant beautiful presentation of transcendental spirituality. This appealed to Cosimo and it appealed also to his sense of bringing Ficino into perspective. That it was not the command of things that made man of prince of the cosmos but his ability to look above all things to the unity beyond in the realm of nothing whatsoever. That this was a mystery. And a mystery which needed to be appreciated. Especially by a talented young man who probably by the time he would be coming into personal sense of power as an individual, as a persona, in his forties would very quickly become bored with the world had he not this insight. So Cosimo had him translate this. And it was on his deathbed that Ficino read him the translation of The Corpus Hermeticum.
This was in 1464 and this is the beginnings of the revival of the Hermetic tradition. Which had gone underground in the 4th century. The sack of the Serapeum(sp?) by the hordes of Theodosius in 365 had sent the last savants of Alexandria into the desserts fleeing down along the monastic communes along the Nile. And for some thousand twelve hundred years had languished in a strange career that went through the old alchemical Alexandrians and into the Arabic world. And into Persia Iran back along the Maghrib in northern Africa into northern Spain and then back to Egypt. And finally, into late Byzantium where it fled with Gemistus Pletho to Cosimo and Ficino.
But it was Ficino who put it all together. He had one of those incredibly great synthetic minds. He was able to take a few dots and make the pattern. And while he was working on Plato and then had the Hermetic material. That is to say in his mythicigraphic consciousness he envisioned that if I have this much of the motion of the great religious tradition of antiquity I can see now where else it goes. And where it went from there was almost in a straight line to Plotinus. And from Plotinus to Dionysus the Areopagite and from there into Esoteric Christianity. And Ficino after the death of Cosimo, working upon his translations of Plato began to contemplate in his mind that there would come a time when he would most surely have to translate Plotinus and Dionysius the Areopagite. These of course would be done at the very end of his life.
Cosimo died in 1464 and his son Piero, Piero the Gouty, took over for five years. Piero is a wonderful individual. His wife Lucretia was one of the most intelligent women of the century; excelled as a poet in the Latin or the Italian language only by Lorenzo El Magnífico.
The Medici family still loving Ficino very much. And I think it's a quality of Ficino that needs to be brought out sufficiently for you. He was of a very elegant, simple, loving nature. He would always remind people to care for him as he cared for them. And in his letters constantly you'll find towards the end Marcilio loves you very much. Be of the very best cheer. He is always here for you as a companion, as a friend.
And this was not sentimentality or maudlin at all because everyone understood that one of the cores of Ficino's philosophy was the idea of platonic love. It comes down to us in our time through the meat grinder of the land-grant universities in the 50s, that Platonic love is a poor man's version of holding hands. But Platonic love meant that the soul of someone in its mobility on the cosmic levels was willing to pilgrimage with this other soul in that way. And thus, the platonic love was the invitation to explore the universe. The camaraderie that extended itself to the full cosmos. And so Marcilio's constant reminding the people that he loved them very dearly was of this quality. In fact, I think I have one of these volumes I think in this one letter which he wrote to Lorenzo. And he writes here, "Marcilio Ficino to the magnanimous Lorenzo de Medici greetings."
And of course, after Piero had died in 1469 Cosimo's grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent came to power. And Lorenzo had been a student of Ficino. Ficino had been the family tutor among other things. And so, all his life Lorenzo had the soulful companionship of Ficino. Here's how he, Ficino writes, "Today my only patron is the anniversary of the sacred feast of Saint Cosmas. Which throughout a complete orbit of Saturn we have customarily celebrated every year. First under the great Cosimo. Then in the time of the devout Piero. And lastly under the magnanimous Lorenzo. "There beautiful Apollo sweetly plucked his lyre, the sweetest sounding muses sang, the graces led the most graceful dance, saucy nymphs sported wanton Venus tease seductively, Jupiter gave laws, Mercury discoursed. Happy all too happy Marcilio, who for so many years through the generosity of the Medici was given a couch at the very banquet of the Gods. The Apollonian lyre is a nine-string lyre. The Orphic lyre is a seven-string lyre. Orpheus commands this cosmos. Apollo commands the entirety of it. The beyond as well as this cosmos and its completion." But at the end of this letter to Lorenzo and it becomes graphically very technical. Very platonic in its specificity. He writes, "Stay happy then my Lorenzo. In the love of God who stays forever. Also, I beg you continue loving your Marcilio, who especially loves you." So, this tone carries over again and again in the personality of Ficino.
In fact, we realize as we look at Ficino's life, in the time when Lorenzo was master in Florence, that the multiform mind is Pico della Mirandola said of Lorenzo, his multiform mind was filled with envisioning based upon Pico's pioneering. And Pico's on being in the one. Which he wrote to Angelo Poliziano a member of the Florentine Academy. He writes...Pico writes "You told me some days ago what Lorenzo de Medici discussed with you concerning being and the one supported by the reasons of the Platonists. He disputed against Aristotle on whose ethics you are giving a public commentary this year. Lorenzo is a man of such powerful and multiform mind that he seems to be suited to everything. What I especially admire in him is his always speaking or meditating on some literary matter even though he is always very occupied with the Republic." And he goes on in this manner.
Ficino had not only been the tutor to Lorenzo but became the lifelong counselor. So that we have the old archetypal form of the good king and the wise magician. The two together Arthur and Merlin. Augustus and Virgil. This is a very stable form and wherever it occurs in human history, east or west, it's a sign also of the rising of that archetypal energy to an expressive point. That is to say it comes down literally to the point of a pen which is able then to write out a prescription for the age. For its health. For its restoration to health. and this is exactly what we find from about 1470,1473 from that era on, the combination of Lorenzo and Ficino becomes attenuated. It becomes archetypal. That is to say it brings into play energies which were not appreciable on a personal individual level if one was blindly seeing but the external materialist form of the individual. But the paradox involved and what produced a crisis in the late Renaissance, a crisis of consciousness. Was that in fact the qualities demanded by Ficino's restoration of the Platonic theology, were that it be manifested in the person.
Ficino was very adamant about there not only being a resurrection of the body but a complete resurrection and refurbishing of the human personality. And that that individual man or woman would come back into being. Therefore, one of the sacred duties of a human being was to develop themselves personally as much as they could in their lifetime. Because that would be the form that they would come back in. So that the development of personal capacity was a religious duty. It was part of the core of the Platonic theology. When you have many individuals understanding this, developing every facet of themselves to the utmost extent then the corollary of platonic love becomes extremely important. It means we are helping each other to fashion those immortal bodies, those grand gorgeous personalities in which we will reappear for all eternity. Now if someone is not understanding this and looking from the outside, as we will see certain individuals and Florence did, this looks like a free-for-all of egotistical maniacs trying to dabble in every conceivable thing to the detriment of everyone else. And shouldn't they be gotten rid of. That sort of an outlook.
But if you were understanding, this was not only the Renaissance of classical learning but the bringing back into play the very religion that had always supported man. And this was a problem for Ficino. Was Christianity a true inheritor of that religion or not? Well he made up his mind after a long crisis of consciousness in 1475 that Christianity was included. And the way that it was included was that the Platonic theology, when it had become refined by the great circle of comprehension that was the mind of Plotinus, focused itself on its last manifestation in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. And thus, Christianity had the secret sacred core within it. And even though it would not be manifest from time to time. Or be completely unknown to the ignorant and uneducated, who would just go to the superstitious aspects or the doctrinaire dogmatic aspects of Christianity. Still in all there was that mystery intact within the transformative core of the Christian experience. So Marcilio the age of 42 became a priest in addition to all other things. This was in 1475 and this is a wonderful era. This is also the year that Michelangelo is born. and the Saturday's lecture will be on Michelangelo and.
Saturday's lecture will be on Michelangelo, and we'll get to see what, what happens to a genius who's literally brought up on the best traditions available. But something else I'd like to show you in detail that happened in 1475 because it's a case in point. That is to say we have recovered, and we have found a translation on some of Ficino's writings printed in Bruges in 1475. And this is way over on the North Sea area of Western Europe. Ficino was not that famous yet. How does his manuscript happen to be printed there? Well the story of this is related in the first issue of the journal of the Warburg Institute 1937. And it's related in here by one of the directors at that time that The Warburg Institute, Fritz Saxl. This manuscript was bearing a crest an insignia which has been identified as the crest of a man named Dominica Albert Gotti. An investigation showed that Domenico Albergotti was the employ of the Medician Bank which had a branch in Bruges. And that in fact this Domenico Albergotti had been sent especially to Bruges because it was the center where the processing of a material called alum, which is used in the processing of fabrics, materials had been discovered.
And in investigating alum Saxl found out that the supply of alum had been controlled by the Turks since the fall of Constantinople. And they were exacting a tremendous charge from the West to have this. And that the economic viability of the Medician fortunes as well as the Florentine economy depended in large part upon the textile industry. And that the Medician envoys like Albergotti were making sure in 1475 that the Medici family had their finger upon the only supply of alum in Europe. At the same time the man who was negotiating this, the hard-nosed businessman was a student of Ficino's. And while he was there for this supposed cutthroat business deal, he was also starting a branch of Ficino's Academy. Inadvertently because he had the manuscript printed and then he would give it to business associates. And they of course prizing this very beautifully done up the manuscript and wonderful things in here. They would show it to their friends and so Ficino by the 1480s became the most famous teacher in Europe.
Everyone knew about Ficino because other Medician banks in Paris and London and Rome, wherever they were. Jerusalem also spread the word and so Ficino as part of the sort of the tutor for the Medician clan, the director of the Florentine Academy entered into an enormous correspondence with everyone of note in the late 15th century. His...the list of correspondence is literally a who's who of Europe. The King of Hungary, Matthias at that time, wanted Ficino to come and teach there because he had heard indirectly from a good friend of his, a man named Vendutci (sp?), how wonderful Ficino was and would he like to come and go and spend some time with the King of Hungary and his court and so forth. Well Ficino would not go but would send plenty of books and he would train people and they would go. The people in London wanted to have Ficino come there. And he was unable to, so he trained a mastermind by the name of John Collins. Who then went back to London and became Dean of Saint Paul's and set up a wonderful school at Saint Paul's.
And when Collin inherited huge family's fortune, he's been is all on books and material to build the first really Renaissance school in Europe. The wonderful hermetic genius [Salomon] Trismosin also was associated with Ficino at this time. In 1475 he was in Venice and we find him moving over to Florence and training himself. So, if the father of Western alchemy Trismosin, the great teacher of Paracelsus trained under Ficino. Paracelsus the great Abbot who trained Agrippa and a number of other individuals trained under Ficino. We went into this in the Hermetic science course and we showed how the great developments all trace themselves back to Ficino. He was the fount like Plato was the fount in the ancient world of all the great traditions that had come together under his aegis.
But it's interesting to know how the chain of philosophy and outlook spread even under economic conditions. Even within the confines of what normally would be thought of just business and monopoly. But it's interesting also to note, as Saxl does, that the papacy had their hand in the situation. So that there was a working together of papal legates, Medici and businesspeople and students from Ficino's Academy. They often were all wrapped up in the same person. So that we find a very peculiar situation. We find the very structures of religion and economics and education coming to rest in the same focus. And this is why the transformation of European civilization at this time was so complete and so unique. It was a time when Ficino literally could influence everyone and anyone. And Florence became like Athens.
And Lorenzo as long as he was in charge protected the situation. There were jealousies. There was a terrible travesty when Lorenzo's brother Giuliano was slain openly by thugs in the family Cathedral in front of the high altar. And poor Giuliano never a chance really to manifest himself passed on. And Ficino at this time was extremely agitated. After working for 25 years on his translation of Plato revising it, writing commentaries for almost every dialogue Ficino in1484 published his great edition of Plato. And a year or so later published his book called the Platonic theology indicating what it all meant. And reinstating in very specific words over hundreds of pages the view that had sustained antiquity. The view that had led man into a state of civilization that was almost unbelievable in the 14th and 15th centuries.
It was then that his friend Pico della Mirandola finally prevailed upon him to begin to tackle Plotinus. Now the manuscript for Plotinus had not been seen completely since the days of Provost. That is almost a thousand years had gone by. The only influence that Ficino's had in the medieval period was through the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite and through a couple of quotations. So that the impact of the 54 books of the Enneads was unbelievable. Plotinus is a tightly packed dynamo. Plato is like a very interesting Symphony and Plotinus is like a chamber piece done for one virtuoso. And so, the impact of Plotinus was enormous.
And it wasn't until the fateful year 1492 concomitate with Columbus that Ficino brought out his great translation of Plotinus' Enneads again with commentaries on every one of the 54 books. Tremendous work, tremendous workload. It was the publication of Ennead by Plotinus that focused the Hermetic and Platonic traditions together. And made it possible for the generations that came later. Those generations like Trithemius and Trismus and Colette and Riechline [sp?] to pass on to their students like John Dee and Paracelsus and the Griffith and so forth, what had become reinstated as the tradition. And we receive and up into the 20th century still this tradition whole. The structure is platonic but the neural energy that runs through the structure is Plotinian. Or as it was always referred to Neo-platonic. So that there was a Neo-platonic ordering within the Platonic grand structure that Ficino brought into play. And of course, this poignancy had been growing in him for almost forty years. And his influence upon living human beings at that time was so profound in all of the arts, especially. One found the sense of beauty being honed in in a Neoplatonic way.
When I talk next week about Botticelli, we'll go into this. We're not having the lecture here. There's a holiday so there's no lecture here. But I can't interrupt the course that we're having the lecture over at the Gnostic Society on Hollywood Boulevard next, next week.
And we'll see with Botticelli paintings that in fact here is the wisdom the mobile universal wisdom of Ficino being given an expression by Botticelli. But all of this exacts the price as you often observed in his writings whenever consciousness makes a dramatic jump in attainment there is always a reactive balancing mode. And the great publication of Plotinus in 1492 brought about a reaction just a few years later. Lorenzo had just barely passed from the scene when a monk named Savonarola suddenly began lecturing in the plazas of Florence saying these pagans have gone too far. They must not only be exiled but all of their work feel returned. And so, the public plazas of Florence were turned into blood baths. Savonarola himself was burned at the stake a few years later by the same mob that he had incited. It's so pervasive was the madness of the moment that Pico della Mirandola gave up his Kabbalistic philosophy to follow the Savonarola. Botticelli quit painting to follow Savonarola.
Almost alone for a year or two Ficino himself, nearing the end of his life, even though he was still a fairly young man in terms of a life expectancy today. He would only live another year or two. He devoted himself to translating Dionysius the Areopagite. The most mystical of all Christian thinkers into Latin and thus completing the works. So that the tradition from Hermes through Plato and Pythagoras through Plotinus to Dionysius the Areopagite with all the figures in between was completely translated by 1497. It was in this tone of vine that Ficino finally succumbed to illness and died on October 1st, 1499.
We have a very short memory of him by Giovanni Corsi. He describes Ficino and I think I'd like to give you just a few sentences out of this. He writes, "In stature he was very short of slender build. Somewhat hunched in both shoulders. He was a little hesitant of speech and stuttered but only in pronouncing the letter s. Yet in his speech and appearance he was not without grace. His legs and arms, particularly his hands were rather long. His face was drawn forward and presented a mild and pleasing aspect. His complexion was ruddy. his hair was golden and curly and stood up above his forehead. His bodily constitution contained excessive blood which was mixed with a very thin subtle red vile. His health was not at all settled for he suffered very much from a weakness of the stomach. And although he always appeared cheerful and festive in company, yet it was thought that he sat long and solitude and became as if numb with melancholy." He was born on October 19th so that he was the Libra. His moon was in Aries. His ascendant was Aquarius. He had Mars in Scorpio though, and this apparently was a situation that worked against him later on.
It's strange to try and reconstruct the Ficino without reverting to the sense of the man. I did a lecture before in Ficino, so I won't, I won't bring out all of the other material that I put in that lecture. You can obtain the cassette and follow it.
But there is translated from Spring Publications, which is the publications of the Yung Society. Spring Publications have published The Book of Life of Marcilio Ficino in paperback. And this is a very famous underground classic of the Renaissance. This is the first time that it's been translated into English. And I think that you would enjoy this. Ficino says that he writes this for spiritual seekers because they usually have a melancholy temperament. That is to say they think too much and they become withdrawn. And they're liable to become edgy and testy in the general press of life. So that Ficino is writing this Book of Life to encourage seekers to be of good cheer. And he would like to assure you that he loves you very much. And that this love is cosmic. And just because he's not here physically doesn't mean that he can't through this medium be your friend and companion. If you would only be willing to journey on those celestial hierarchies. And it's very easy to recognize that you are able to do this because your life begins to show the Harmonia of the spheres. Conditions become better, more articulate. And he says you will be able to see that I am indeed your companion. And in this it is a wonderful thing.
He says we shall offer three important rules if we can first warn you not to think that we are talking here about adoring the stars but about rather imitating them and seizing them by imitation. Not imitating and miming so much but imitating by recreating them within ourselves. He writes again do not think the stars give their gifts by choice but rather by a natural influx. It is a multiple and complex business. So, we strive to fit ourselves to it carefully. Just as every day for the sake of our health we fit ourselves into the open light and heat of the sun. To fit oneself to his occulted wonderful gifts is the duty of the wise person. But to come now to the rules for fitting our song to which stars. The first is to discover what powers these have in themselves. Which star planets and aspect has what effect on them and so on. And he brings this back into play. that we can literally learn the technique in an ABC. And we find a confirmation in the fact that our lives begin to resonate in a sense which is recognizable at any time, in any place. because as a celestial hierarchy that we are tuning ourselves to.
Well, I think we'll stop there. I have more but we're going to take a break. I'm going to try and sell some cassettes. Buying more books that's what I do with money. And then we'll have our second part down in the library. We'll go down there.
We've gone from Dante to the Ficino in the course. And we have, at least I hope, laid some kind of a basic pattern which you can think back in your memory or review through the tapes whenever you like and reconstruct this tremendous development. We are in our time in a position where we don't have a Cosimo. The situation is broad and complex but we have the situation very near to that in early Renaissance Florence in many ways. It is also as a situation that occurred in Athens in the time of Socrates. It occurred several other times in other civilizations. And so, it's instructive for us to see how this comes about. That there is a way of educating ourselves and finding out how to do things. The worst possibility is to misconstrue events, to think that there is some hidden and secret code in things pointing to the integration of things.
The keys for Ficino and any other time was that the secret key to things pointed to an integration beyond the phenomenal realm. So that the spirit, or as Ficino would say the soul, is where the integration takes place. And that the worst danger is to think that the integration takes place in the phenomenal realm. This makes of an egotistical Empire what should be a religious experience. And herein lies the tale because even though there was a tremendous impetus in Florence the phenomenon of Savonarola and the unraveling of all of the civic stability of Florence came crashing down because it had not been effective in its completeness.
When we return, if you're not going to come to the Botticelli lecture next week, when we return, we'll see how the Italian mind has changed. From the kinds of concerns that delighted Donatello and Brunelleschi. From the wonderful mystical visions of Fra Angelico. We suddenly have Machiavelli. We suddenly have the problems Campanella had in Bruno in Galileo. The same people but the Heritage has changed. And it's instructive for us then and the ones remaining when we come back to see the difference in tone.
So, from Dante to Ficino is all of one fabric it's a royal tapestry. It's what the Greeks used to call the peplos. The cloth, the gorgeous cloth upon which is emblazoned all of the suspended mythological images of meaning. And that embellished embroidery cloth is a cloak which is ceremoniously hung around the shoulders of the statue of Athena, the Goddess of wisdom. In many ways the figure of Beatrice in Dante is the early Renaissance configuration, if you like to use that word, of Athena the Goddess of wisdom. In whose house, in whose domain where she exists in her naturality man finds the paradise of meaning. And having found it as a hero in a pioneer mode (?) it is incumbent upon him to take this heroic journey back to the people. And tell them the story of this so that they may incorporate that journey, that pilgrimage, into the texture and fabric the ritual and ceremony of everyday life of the community. And the test is whether one is willing having worked ones way heroically through the quest to come back and share that with those who have the disadvantage of not having had that pilgrimage. Who need to be taught like children of an experiential realm that is beyond the capacity to immediately understand.
And so, all the problems of teaching and learning and life experience and art and philosophy become pointed because every issue is problematic all over again. How are you going to do it this time? How are you going to tell these people these stages and steps? What kinds of imagery are you going to close, close those moving joints to make it palatable and viable? The difficulty is of course not in unlearning so much as in half learning. The difficulties for the uninitiated, for those for whom the journey is not real. For those for whom the journey is but a speculative what if. A feeling toned splurge of entertainment. For those to come into possession of the powers that generate from these journeys of Homers (?). And to mistake the phenomenal world for the axis of integration. To think that one rules by the crown. That one conquers by the sword. Rather than having understood that the crown and the sword are both symbolic of experiential features that integrate beyond the phenomenal modes.
And it's for this reason that there is a covered secrecy about final humans. It's for this reason that Ficino helped the tradition to go underground in the late 1490s. It's for this reason that they are called mysteries, secrets. But you cannot have them, you cannot share them until you have been initiated. The initiation being not so much the codification of a ceremonial program but the seal of individual experience. The veracity of an intact sense of completeness.
I think here again of that wonderful symbolic maze that's in the floor of Chartres Cathedral. So wisely put there by the constructors 900 years ago. It's a maze that in order to get to the center you have to traverse by your walking every square inch of the labyrinth. There is no part of the labyrinth that is expendable. It all must be trying to reach the center. so that perfection completeness are had in one move of coordination and therein lies the gracefulness. The gracefulness which is articulated in time over years or decades, over a lifetime. And not even under control of one being but needing companions along the way and that wonderful phrase of Ruth Montgomery. And so, the love of companions along the way is one of the structural requirements of the sacred journey. Necessary in it's a number of completeness to the individual perfectness. So that the group as a completeness of the individuals of perfection are able to come together in a harmonia. In order to help this condition secure all kinds of preparations are needed. You have to eat almost every day for years. How are you going to do that? You have to make arrangements for families and for livelihood. And so, the integration of all life of the entire community is organized and patterned by this quest, by this activity.
Once Dante had brought the sacred journey back. Once the Divine Comedy had been shown to the people of Florence. It remained in the 200 years after that for those Florentines to evolve finally up to the times of Cosimo and Lorenzo, Ficino. The way in which to inform the society to create the conditions whereby the completeness of the companionship could join the perfection of the individual. As in ancient Athens and it was Florence the glue did not hold. And when the dynamic of that intensity comes undone it produces a lot of terror in history. So, there are dangers. It is fraught with possibilities of going astray. Those who still understand of course carry it on in an underground hidden way. It is this way that the West was able to keep intact the vision until it surfaced again and came into possession of itself, consciously in the Enlightenment.
And that's what this course on Tuesday nights has been about the Enlightenment. The coming back into the surfacing of this great tradition. Only instead of following the angelic hierarchies of Dionysius the Areopagite, one was following the intricacies of higher calculus.
But the danger so frequently seen by Ficino and always alluded to, the danger is that we will become jaded first of all. In that love that we should have for each other. That is the very first casualty. The care for others is the first casualty. It's the first point of decay. And so, the wholesomeness of the entire journey is the integrity of the community working together. The family man. And thus, it is not a sentimental or maudlin phraseology to speak of mankind as a family but in fact a very specific requirement necessary to the execution of anything of value. Whether it obtains or not in our case, in our life, it is not up to us to judge. Desire for the fruits of action is always the falling from grace. The doing of the right thing regardless of whether you expect to have the efficiency of it is always the code of wisdom. We do the right thing because for doing over what is right, we do not prejudge you become jaded because we fully expect that doing right is going to wind us into trouble. Especially that trouble known as ridicule. and those that should be companions become the scoffers. So, the first casualty is that love for one another.
We will find if you don't come to the Botticelli lecture next week, in two weeks we'll find Machiavelli right in the prince. Where he wisely informs us that we have to be suspicious of everyone at all times. And the wise man is being prepared to have the right-sized dagger for the occasion.
Well, that's it.
END OF RECORDING