Scriptorium

Marsilio Ficino as a beginning student of Plato

Paul Oskar Kristeller

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Kristeller Paul Oskar. Marsilio Ficino as a beginning student of Plato. In: Scriptorium, Tome 20 n1, 1966. pp. 41-54;

doi : 10.3406/scrip.1966.3256

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To Martin Me Guire

MARSILIO FICINO
AS A BEGINNING STUDENT OF PLATO*

Renaissance Platonism has been the subject of many recent studies,

and consequently its doctrinal content, its relationship to its ancient and
medieval sources and to the rival currents of its own time, and its influence
upon later thought are now much better known and understood, although
numerous details are still in need of further investigation (1). The central
concern of these studies has been the variety of philosophical theories
presented under the name of Platonic philosophy by such Renaissance
thinkers as Ficino, Pico, Diacceto or Patrizi, to name but a few of those
Renaissance thinkers who identified themselves as Platonic philosophers.
As a result, it has become increasingly clear that the doctrines that passed
for Platonic in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were different in many
ways from those of Plato himself, and even from those of his ancient followers.
Yet unlike their medieval predecessors, Renaissance Platonists did not
work primarily or exclusively from translations and secondary sources.
They gradually gained access to the complete body of Plato's writings
in the Greek text and made extensive use of them, although the outcome
of this use may often seem to us quite dubious or wrong when seen in the
light of modern Plato scholarship. Yet the Plato scholarship of the
as distinct from its doctrinal Platonism, has not yet been
thoroughly explored, although it is of great interest for two entirely different
reasons : The Renaissance translators and commentators of Plato, continuing
the work of the ancient Neoplatonists and of the Byzantine scholars, made
their own respectable contribution to the understanding of Plato's text
and thought, a contribution that paved the way for later scholars, and that
has not been sufficiently studied or appreciated. On the other hand, where
the Renaissance scholars failed in their efforts according to modern standards,
their very errors and their differences from their more recent successors
may be connected with their own outlook and interests and thus throw
a new light on the latter.
Marsilio Ficino was a central figure in Renaissance Platonism not
only as a self-styled prophet of Platonic wisdom, but also as the first scholar
who managed to translate all works of Plato into any Western language,
and to accompany each of them either with a detailed commentary, or

(*) I am indebted to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for a fellowship granted
in 1958, and to the American Philosophical Society and the Columbia University Council for
Research in the Social Sciences for several grants made for the acquisition of microfilms.
(1) See my Renaissance Thought (New York, 1961), p. 48-69, 148-151; Eight Philosophers of the
Italian Renaissance (Stanford, 1964); Supplementum Ficinianum (2 vol., Florence 1937).
41
 PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER

at least with a short introduction. These Latin translations and

first printed in 1484, had a wide diffusion and authority for
several centuries down to the nineteenth century, and helped to shape for
innumerable readers their understanding of Plato's text and thought.
Aside from the wide influence Ficino exercised through his independent
philosophical and other writings, he had an even wider, though anonymous
or pseudonymous, influence through his translations and commentaries
under the name of Plato. The task to study Ficino as a translator and
commentator of Plato thus assumes a great significance, but the difficulties
of such a study are obviously great. The Greek manuscripts of Plato which
Ficino used for his translation have been identified (2), but nobody has
yet attempted to collate his Latin translation with the Greek text, or with
any of the Latin translations that had been made of individual dialogues
before Ficino's time, to determine which of these translations were available
to him, and what use, if any, he may have made of them. In the case of
Ficino's introductions and commentaries, it would be necessary to show
how Ficino understood or judged the authenticity and relative importance,
the aim and content of each Platonic dialogue, which doctrines he accepted
or rejected, emphasized or neglected, how he understood certain difficult
or corrupt passages, and what use he made of earlier Greek or Latin
available to him. Most of those questions have hardly been
raised, let alone, answered, and all I can hope to do in a short paper is to
make but a minor contribution to the study of these large and complex
problems. I should like to discuss a group of Ficino manuscripts, one of
which I have recently discovered, which contain Ficino's introductions
to the first Platonic dialogues he translated, and to ascertain what light
they throw on Ficino as a translator and especially as an interpreter of
Plato, more particularly at the time when he just began to carry out his
great undertaking that was to occupy him for more than twenty years.
Marsilio Ficino, born in 1433, did not begin to learn Greek until 1456,
and we have no specific information on the content and progress of his
studies during the following years (3). We have a number of Greek
owned and annotated by Ficino (4), and a number of translations
from the Greek surely or probably made by him, and some of them may
belong to this early period, but none of them is dated (5). At the time when

(2) Laur. 59, 1; 85, 6; 85, 7; 85, 9. M. Sicherl, " Neuentdeckte Handschriften von Marsilio
Ficino und Johannes Reuchlin, "Scriptorium 16 (1962, 50-61), p. 50-51 and 59. Cf. R. Marcel,
Marsile Ficin (Paris, 1958), p. 254-255.
(3) P. O. Kristeller, Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters (Rome, 1956), p. 196-200.
(4) Sicherl, loc. cit.
(5) Undated, but perhaps early are Ficino's translations of Jamblichus (de secta Pythagorica)
and Hermias (in Phaedrum), both in Vat. lat. 5953 (Suppl. I, p. cxlv-cxlvi), of Theon of
Smyrna in Vat. lat. 4530 (p. cxlvi-cxlvii), of the Orphic hymns and of the Chaldaic Oracles
attributed to Zoroaster in Laur. 36, 35 (p. cxliv-cxlv). An anonymous translation of Ocellus
Lucanus in Piacenza, Biblioteca Comunale, cod. Landi 50, f. 49-54v, might also be attributed
42
 MARSILIO FICINO AS A BEGINNING STUDENT OF PLATO

Cosimo de' Medici gave Ficino a house in Careggi which the latter chose
to call his Academy, in September, 1462, he celebrated the event with the
translation of an Orphic hymn (6). In April, 1463, Ficino completed his
translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, after having spent only a few months
on it (7). We know from Ficino's own words that he began his translation
of Plato at that time, after having finished the version of the Hermetica,
that he did so at the request of Cosimo de' Medici, and that he had at his
disposal, since 1462, two Greek manuscripts of Plato, a complete one which
belonged to Cosimo, and a partial one owned by Amerigo Benci (8). When
Cosimo died on August 1, 1464, Ficino had translated ten Platonic dialogues,
nine of them before January 11, and by April 1, 1466, twenty-three dialogues
were ready (9). After that date, we have no specific information on the
progress of the translation, but it is probable that Ficino had completed
the first draft of the entire work by 1468 or 1469. However, he wanted
to subject the translation to a thorough revision, and hence refused to have
it circulate. Occupied with his Platonic Theology and several other writings,
Ficino did not attend to the revision of his Plato translation for several
years. He probably began to revise it around 1477, and had finished the
revision in 1482 when he allowed it to be copied for others. In 1483, Ficino
sent the entire translation to the press, apparently after having revised it
once more, and finally the first printed edition of Plato appeared in
or October 1484. Although it had been carefully seen through the
press by Ficino, it was necessary to append to it a long list of corrections.
The second edition, printed in Venice 1491, was not supervised by Ficino,
but inserted the corrections in the text and hence is considered more accurate.
From these two early editions all later ones are derived, although they may
have been altered by some of the editors. Ficino's version was reprinted
at least eighteen times between 1517 and 1602, and again with the Greek
text of the Bipontina (1781-88) and of the editions of Immanuel Bekker
(1816-18, 1826, 1846) and of Friedrich Creuzer (1855) (10).
This textual history suggests the considerable task, not only of
collating Ficino's version with the Greek text and with the earlier Latin
versions, but also of comparing the text of the authoritative first edition
with that of the manuscripts and of the later editions. We cannot even
touch this problem, but we wish to sum up what may be asserted about
the order in which Ficino translated and published the Platonic dialogues,
and also the judgment he expressed about their authenticity.

to Ficino and would have to be dated before 1462. The same might be said of an anonymous
translation of Pletho's commentary on the Chaldaic Oracles that I hope to discuss on another
occasion.
(6) Suppl Fie. II, p. 87-88. A. Della Torre, Storia dell' Accademia Platonica di Firenze (Florence,
1902), p. 537-538.
(7) Suppl. Fie. I, p. exxix-exxx. The date of completion appears in several manuscripts.
(8) Suppl. Fie. I, p. cxlvii. Sicherl, loc. cit.
(9) On the textual history of the Plato translation, see Suppl. Fie. I, p. cxlvii-clvii.
(10) For a list of the editions, see Suppl. Fie. I, p. lx-lxiv.

43
 PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER

The Greek manuscript tradition, followed by most modern editors,

presents Plato's writings in nine tetralogies, beginning with the Euthyphro
and ending with the Letters. This somewhat artificial arrangement goes
back to antiquity and is associated with the name of Thrasyllus (s. I A.D.).
The tetralogies include a number of pieces that have been questioned or
rejected by modern scholars, such as the first and second Alcibiades, Hip-
parchus, Amatores, Theages, the Greater Hippias, Clitopho, Minos and the
Letters. Another group of writings associated with Plato's name does not
constitute a part of the tetralogies and was recognized as apocryphal already
in antiquity : Definitiones, De iusto, De virtute, Demodocus, Sisyphus, Eryxias
and Axiochus. When we compare Ficino's Latin translation of Plato, as
printed in 1484, with the Greek corpus, it is apparent that he took for his
basis the tetralogies as he found them in the Greek manuscripts available
to him (11), and accepted all works included in that " edition " as authentic,
with the exception of the Clitopho on whose authenticity he expressed some
doubt (12). None of the works included in the tetralogies was omitted by
Ficino, whereas the seven apocryphal works that remained outside the
tetralogies were also excluded from Ficino's translation of Plato and rejected
as apocryphal. Five of these works were never translated by Ficino, whereas
he did translate the Definitiones and the Axiochus, attributing the former
to Speusippus, and the latter to Xenocrates (13). These two translations
were made in 1464 and 1465, respectively, and hence at the same time when
he had begun to translate Plato, but were not included in the definitive
translation of Plato's works. Ficino allowed these two translations to
circulate in manuscript copies, and when he finally had them printed, it
was in the collection of Platonist writings that was published by Aldus
Manutius in 1497 and that begins with Jamblichus' De mysteriis.
Whereas the content of Ficino's translation of Plato coincides with
that of the tetralogies, his sequence is quite different, beginning with the
Hipparchus and Amatores, and ending with the Critias, Laws, Epinomis
and Letters. I tried to show many years ago that the sequence of the Platonic
dialogues in Ficino's edition that has no basis in the Greek tradition and
does not appear to follow any systematic principle actually represents the
chronological sequence in which Ficino translated them one after another (14).
The chief, though not the only, proof of this contention lies in an interesting
manuscript owned by the Bodleian Library (15). This manuscript, written
(11) See A. M. Bandini, Catalogus Codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Mediceae Laurentianae
varia continens opera graecorum patrum, II (Florence, 1768, reprinted Leipzig, 1961), col. 485-488;
III (1770), col. 251-254, 277-266.
(12) Platonis Opera, Florence, Laurentius Venetus, s. a. [1484] (Hain-Copinger 13062), f. X
7 verso : Hic liber forte non est Platonis.
(13) Suppl. Fie. I, p. cxxxvi-cxxxvn. The Axiochus had been previously translated, as a
work of Plato, by Rinucius Aretinus, Cincius Romanus and Antonius Cassarinus.
(14) Suppl. Fie. I, p. cli-clii.
(15) Ms. Canonici Class. Lat. 163. Cf. H. O. Coxe, Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae
Bodleianae, Pars tertia Codices Graecos et Latinos Canonicianos complectens (Oxford, 1854),
col. 182. F. Mad an and others, A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian
44
 MARSILIO FICINO AS A BEGINNING STUDENT OF PLATO

on paper by several hands, contains Ficino's translation of ten dialogues

(Hipparchus, Amatores, Theages, Meno, Alcibiades I and //, Minos, Euthy-
phro, Parmenides, Philebus), preceded by a preface to Cosimo de' Medici,
and followed by two short passages from the Euthydemus and Theaetetus.
After these Platonic texts, we find Alcinous (i.e., Albinus), De dogmatibus
Platonis, the Definitiones attributed to Speusippus, the Aurea verba and
Symbola attributed to Pythagoras, all of them mentioned in the preface
to Cosimo and hence translated during his lifetime and as an appendix to
the ten Platonic dialogues. The manuscript concludes with the Axiochus
attributed to Xenocrates and preceded by the known preface to Piero de'
Medici. This work is not mentioned in the preface to Cosimo, and since
the translation was begun for Cosimo, but completed after his death, the
manuscript cannot have been written for Cosimo, although perhaps for
Piero.
It had been known from other remarks of Ficino that he had translated
ten Platonic dialogues for Cosimo, but it was only the testimony of the
Bodleian manuscript that proved beyond any doubt which were these ten
excluding from the list the Euthydemus and the Theaetetus (of which
Ficino translated at that time only short passages) and the Laws (the letter
cited for this work actually refers to the Minos) (16). Since the ten dialogues
in the Bodleian manuscript are exactly the first ten dialogues in Ficino's

Library at Oxford, vol. IV (1897), p. 321, n. 18744. I am indebted for a microfilm and much
additional information to Dr. R. W. Hunt. Cf. Suppl. Fie. I, p. xxxvii. cart. s. XV. 147 fols.
(86-86v, 143V-147 blank). F. 1-2. Argumentum Marsilii Ficini Florentini in decem a se traductos
Platonis dialogos ad Cosmum Medicem patrie patrem (ed. Suppl. Fie. II, p. 103-105). 2-2v.
Argumentum in Hipparchum. 2V-5V. Hipparchus. 5v-6. Argumentum in librum de philosophia
(i.e., Amatores). 6-9. De philosophia. 9-10. Argumentum in Theagem. 10-14. Theages. 14V-15.
Argumentum in Menonem. 15v-30v. Meno. 30v-31. Argumentum in Alcibiadem primum.
31-45V. Alcibiades primus. 45v-46. Argumentum in Alcibiadem secundum. 46V-51V. Alcibiades II.
51V-52V. Argumentum in Minoem. 52v-57. Minos. 57-57v. Argumentum in Euthyphronem.
57V-64V. Euthyphron. 65-66. Argumentum in Parmenidem. 66-87v. Parmenides. 88-88v.
in Philebum. 88V-113. Philebus. 113-113V. Plato in Eutydemo, inc. Omnes homines
bene agere, des. gradum beatitudinis arbitratur (a summary or paraphrase of the section 278e-
282a; this passage is inserted in Ficino's letter to Cosimo de' Medici: Opera, Basel, 1576, and
Turin, 1959, p. 608; see also Suppl. I, p. 37-38 for the original text of this letter, dated January 11,
1463, that is, 1464). 113V-114. In Teeteto, inc. Mala radicitus extirpare, des. cum sapientia
sanctitas (176 a-b; this passage is also inserted in the original text of the same letter, Suppl. I,
p. 37-38, but not in its revised printed version Opera, p. 608). 114-132. Alcinoi liber de dogmatibus
Platonis. 132V-136V. Speusippi de definitionibus Platonis. 137-137V. Pythagoras, aurea verba.
137V-138V. Pythagoras, symbola. 138V-139. Preface to Piero de' Medici. 139-143. Xenocrates,
de morte (Axiochus). Dr. Hunt, who also consulted Miss Albinia de la Mare, distinguished seven
different hands in this manuscript : a (f. 1-10, 97-108, 129-143), b (11-20), c (21-32), d (33-42,
109-128), e (43-52), f (53-85v), g (87-96v), and informed me that the changes of hands always
coincide with changes of gatherings. This means that the copying was farmed out in
equal sections to several persons in order to speed it up, a procedure of which I know
other instances. This explains why f. 31V-32V is written in a smaller hand because the allotted
space turned out to be too short, and why for the opposite reason, f. 86-86v were left blank.
Since the changes of hands and gatherings do not coincide with the changes of texts, we may
presume that the Bodleian manuscript was copied from an archetype of the same content that
has not been preserved. Otherwise, it would not have been possible to calculate so well the
units of text distributed among the different scribes. None of the hands is identical with the
known hand of Ficino (see below). See pi. 11 c, 12-14.
(16) Della Torre, p. 545-546, 559. See Suppl. I, p. cxlix.
45
 PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER

definitive translation of Plato, the inference that the irregular order found
in Ficino's translation reflects the chronological order in which he translated
the dialogues is quite conclusive, although he seems to have made some
minor adjustments in this sequence. The preface to Cosimo suggests that
Ficino at that time did not yet plan to translate all of Plato's works, and
also briefly explains on the basis of their general content why he selected
these ten particular dialogues for his translation and why he placed them
in this particular order. This explanation is not too plausible for the modern
reader, and in a sense, Ficino had bad luck, by modern standards, with
his selection. Of the ten dialogues he chose, only four are now considered
authentic, the Meno, Euthyphro, Parmenides and Philebus. I suspect that
Ficino also followed some other unexpressed criteria in his selection. With
the exception of the last two (Parmenides and Philebus), the ten dialogues
are all comparatively short or easy. Moreover, the Timaeus, the Republic,
the Laws, the Gorgias and other Platonic writings that were available
at least in partial and widely diffused earlier translations appear only near
the end of Ficino's translation and hence were taken up last, and perhaps
with the help of these earlier versions. Of the ten dialogues translated
for Cosimo, seven had not been translated before, and the previous
of the Meno (by Henricus Aristippus), Euthyphro (by Rinucius
Aretinus and Francesco Filelfo) and Parmenides (by Georgius Trapezuntius)
had such a small circulation that Ficino may have been unaware of their
existence (17). We may hence conclude that Ficino began his translation
with ten dialogues which he considered to be " new " to his Latin readers,
and that when he proceeded to translate all of Plato, he tackled last those
works that had been widely available before his time. In any future attempt
to study the textual history of Ficino's translation, the Bodleian manuscript
will certainly play a major role, and also the question whether or not Ficino
knew or used for the Meno, Euthyphro and Parmenides the work of his
predecessors can only be answered by a careful collation.
Let us now proceed from Ficino the translator to Ficino the
of Plato. Ficino's explanatory writings on Plato fall into two
quite distinct groups : introductions (argumenta) and commentaries prop-

(17) For the Latin translations of individual Platonic dialogues made before Ficino, see Suppl.
Fie. I, p. clvi; E. Garin, ,,Ricerche sulle traduzioni di Platone nella prima meta del sec. XV,"
in Medioeuo e Rinascimento, Studi in onore di Bruno Nardi (Florence, 1955), I, p. 339-374. The
translations made before the fifteenth century have now been published in the Corpus Platonicum
Medii Aevi, ed. R. Klibansky (London, 1940-62). The translation of the Meno by Henricus
Aristippus (s. XII) is known from five manuscripts none of which originated in Italy (Plato
Latinus I, Meno interprte Henrico Aristippo, ed. V. Kordeuter and C. Labowsky, London,
1940). Rinucius' version of the Euthyphro survives only in ms. 131 of Balliol College, Oxford
(D. P. Lockwood, " De Rinucio Aretino Graecarum litterarum interprte," Harvard Studies
in Classical Philology 24, 1913, p. 105-107), Filelfo's version of the same dialogue only in ms. C 87
of the Biblioteca Vallicelliana in Rome, Trapezuntius' translation of the Parmenides only in
ms. 6201 of the Biblioteca Guarnacciana in Volterra (R. Klibansky, " Plato's Parmenides
in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance," Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies 1, 2, 1943), p. 289-304).
46
 MARSILIO FICINO ASA BEGINNING STUDENT OF PLATO

er (18). In the manuscripts and editions of Ficino's translation of Plato,

the text of each dialogue, and of each book of the Republic and Laws, is
preceded by a short introduction that runs from half a page to three or
four and purports to summarize the main points of the text. Such
are lacking only for the Clitopho, a dialogue which Ficino considered
apocryphal, and for the Symposium, Phaedrus and Timaeus, dialogues for
which he composed lengthy commentaries at an early date. There is reason
to believe that Ficino wrote these introductions about the same time when
he translated the dialogues to which they belong, or shortly afterwards,
but that he altered them here and there before he had them printed in 1484.
In the Bodleian manuscript, each of the ten dialogues is preceded by its
introduction. This shows that the introductions were composed along
with the translations, and during the lifetime of Cosimo whom Ficino
personally more than once. A close comparison between the Bodleian
manuscript and the edition of 1484 shows that Ficino revised the
for the edition. There are textual errors in the Bodleian manuscript,
but there is also a large number of discrepancies that must be interpreted
as author's variants. Many of them are stylistic in character, involving
word order or the choice of synonymous terms, but a few are more
showing how Ficino in the later text substituted a more careful
phrasing or added a piece of information (19). Most obvious is the difference
in the introduction to the last dialogue, the Philebus. Here the Bodleian
manuscript adds a passage at the beginning that is missing in the edition,
and in turn lacks a passage at the end that has been added in the printed
text. To what extent the later manuscripts agree with the Bodleian
or with the printed edition remains to be seen (20).
More complicated is the textual history of the larger commentaries
Ficino composed on some of the works of Plato (21). It appears from the
introductions to the ten dialogues that Ficino planned at the time to compose
full commentaries on all of them (22), but he evidently did not carry out
this project. Ficino actually composed commentaries only on the Parme-
nides, Sophist, Timaeus, Phaedrus, Philebus, Symposium, and on a passage

(18) Suppl. I, p. cxvi-cxxv.

(19) Towards the end of the introduction to the Amatores, the edition reads : prima yidetur
vel Solonis fuisse vel similis alicuius (Opera, p. 1131); ms. O merely has : prima Solonis fuit.
In the introduction to the Meno, virtue is defined as affectio sive habitus animae (Opera, p. 1132);
ms. O omits the words sive habitus. At the end of the introduction to the Minos, the printed
text concludes the list of legislators with a sentence on Zamolxis and Plato; this sentence does
not appear in ms. O.
(20) The following contemporary manuscripts of Ficino's Plato translation are known to me :
Laur. 82, 6 and 7 (the dedication copy for Lorenzo de' Medici); Urb. lat. 185 (written for
Federico of Urbino; contains only the first part of the dialogues up to the Io, and the commentary
on the Symposium); Harl. 3481 (written in 1491 for Ferrante d'Aragona, and probably copied
from the first edition; contains the dialogues up to the Phaedrus); Est. lat. 469 (alpha X 1. 12;
contains only the second part of the dialogues beginning with the Apology).
(21) Suppl. I, p. cxvu-cxxv.
(22) Suppl. I, p. cxvn.
47
 PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER

in book VIII of the Republic. The commentary on the Symposium, and

substantial parts of the commentaries on the Phaedrus and Timaeus are
included in the Plato edition of 1484. The commentary on the Symposium
was composed in 1469 and subsequently underwent some minor revisions (23).
The commentary on the Philebus was first composed on the basis of lectures
around 1469, and repeatedly revised between 1491 and 1492. All these
commentaries, with the exception of the commentary on the Symposium,
were printed in 1496, the commentaries on the Phaedrus and Timaeus in
a text much enlarged over that of 1484.
The text of the ten early introductions, although not that of the
translations, can now be studied in an autograph draft, heavily corrected,
which survives in two fragments that were presumably separated in the
early nineteenth century. If properly recomposed, they contain the complete
text of the ten argumenta in the same order in which the respective dialogues,
with their argumenta, appear in the Bodleian manuscript. One fragment
that came to the Bibliothque Nationale from the Libri collection, has been
known to me for some time (24). It consists of 3 folios numbered 5 to 7
and contains Ficino's introductions to Alcibiades II, Minos, Euthyphro,
Parmenides and Philebus, that is the second half of the introductions to
the group of dialogues included in the Bodleian manuscript and translated
for Cosimo. Even from a superficial comparison I recognized that the Paris
draft was connected with the Oxford manuscript, for it offered a text of
the introduction to the Philebus that agreed roughly with the Bodleian
manuscript against the printed text. The discovery of the other fragment
came at a later date and as a complete surprise. When I revisited the
Biblioteca Palatina in Parma in 1958, Dott. A. Ciavarella kindly permitted
me to go through a collection of autographs, mostly of the sixteenth century,
that consists of six boxes, is known as the Carteggio di Lucca, and not
in any catalogue or inventory. In box 5, which is called the Primo
Supplemento and follows a roughly alphabetical arrangement, I found a
fragment of four unnumbered folios which contained a draft, heavily
and evidently autograph, of Ficino's preface to Cosimo de' Medici,
as known from the Bodleian manuscript, and of the introductions to the
first five dialogues dedicated to Cosimo : Hipparchus, Amatores, Theages,
Meno and Alcibiades I. I immediately suspected that this was the piece
missing in the Paris fragment, and my suspicion was confirmed when I was

(23) Marsile Ficin, Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon, d. R. Marcel, Paris, 1956. This
edition is based on the manuscripts known at the time, but unfortunately, it does not give
a clear picture of the revisions of the text in its several stages. Gf. SuppL I, p. 86-87. An
additional manuscript has recently been acquired by the Pierpont Morgan Library (M. 918):
cf. Laurence Witten, Catalogue Five (New Haven, 1962), p. 26-27, n. 20.
(24) Nouvelles acquisitions latines 1633, f. 5-7. For a full description, see L. Delisle, Catalogue
des manuscrits des fonds Libri et Barrois (Paris, 1888), p. 115-116. Cf. Suppl. Fie. I, p. xxxvm.
See pi. 13 b. P. O. Kristeller, Studies, p.162. I am indebted for a microfilm to M. J. Porcher,
and for additional information to Mme Raymond Bloch.
48
 MARSILIO FICINO AS A BEGINNING STUDENT OF PLATO

able to compare microfilms of the three manuscripts (25). The Parma

fragment and the Paris fragment constitute parts I and II of a single
draft for the preface and the ten introductions contained in the Oxford
manuscript. The Paris fragment begins exactly where the Parma fragment
ends. The style of the corrections is exactly the same, and so is the hand
which is identical with that of Ficino as known from established
(26). The Parma fragment gives us not only a new autograph of
Ficino, and a second and more authentic manuscript source for his preface
to Cosimo. If taken together with the Paris fragment, it also permits us
to trace the textual history of the ten introductions beyond the later
and the first edition, and beyond the Bodleian manuscript, to the
original draft made by Ficino, presumably in 1464. Whereas the Oxford
manuscript is not autograph, and probably written after 1464, the Parma
and Paris draft is clearly autograph and earlier. An early feature is also
the fact that the preface to Cosimo, in the Parma draft as in the Oxford
manuscript, is called an Argumentum, a term which Ficino used for the
preface of his version of the Corpus Hermeticum also addressed to Cosimo
in 1463 (27), and which he did not use for prefaces in later years, but only
for introductions or summaries. The fact that the Parma Paris fragment
exhibits the introductions without the translations, but with the preface,
may suggest that Ficino composed these pieces at the same time, after
having completed his translations of the ten dialogues (28). The fact that
Ficino even in the draft addresses Cosimo as patriae pater might raise a
suspicion that this is a posthumous and hence fictitious dedication since
this title was officially conferred upon Cosimo only after his death (29).
Yet for a variety of reasons I am disinclined to consider the preface as
fictitious, and rather believe that the title may have been used informally
by Cosimo's clients and friends while he was still alive and before it had been
sanctioned by a public decree (30).

(25) Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, Carteggio di Lucca (or Autografi Palatini), Cassetta 5. I am
indebted for a microfilm to Dott. A. Ciavarella. See pi. 13 a.
(26) P. O. Kristeller, " Some Original Letters and Autograph Manuscripts of Marsilio Ficino,"
in Studi di Bibliografia e di Storia in onore di Tammaro De Marinis (Verona, 1964), III, p. 5-33,
and plates 1, 2, 7. Cf. Marsile Ficin, Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon, d. R. Marcel
(Paris, 1956), esp. the plates facing p. 32, 33, 48, 49; H. D. Saffrey, " Notes platoniciennes
de Marsile Ficin dans un manuscrit de Proclus," Bibliothque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 21
(1959), p. 161-184, esp. the plate facing p. 168.
(27) Opera, p. 1836.
(28) This inference was suggested to me by my wife, Dr. Edith Kristeller.
(29) A. Fabronius, Magni Cosmi Medicei vita, vol. 2 (Pisa, 1788), p. 257-262; cf. C. S. Gutkind,
Cosimo de' Medici Pater Patriae (Oxford, 1938), p. 246. The oration of Donato Acciaiuoli published
by Fabroni is taken from Laur. 90 sup. 37.
(30) In this opinion, I was confirmed by Leonard Grant, Raymond de Roover and Charles
Trinkaus. In the famous ms. Laur. 54, 10 (Collectiones Cosmianae), we find several texts
addressed to Cosimo as patriae pater (Donatus Carchanus, f. 74; Marsilius Ficinus, f. 81; Naldus
de Naldis, f. 160), but the manuscript was put together by Bart. Scala after Cosimo's death
for Lorenzo de' Medici. On the ms., see now Alison M. Brown, " The Humanist Portrait of
Cosimo de' Medici Pater Patriae," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 24 (1961),
p. 186-221.
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 PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER

If we compare the text of the preface to Cosimo as it appears in the

Parma draft with that of the Oxford copy, we notice, apart from
and other minor variants, a large number of passages corrected
in P, where 0 invariably follows the reading as corrected. In a few instances
where 0 offers a corrupt text, P gives us the correct wording, confirming
in some instances the attempts I had made to emend the text of 0 when
I had first published it (31). In the title, P has simply " in Platonis dialogos "
where 0 adds " decem a se traductos," confirming the view that Ficino
at the time he composed this draft did not yet plan to translate more than
the ten Platonic dialogues he had selected for Cosimo. Interesting is a
phrase that alludes to Pletho's influence on Cosimo and suggests that
Platonism had moved its headquarters from the Byzantine East to
Florence (32). The preface lists the ten translated dialogues with their
titles and subtitles, a practice Ficino was to retain in his complete translation.
The preface also includes some notions that were to remain important in
Ficino's later thought : man in his youth is deceived by the senses and hence
desires to possess changeable things (mobilium ; P had first humanarum),
whereas in his more mature years he is guided by reason and desires things
divine. The soul is related to itself, to things above and below itself, and
it is by nature half way between things divine and corporeal (33). The soul
should purify itself and turn upwards to attain beatitude which consists
in the vision of God. In adding to the ten dialogues the works attributed
to Alcinous, Speusippus and Pythagoras, Ficino says of Pythagoras that
he was the chief model of Plato (34).
For the text of the ten argumenta, P must not only be compared
with O, but also with the printed text, and more specifically with the first
edition, for that of the later editions may be altered by printing errors and
by editorial changes, as I had occasion to observe in using the second volume
of Ficino's Opera omnia (which includes the argumenta and commentaries,
but not the translation of Plato). We cannot attempt here to present a
full picture of the variants which are numerous and complex, but merely
shall try to mention the main conclusions that may be drawn from the
collation. Of the relation between 0 and ed. we have spoken already.
0 evidently represents a state of the text that is quite different from that
of the edition, and a similar relationship might be expected for the actual
translation of the ten dialogues as found in O.
If we now compare the text of P with that of O and with that of

(31) secuntur O (Suppl. II, p. 104) : sequitur P (as emended by me). philosophia est, secundum
ordinem O : philosophia est, liber de philosophia secundum ordinem P (partly as emended
by me). hiis (twice) O : iis P (as corrected by me).
(32) Quippe iam pridem e Bizantia (sic) Florentiam spiritus eius (i.e., Platonis) ipsis in licteris
vivens (vivens cartis, del. P) Attica voce resonus ad Cosmum Medicem advolavit. Suppl. Fie. II,
p. 104.
(33) ... cum sit animus divinorum et corporalium natura mdius. Ibid.
(34) quern Plato pre ceteris imitatus est. Ibid., p. 105.
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 MARSILIO FIGINO AS A BEGINNING STUDENT OF PLATO

the edition, the following additional observations may be made. In all

instances where there is a significant textual difference between 0 and the
edition, P sides with O, except in the cases where 0 offers a false reading
and ed has the correct text : in these instances P agrees with ed. I have
discovered only one instance where a reading common to P and O seems
to be an error (35). In the numerous cases where P shows corrections,
0 invariably follows the text as corrected in P, and in two instances, the
text of 0 seems to be derived from a misreading of a correction in P.
Everything suggests that O should be considered as a direct copy of P,
except for one or two instances where 0 may offer an independent valid
reading (36).
Much more interesting than the relation between P and 0 are the
very numerous corrections in P that allow us to follow the author through
the various phases of his writing. Many of these corrections consist of
interlinear and marginal additions that represent the normal type of revision
made after the first version of the text had been written. Yet in many
other cases we are confronted with what we might call variants of
A word or a group of words is deleted, and the preferred reading
is written down right afterwards in the text, not above the line or in the
margin. These variants permit us to follow the author while he is actually
composing, and bring us, as it were, close to his desk. They show the care
with which Ficino, at least in this early stage of his career, chose every
word he wrote down, to the point of being critical of himself, or even self
conscious. In the case of passages added in the margin or above the line,
we can see how some phrases or sentences represent an afterthought rather
than the first conception of the passage, although we cannot tell how much
time intervened between the first writing and these later corrections ;
1 am rather inclined to think that the interval was short. For example,
in the introduction to Alcibiades I, the passage describing the " uplifting "
effect of ethics, mathematics and theology is a marginal addition (37),
and so is the passage on the four degrees of virtue in the introduction to
the second Alcibiades (38). No less interesting are some of the passages
deleted in P that have disappeared from 0 and the edition. The introduction
to the Hipparchus begins in P with a long paragraph that was then
deleted (39). It attributes a personal motive to Plato for writing this dialogue,

(35) In the introduction to the Meno, ed. correctly reads nutriendi vigor (Op. p. 1132) whereas
both P and O offer irascendi vigor.
(36) In the introduction to Alcibiades I (Op. p. 1133), P reads ut mentis particeps, and the last
two words are underscored. These two words (which appear in ed.) are omitted in O whose
scribe (or archetype) evidently mistook the underscoring as a deletion sign. In the introduction
to the Parmenides (Op. 1137), P corrects qualemve to quamve, and quamve appears in ed.,
whereas O offers quamve, evidently misreading the correction.
(37) Op. p. 1133, cf. P, f. 4V.
(38) Op. p. 1134, cf. P, f. 5.
(39) Cum Atheniensis Hipparchus orator vir sane lascivior... sed iam Platonem ipsum audiamus.
P, f. 2.
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 PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER

and adds some remarks about the general human desire for the good, and
about the three types of Platonic dialogues. The last two points occur
also elsewhere in these introductions, and Ficino probably came to find
the anecdote on Plato and Hipparchus dubious or inappropriate. Some
corrections seem to reflect religious scruples (40), and at the end of the
introduction to the Minos a nice Stoic sentence was deleted (41). Most
important is a deleted reference to Plotinus near the beginning of the
to the first Alcibiades (42). It is our earliest evidence that Ficino
knew Plotinus at first hand, many years before he began to translate him.
Most of the corrections in P are of a merely stylistic character, and
only a few are significant for Ficino' s thought or terminology. While leaving
aside the discussion of further textual details, I should like to mention
some of the information these introductions give us on Ficino's thought
and sources, and on his approach to Plato. This information is the more
significant because the manuscript tradition now allows us to date it back
to 1464 when he was just beginning his work as a translator and
of Plato.
The introductions show first of all that Ficino was familiar not only
with the ten dialogues he was translating but also with many, if not all,
of Plato's other works (43). He attributes to Plato a secret meaning (44),
and thus reserves for himself the right of interpreting him rather freely.
He cites Hermes Trismegistus, Pythagoras, and Alcinous whom he had
translated, and also Zoroaster, Orpheus and Hermias (45), confirming
not only his early interest in the prisci theologi whom he considered as
Plato's predecessors, but also raising the question whether he might have
undertaken already his own translations of these authors. In the case of
the Orphic hymns and of the Aurea verba of Pythagoras, he promises a
(46), just as for the ten Platonic dialogues. He also quotes Maximus
Tyrius, Apuleius and Dionysius the Areopagite, and as we have seen above,
Plotinus.
The doctrines Ficino attributes to Plato in the ten introductions are
more trivial and less systematically developed than in his later writings,
but we do encounter a number of characteristic features. There are
to hierarchical schemes of the neoplatonic type, but they are not

(40) divina sorte become divino munere (Theages), fatalis is changed to celestis (Minos), deos
to deum {ibid.), Adonaym to patrem totius nature deum (ibid.).
(41) omnis quippe lex posterior a prima lege dependet. P, f. 5V.
(42) Id hie duabus argumentationibus Plato demostrat (sic) et Plotinus in libro quid homo
quid animal subtilissimo. P, f. 4V. See Plot. Enn. I, 1.
(43) In the ten introductions and in the preface to Gosimo, Ficino refers to the following Platonic
works : Letters, Republic, Phaedrus, Laws, Timaeus, Gorgias, Euthydemus, Hippias, Phaedo
and Theaetetus.
(44) Plato latenter docet. Op. p. 1130.
(45) Op. p. 1132, 1134, 1135. See above, note 5.
(46) Op. p. 1134. For the commentary on Pythagoras, see Suppl. II, p. 100-103.
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 MARSILIO FICINO AS A BEGINNING STUDENT OF PLATO

always as clear or consistent as in the Platonic Theology (47). There are

the ideas in the divine mind, and several layers of their copies down to the
material forms (48). The One is placed above being and the ideas in good
neoplatonic fashion, and it is identified with the summum bonum (49).
There are also hierarchies of virtues, of forms of knowledge, and of faculties
of the soul. Man has an innate desire for the good that may be diverted
from its goal (50). The distinction between uti and frui is taken from
St. Augustine, as is the distinction between will and intellect (51). The
task of man consists in the purification of his soul, and in its resulting
ascent from the body to God (52). In the introduction to the second Ald-
biades, Ficino offers a spiritual theory of prayer which he claims to derive
from Orpheus and Plato and hopes to develop in his commentaries (53).
The moral virtues are once said to be comprised under justice and another
time under prudence (54), and this proves that Ficino was more interested
in offering a unified interpretation of virtue than in a description and
of individual virtues. In accordance with the first Alcibiades
and with Plotinus, man is defined as a rational soul using a body (55).
In his introduction to the Minos, Ficino strongly emphasizes the eternal
nature of true law, and reduces the unjust ordinances of princes to a lesser
status (56). In the introduction to the Euthyphro, Ficino insists that the
order of the good is absolute, and not merely due to an arbitrary fiat of
God (57). If these ideas may seem disconnected, this is due to the form
in which they appear in these argumenta which purport to be introductions
to the ten Platonic dialogues. If they seem to be far removed from the
authentic problems of Plato, they will for the same reason throw much light
on the way how Plato was approached and understood in the fifteenth
century and afterwards. For a classification of the dialogues, Ficino relies
on Alcinous (Albinus), as he does for their general content on the subtitles
which he found in his Greek manuscripts. In the case of the Parmenides,
it is significant that he explicitly defines its content as theological (58),

(47) Especially in the introductions to the Minos (Op. p. 1135) and Parmenides (Op. p. 1137). For
Ficino's mature thought, see P. O. Kristeller, // pensiere filosofico di Marsilio Ficino (Florence,
1953); The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino (New York, 1943, and Gloucester, Mass., 1964).
(48) Ibid.
(49) Ibid.
(50 Op. p. 1130, cf. Suppl. II, p. 104.
(51 Op. p. 1130 and 1206.
(52 Op. p. 1133, 1134, 1136.
(53 Op. p. 1134.
(54 Op. p. 1131 and 1133.
(55 Op. p. 1133 : anima rationalis mentis particps crpore utens. This was later known in the
Renaissance as the " Platonic definition of the soul " as against that of Aristotle.
(56) Op. p. 1134-35 : Quo fit ut institutiones principum cum verae non sunt nee ad optimum recto
calle pronciscuntur, leges minime sint, sed dcrta, edicta, instituta potius sint quam leges.
(57) Op. p. 1135 : Cumque dicitur sanctum quod amatur a Deo, verum est, sed quia sanctum,
amatur a Deo, non quia amatur, est sanctum.
(58) Op. p. 1136:p.universam
Parmenides...," 312-315. in Parmenide complexus est theologiam. See Klibansky, " Plato's

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 PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER

where we must take the term to include not only Christian theology, but
also that broad area of metaphysics that Ficino would call Platonic theology,
and that later authors have called natural theology. In the case of the
Meno, it is interesting to note that Ficino emphasizes that its purpose is
to find out what virtue is and how it is acquired. The discussion of the
geometrical figures, and the theory of reminiscence, which occupy such
a large place in modern scholarly discussions of the dialogue, is dismissed
by Ficino as merely incidental. It has no place in an argumentum, and will be
discussed in a commentary (which he never wrote) (59).
I hope the discovery of the autograph draft of Ficino' s introductions
to the ten Platonic dialogues which he translated for Cosimo may lead
to further studies beyond this somewhat sketchy announcement. The
autograph with its numerous corrections brings us as close to the author
as that is possible, and shows us the meticulous care with which he wrote
these introductions, and presumably his other works and his translations.
In some instances, we learn something about the different layers of his
thought, by comparing the variants of these texts with each other and with
his later works. Our judgment of Ficino as a thinker and as an interpreter
is not fundamentally altered by the study of these manuscripts, except
for the fact that we can better see how early and hence deeply rooted some
of his favorite ideas apparently were, even before he undertook his great
translations. The main task of studying Ficino as a translator and
of Plato, and of other Greek authors, is still wide open, and it is
a major desideratum. For apart from errors and distortions, the level of
Ficino's thought and scholarship, and the extent of his influence on later
centuries, are such that even a critical edition of his translations and
might be justified, laborious as such a task would be. The more
we are convinced that Plato and his tradition constitute one of the central
themes of Western thought up to the present day, the more the task imposes
itself of studying in detail the major phases of this tradition, not only in
terms of the doctrinal transmission and transformation of Plato's thought,
but also in terms of the textual history of his works as they were copied,
translated and commented upon. It would be wrong to claim that nothing
has been done in this area of studies, but it is evident that much more
remains to be done. Until it has been done, it might be wise to suspend
some of the glib generalizations that we encounter all too frequently in this
area of scholarship, and to adopt instead a more cautious attitude.

New York Paul Oskar Kristeller

Columbia University

tractare
(59) Op. ideirco
p. 1133non
: Disputationem
placuit quoniam
vero illam
non ut
de principalis,
reminiscentiasedgeometricisque
ut accessoria figuris
est inserta.
in argumente
Argu-
mentum autem summam rei caputque requirit. Singula quippe discutere non argumenti, sed
commentarii potius est officium.
54