The Renaissance of Plotinus: The Soul and Human Nature in Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on the Enneads 9781138630895, 9781003051459

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The Renaissance of Plotinus

Plotinus (204/5–270 C.E.) is a central fgure in the history of Western philosophy. However, during the Middle Ages he was almost unknown. None of the treatises constituting his Enneads were translated, and ancient translations were lost. Although scholars had indirect access to his philosophy through the works of Proclus, St. Augustine, and Macrobius, among others, it was not until 1492 with the publication of the frst Latin translation of the Enneads by the humanist philosopher Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) that Plotinus was reborn to the Western world. Ficino’s translation was accompanied by a long commentary in which he examined the close relationship between metaphysics and anthropology that informed Plotinus’s philosophy. Focusing on Ficino’s interpretation of Plotinus’s view of the soul and of human nature, this book excavates a fundamental chapter in the history of Platonic scholarship, one which was to inform later readings of the Enneads up until the nineteenth century. It will appeal to scholars and students interested in the history of Western philosophy, intellectual history, and book history. Anna Corrias is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge, UK, and the University of Toronto, Canada, where she works on the reception of late ancient philosophy in the early modern period, with a special focus on the Platonic tradition.

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The Renaissance of Plotinus The Soul and Human Nature in Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on the Enneads

Anna Corrias

First published 2020 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Taylor & Francis The right of Anna Corrias to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-63089-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-05145-9 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

For Simona Mercuri (1976–2015) Fine scholar, beautiful soul

Contents

Acknowledgements Note to the Reader Introduction

viii ix 1

1

The Birth of the Latin Plotinus

15

2

Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I: Plotinus and Alexander of Aphrodisias

53

Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul II: Plotinus and the Averroistic Intellect

81

3 4 5

The Imagination at Work: Perceiving, Remembering, and Giving Birth

111

Daemons and Stars

148

Bibliography Index

191 212

Acknowledgements

This book is a revision of my doctoral thesis, written at the Warburg Institute between 2009 and 2013. I owe the greatest debt to my PhD supervisors, Guido Giglioni and Jill Kraye. I was immensely fortunate to be Guido’s frst doctoral student, which made it possible for him to devote a lot of time to nurturing my soul with his inspirational insights into Plotinus’s and Ficino’s views of human nature. In fact, the main ideas of this book originated during the Friday meetings we had in the frst year of my PhD, in which we sat down and translated passages from Plotinus’s Enneads III and IV. His natural – yet almost divine – gift for excavating the treasures of philosophical texts contributed enormously to the shape of the fve chapters of this book, especially Chapters 4 and 5. I am also profoundly indebted to Jill for the generous time and learning which she gave to the frst stumbling steps of this study. Her vast scholarship is recognised by many, but only her students know the deeply generous spirit that enlivens it. My study of Ficino’s Plotinus benefted tremendously from the elegance of her thought and writing. I wish to express my gratitude also to Francesca Maria Crasta for prompting me to pursue academic research and for her advice and warm encouragement throughout the years. Without her unwavering support this book would have not been written. My gratitude goes also to my thesis examiners, Michael Allen and Dilwyn Knox, for their generous feedback and support. Ça va sans dire that Allen’s research on Ficino is a pervading presence in this work and a constant source of inspiration. I am greatly indebted to Stephen Gersh, for the magnanimous scholarship and unique kindness with which he was always ready to answer my queries. Throughout the gestation of this book, Valery Rees helped in many different ways. During my year at the University of Queensland, Murray Kane was a fantastic intellectual comrade. He generously read through the entire book, correcting errors and providing me with precious comments and suggestions. Thank you also to Julie Davies who helped with the fnal revision of the typescript. Finally, I am grateful to the School of History and Philosophical Inquiry, at the University of Queensland, for awarding me a grant which helped with the cost of the editorial work.

Note to the Reader

When transcribing Latin, I have normalised the orthography according to modern conventions, silently amending obvious typographical mistakes and expanding standard abbreviations. For all passages from Ficino’s commentary on Enneads III and IV I have used Stephen Gersh’s recent critical edition and English translation of the Latin text published as Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, tr. and ed. by S. Gersh, Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 2017. For Ficino’s commentary on all other Enneads, not yet available in Gersh’s edition, I have provided my own translation and quoted from Plotinus, Opera omnia. Cum latina Marsilii Ficini interpretatione et commentatione (facsimile of Basel: Perna, 1580), Villiers-sur-Marne: Phénix, 2005. For the reader’s convenience, I have also provided references to the Commentary on Plotinus in Marsilio Ficino, Opera omnia, 2 vols, Basel 1576 (rep. Turin 1962; Paris 2000), pp. 1537–1800. Unless otherwise specifed, all other translations are my own. I have given full bibliographical references on the frst occasion a work is cited; for subsequent citations, I have given only the author and a short title. Full bibliographical references for all works can be found in the Bibliography.

Introduction

1. Ficino’s Plotinus This book, as the title suggests, is about Plotinus. Not the Plotinus who is taught in textbooks and university classrooms today, although, in many respects, the fve chapters which follow speak also of that Plotinus. He is the Plotinus to whom on many occasions I shall refer to as ‘Ficino’s Plotinus’. This epithet, I hope, will make the task of describing his historical and philosophical identity easier: he is the Plotinus who emerges from the commentary on the Enneads composed by the ffteenth-century humanist philosopher Marsilio Ficino and published in Florence in 1492. This commentary accompanied Ficino’s Latin translation of the Enneads, published in the same year, but which, as we shall see, occupied Ficino from the 1460s. The epithet ‘Ficino’s Plotinus’, however, expresses a much more intimate and complex relationship than the one implied by Ficino’s authorship of the Latin version and interpretation of Plotinus’s text. For our Plotinus shares some fundamental philosophical traits with his translator and commentator. Two of these traits – the most prominent ones – have been identifed and discussed in previous scholarship, most recently by Stephen Gersh in the two introductory essays that accompany his critical edition and English translation of Ficino’s commentary on Enneads III and IV.1 They are: (1) Plotinus’s interest in and commitment to the philosophy of some of his successors, i.e. Porphyry, Synesius of Cyrene, Proclus, and, especially, Iamblichus (whom I shall generally refer to as ‘post-Plotinian’ Platonists hoping that the reader will keep in mind that, for Ficino, they were not ‘post-’ to anyone, but simply ‘Platonists’); (2) Plotinus’s adaption of some of his positions to the principles of Christian theology. The third trait, partly discussed by Gersh,2 which I shall articulate further in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, is our Plotinus’s desire to rescue the original Aristotle from the misinterpretations of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Averroes who, in Ficino’s view, had disgracefully made Aristotle a ‘non-Platonist’. The frst two traits need to be further unpacked in order to avoid hasty conclusions, such as thinking Ficino was deliberately manipulating Plotinus and forcing him into a box where he did not belong – for this is the last thing that Ficino wished to do.

2

Introduction

In the frst part of this Introduction, I shall discuss what it meant, for Ficino, to give Plotinus – what for us is – a post-Plotinian character and why on many occasions he made Plotinus agree with Christianity. I shall claim that: (1) the reason why Ficino made Plotinus make a wide use of the post-Plotinian philosophers was not to give Plotinus a spurious, borrowed identity; on the contrary, his intention was to make Plotinus’s genuine thought as transparent as possible for his readers – for who could explain Plotinus more lucidly and loyally than Plotinus’s closest successors?; (2) in many instances, Ficino’s Plotinus’s espousal of some principles of Christianity cannot be explained by Ficino’s belief that Plotinus agreed – or should have agreed – with those principles. Instead, it should be understood in the light of Ficino’s constant preoccupation with getting into trouble with the Inquisition. I shall also argue that on no occasion should the post-Plotinian and the Christian dimensions of Ficino’s Plotinus affect or transform the theoretical sophistication of Plotinus’s line of thought. In Ficino’s commentary, Plotinus remains, frst and foremost, a rigorous metaphysical philosopher. Plotinus’s relation to the philosophy of his successors was discussed by E. R. Dodds in several works, especially his ‘Theurgy and Its Relationship with Neoplatonism’, published in 1947, and The Greeks and the Irrational, of 1951. Dodds famously claimed that Plotinus was a highly rational thinker who, in contrast to his philosophical successors, had no interest at all in theurgic rituals aimed at recovering the magical character of nature by enabling a connection between the earthly and the divine worlds.3 Quoting Wilhelm Kroll, he argued that Plotinus ‘raised himself by a strong intellectual and moral effort above the fog-ridden atmosphere which surrounded him’.4 According to Dodds, the fact that Plotinus agreed to participate in the ritual of evocation of his own daemon in the temple of Isis in Rome was nothing more than school gossip. Even if this event really had taken place, it would not have proved that Plotinus had any interest in the ritual itself, for ‘a visit to a séance does not make a man a spiritualist, especially if he went there on someone else’s initiative’.5 With Plotinus’s death, Dodds continued, the fog from which he had tried to escape began to close in again, and the later Platonists can be seen, in different respects, as reverting to ‘the spineless syncretism from which he had tried to escape’.6 Dodds did not mention Ficino. Yet Ficino was the philosopher most responsible for the interpretation of Plotinus he rejected. Indeed, Ficino’s Plotinus is not only the author of the Enneads and Plato’s most sublime interpreter. He is also a passionate reader of Iamblichus and Proclus; he believes in the effcacy of magic and even devises various ways of dealing with a systematically organised hierarchy of daemons. He inhabits, describes, and philosophically justifes a universe where the soul can – and must – withdraw in solitude and obscurity, preparing its ultimate, earth-renouncing ‘escape in solitude to the solitary’.7 In this same universe, though, the soul can also – and must – penetrate the divine on earth, attuning the rhythm

Introduction

3

of embodied life to the theophanic activity which characterises the cycles of nature. ‘On earth’ means in stones, in plants, in animals, in the various daemons bustling about the air, in heavenly infuxes, and in people. It is no surprise that such a theurgically-oriented Plotinus inspired the third book of Ficino’s De vita libri tres, entitled De vita caelitus comparanda (‘On How to Obtain Life from the Heavens’) which, Ficino claims, grew out of his commentary on a treatise from Enneads IV, in all probability Enneads IV.3.11. Surely, there is very little of Dodds’s Plotinus in the De vita. Apart from Ficino’s account of the operations of the Soul of the World, which plays an undeniably important role in the Enneads, this treatise is mostly grounded in the idea that daemonic and astral infuences, as well as material objects used as talismans, could give the fully descended soul access to the divine nowhere else, but on earth. Obtaining this access (and especially obtaining it here), however, had neither speculative nor practical relevance for the Greek Plotinus, since he believed that our highest part, our intellect, never abandons the divine. Hence, Ficino’s Enneads closely resembles Iamblichus’s De mysteriis, which, according to Dodds, offered ‘seductive comfort’ to pagan minds,8 but was ‘the last resort of the personally desperate, of those whom man and God have alike failed’9 and the ‘refuge of a despairing intelligentsia which already felt la fascination de l’abîme’.10 However, in approaching Ficino’s Plotinus the main question should not be to what extent he differs from (or resembles) the Plotinus we think of today. It is not whether Ficino was right or wrong to interpret some passages of the Enneads through post-Plotinian lenses, or whether right or wrong are those scholars who read Plotinus following Dodds’s ‘hyperrationalistic’ hermeneutics. A question of this kind would miss an important point, i.e. the historical and philosophical (or, better said, historically philosophical) signifcance of Ficino’s Plotinus per se. For the history of Western philosophy is not the history of authors who were at some point lost to later reappear in their pristine form – often in the nineteenth century; nor is it the history of philosophers who remained unchanged through time. It is rather the history of the different personae of those philosophers, as Denis Robichaud would have it, as they were crafted by their interpreters and received by their readers. Plotinus is certainly the sublime rational thinker described by Dodds, one who believed that the unio mystica ‘is attained, not by any ritual of evocation or performance of prescribed acts, but by an inward discipline of the mind which involves no compulsive element and has nothing to do with magic’.11 But for two centuries at least, Plotinus was also the ‘exalted mind’ described by Ficino, the sublime interpreter of Plato who, just like Dodds’s Plotinus, understood the unio mystica as an inward fight of intellect to Intellect which, however, had its driving force in the love of God; the ‘exalted mind’ who believed that we can rejoin the divine in Intellect, but did not rule out that the divine could be accessed on earth through theurgical rituals and daemonic partnership.

4

Introduction

Given the undeniable impact of post-Plotinian philosophy on Ficino’s reading of the Enneads, we might be tempted to assume that Ficino created a Plotinus devoted to magic, with little of the philosophical rigour that is so characteristic of his thought. Such an assumption would, however, be completely wrong. As I hope this book will make clear, the main activity and interest of Ficino’s Plotinus remained philosophy in the strict sense of the term. His rigorous reasoning and complex metaphysics were fully preserved by Ficino; and it was precisely because of Plotinus’s ability to describe the world and the soul – and their relationship to each other – in purely philosophical terms that Ficino regarded him as Plato’s greatest commentator. We need to keep this in mind in order to make a correct assessment of his interest in Plotinus and also to rescue Ficino from an interpretative trend which sees him more as a magician or an astrologer than a metaphysical philosopher and humanist. An exploration of the infuence of Ficino’s Plotinus before the 1580 publication of the editio princeps of the Enneads in the original Greek will certainly contribute to the study of an important chapter in the history of Western philosophy. As Gersh has rightly observed, the only Plotinus known to sixteenth-century luminaries such as Giles of Viterbo, Francesco Giorgi, and Giordano Bruno (but also John Colet, Girolamo Cardano, and Charles de Bovelles) was Ficino’s Plotinus.12 It must also be said that Ficino’s Latin version of the Enneads accompanied the Greek text for almost four centuries, i.e. from 1580 until in 1924 Émile Bréhier published a modern edition of the Greek text accompanied by a French translation rather than Ficino’s Latin.13 In the early nineteenth century Thomas Taylor rendered many of the Enneads into English. However, throughout the seventeenth century and beyond, Ficino’s commentary was widely used as an interpretative tool to read Plotinus, both in Greek and in Latin. Ralph Cudworth and Henry More, for example, often refer to and quote Ficino’s commentary although they read and quote Plotinus in Greek. Even though Plotinus went hand in hand with Ficino for so many centuries, while Plotinus is a familiar presence to most scholars working on Ficino, Ficino is just a name to most Plotinian scholars. This is the result of the truncated view – dominant in the feld of history of philosophy, but especially in that of classical reception – which tends to ignore centuries of interpretative labours and historical fliation and to treat the presence of classical authors in the modern world as sudden appearances lacking a history of textual and doctrinal transformation. This book, I hope, will challenge this view. By focusing on the identity crafted for him by Ficino, it will show that the Plotinus who traversed the paths of Western philosophy did not austerely abide in the eternal and unchanging nature of his doctrines. In fact, for a period of time which was long enough to leave an undeniable mark in at least two generations of readers, he was deeply conversant with the philosophy of his later interpreters and even, anachronistically as it may seem, spoke through their voices and invoked their daemons.

Introduction

5

By exploring the post-Plotinian dimension of Ficino’s Plotinus (which, I must reiterate, on no occasion overshadowed the philosophical ingenuity and rigour of the Greek Plotinus), I also hope to show that, in the Renaissance, references to the ancient world were understood as an unremitting act of interpretation and re-invention. Far from being an undisciplined exercise of creation, such acts relied on the painstaking textual analysis and sophisticated translation work of the humanists, of which Ficino’s Latin Enneads is a superb example. Even if we decide to disregard the doctrinal transformations undergone by Plotinus in the course of his reception history and focus on his original text instead, we cannot ignore the fact that Friedrich Creuzer and Georg Heinrich Moser, Plotinus’s nineteenth-century editors, consulted Ficino’s editorial and translation work and that Ficino’s Latin version of and commentary on the Enneads accompanied their 1835 critical edition of the Greek Enneads.14 To modern eyes Ficino’s Plotinus may appear to have a biform nature: zealously loyal to both the letter and the spirit of the Greek text in the translation and intertextual, yet eclectic, and syncretistic in the commentary. Ficino, however, would have not accepted such a characterisation for his Plotinus. One thing is for sure: if by ‘eclecticism’ and ‘syncretism’ we mean a deliberate attempt to reconcile different or opposing philosophical positions, nothing can be said to be more foreign to Ficino’s spirit than these two terms.15 For Ficino believed that the Platonism which he was bringing to light was a comprehensive system, a unifed whole; as such, it did not need reconciliation. In his view, he sailed as close to land as possible in his account of what was in the Enneads. Indeed, Ficino made great efforts to follow Plotinus’s narrative to the very roots of his thought and when he invoked other authors – the late ancient Platonists, medieval philosophers, and even St. Paul – he did so with the intention of making Plotinus’s text more accessible and familiar for his readers; he wanted no recess of the Enneads to remain unexplored, no meaning unexcavated. For Ficino ‘the translator’ and Ficino ‘the interpreter’ the constant overarching goal was the same: to ensure easy readability and make Plotinus’s voice unambiguously clear. In the ‘Commentary’, the postPlotinians could provide this clarity with accuracy, elegance, and accessibility, serving the same purpose as a right translation choice would do with Plotinus’s most tortured syntax. Let us proceed to the second trait of Ficino’s Plotinus, i.e. his being a friend of Christianity. It has long been claimed that Ficino endeavoured to reconcile Platonic metaphysics and Christian theology, which is undoubtedly true. However, in order to appreciate the nature of Ficino’s Plotinus, we should investigate whether these endeavours originated (1) in Ficino’s authentic belief that in order for Platonism to be philosophically acceptable it should be fne-tuned with some, or all, of the principles of Christianity; or (2) in his ever-present fear of the possible reactions of the Roman Curia. The chances of success in this investigation are few to none. Indeed, in

6

Introduction

elaborating what Gersh has defned as ‘the concord in discord between Plotinus and Christianity’,16 Ficino keeps silent, never drawing attention to his doctrinal interventions. Nonetheless, my feeling is that Ficino held Platonism to have an intrinsic philosophical value regardless of whether or not it agreed with Christian doctrine. I am not claiming that Ficino was entirely unbiased – no translator or interpreter is. But I believe that his interest in voicing Plotinus’s authentic philosophy was stronger than his interest in making Plotinus accommodate positions that he recognized as foreign to Plotinus’s thought. In other words, his reasons for making Plotinus sometimes speak as a Christian – which Ficino undeniably does – were more political than theoretical. I do not mean that they were entirely political, for I believe that Ficino genuinely held that the Platonists and the Christians agreed on fundamental truths. However, in those cases where they did not agree, Ficino did not believe that they necessarily should. The exception is, of course, when pagan sources advocated positions which were offensive to human nature, such as mortalism and metensomatosis into animal species. We shall see that Ficino harshly rebukes Plotinus for having endorsed the latter position. Transmigration provides a very apt example for my claim, for while Ficino is outraged by metensomatosis into animal bodies, he widely discusses metensomatosis into human bodies, i.e. the soul’s so-called ‘vehicles’ or spiritual envelops, as we shall see in Chapter 3. He even uses this doctrine to back up his own philosophical positions. In the same context, he also discusses the pre-existence of the soul. These discussions are often followed by his usual disclaimers, such as, ‘we have explained these things, interpreting rather than approving of them (nos non tam approbantes, quam interpretantes exposuimus)’,17 which are scattered throughout the Commentary. These disclaimers, however, tell us very little about what Ficino really thought of the philosophical value of these doctrines. If he was to write in a religious censorshipfree context he would not have let Plotinus freely express transmigration into animal bodies, but, surely, he would have made much fewer acts of disavowal. Indeed, in reading Ficino’s Commentary one gets the impression that at times he lets Plotinus talk autonomously and even unconventionally. Returning to metensomatosis into animal bodies, for example, Ficino chastises Plotinus, but does not censure him. This is not, of course, because deeply inside himself Ficino sympathised with the pagans but because, in my view, he did not see his role as a commentator and his identity as a Christian (and clergyman) as anonymously blending into one another. As I said, it is impossible to ascertain to what extent Ficino was sincerely convinced that Plotinus’s thought should be tweaked or altered. Admittedly, the reader of this book will encounter a Plotinus who, in most cases, indisputably obeys the Christian truth. However, it is my hope that the reader will not stop at Ficino’s role as a Christianizing interpreter, which would lead to a very shallow and misleading understanding of his hermeneutical approach. Such a view fails to acknowledge one dominant aspect of his

Introduction

7

intellectual identity which, in my view, should come to the fore in the scholarship on Ficino’s commentaries: the fact that he was a classical scholar of supreme skills. One that had been entrusted with the onerous task of providing the frst Latin translations of some Greek works ever to be read in Italy. Ficino was aware that the transmission of the wisdom contained in those works depended on his ability to make those works talk to his contemporaries in a way that was both as accessible to ffteenth-century readers and as loyal as possible to the voice of the original authors. He maintains a courteous and non-judgemental relationship with his sources, his interest being frst and foremost that of excavating the original truths told by the texts – whether or not they agreed with Christianity. My claim is that Ficino felt the obligation towards his role as a classical scholar as deeply as he felt the commitment to religious orthodoxy, if not more so. The latter does not overshadow the former, even if, as Robichaud has rightly observed, Ficino made great efforts to hide his laborious textual work behind the glow of his philosophical persona.18 I hope the reader will keep this in mind in order to fully appreciate the complex identities of both Ficino as a commentator and the Plotinus he comments on. Finally, the third trait of Ficino’s Plotinus is his hermeneutical fnesse, not only in the interpretation of Plato, but also in that of Aristotle and, in particular, of Aristotle’s view of intellect. Indeed, untangling Ficino’s use of Plotinus in an Aristotelian context is a central task of this book. It is well known that in De anima III.5 Aristotle unexpectedly introduced what, apparently, is a second, ‘productive’ intellect – called nous poiêtikos by his successors. His brief and complex remarks on the nature of this intellect left generations of readers wondering what exactly the nous poiêtikos was and how it related to the intellect as he had described it up to that point. In Ficino’s view, no second intellect was ever introduced in III.5 or elsewhere in the De anima. The mind described by Aristotle was one single entity, which acted on two different levels, depending on whether it used reason or intellect. In the latter case, thinking was in act, whether in the former case it was potential to thinking in act. This view emerges neatly from Ficino’s commentary on Priscianus Lydus’s paraphrase of Theophrastus, published in 1497, a text essential to the understanding of Ficino’s engagement with Aristotle’s De anima. It is not my intention to expand on Ficino’s reception of Theophrastus in this book.19 However, Ficino’s view of De anima is essential to understand why he regarded Plotinus as the one who had seized the words and meanings of that text, revealing the nous poiêtikos’s intrinsic Platonic nature. For in describing man’s truest self in terms of a hypostasised Intellect, eternally engaged in the contemplation of Being, yet able to be accessed by the individual human intellect, Plotinus, for Ficino, had interpreted Aristotle correctly.20 In praising Plotinus for having deciphered the obscure language of De anima III.5, Ficino compared him, more or less explicitly, to Aristotle’s two most famous interpreters – Alexander of Aphrodisias and Averroes.

8

Introduction

In wrestling with the enigmatic nature of the nous poiêtikos, Alexander identifed it with God, drastically separating it from the nous pathêtikos and condemning the latter to sharing the same mortal fate as the body. On the other hand, Averroes – as interpreted by his Latin commentators – hypostasised the nous pathêtikos, placing it outside and above the individual human soul. For him, thinking occurred through episodic contacts between the forms of the imagination in the soul and the external nous pathêtikos – contacts which were put into effect by the nous poiêtikos. In doing so, Averroes placed the fnal actualisation of the human mind in the union with the external intellect, depriving it, in Ficino’s view, of its essential ability for both discursive thinking and intellectual contemplation. In a letter to John of Hungary, Ficino expressed his concern about the powerful position which had been attained by such interpreters of Aristotle and stated clearly that he had translated and commented on Plotinus in order to bring to light a philosophy which was able to counter these perverted forms of Aristotelianism: We, therefore, who have toiled until this time to translate and expound the earlier theologians, are now daily working in the same way on the books of Plotinus. We have been chosen for this work by divine Providence, just as they were for theirs, so that, when this theology emerges into the light, the poets will stop the irreligious inclusion of the rites and mysteries of religion in their stories, and the Aristotelians, I mean all philosophers, will be reminded that it is wrong to consider religion, at least religion in general, as a collection of old wives’ tales. For the whole world has been seized by the Aristotelians and divided for the most part into two schools of thought, the Alexandrian and the Averroist. The Alexandrians consider our intellect to be subject to death, while the Averroists maintain that there is only one intellect. They both equally undermine the whole of religion.21 He goes on to explain that this philosophical irreligiousness was so widespread and defended by such sharp intellects that merely preaching the faith would not have been suffcient to save Christianity. ‘Here much greater power is needed’, he says, ‘either divine miracles manifesting themselves everywhere, or at least a philosophical religion which one day will persuade the philosophers who are prepared to listen to it with an open mind’.22 Against Alexander and Averroes, Ficino deploys his Plotinus, fully armed with a solid and unrivalled form of personal intellectualism and immortality. These three traits of Ficino’s Plotinus are tightly interlaced. It is often the case that while wearing his ‘post-Plotinian’ hat, Plotinus is also concerned with rescuing what, for Ficino, was Aristotle’s original view on the soul and with showing the essential harmony of philosophy and religion. This complex identity, I hope, will become clearer by reading the fve chapters in this book.

Introduction

9

2. Outline of the Book The title of this book indicates that my study of Ficino’s Plotinus focuses on ‘human nature’ and the ‘soul’. In fact, this was also the focus of Ficino’s own study of Plotinus. In reading, translating, and commenting on the Enneads, Ficino was not drawn to the One or the Intellect. Nor was he drawn to the Soul of the World, or to daemons, or to the stars. He was drawn to the human soul. Indeed, it was the harmony of metaphysics and anthropology that Ficino admired most in Plotinus. Plotinus’s description of human nature as a complex system of interactions between a discarnate and an incarnate self and his claim that, of the two, it is the discarnate self that is truly ‘human’, deeply informed Ficino’s thought from the earliest days of his Platonic career. Chapter 1 looks at the birth of Ficino’s Plotinus, showing how Ficino became acquainted with the Enneads and why he regarded Plotinus as Plato’s most sublime interpreter. It also provides an introductory discussion of the frst two traits discussed above, i.e. Plotinus’s closeness to certain central principles of the Christian religion and his acceptance of some philosophical tenets which belong to later forms of Platonism. The second and third chapters discuss what I have indicated as the third trait of Ficino’s Plotinus, that is, his concern with rescuing Aristotle’s original view on the soul. As I said above, Ficino thought that his newly discovered Plotinus could perform an invaluable service for philosophy: that he could provide an alternative to the dominant but perverted interpretations of Aristotle’s De anima. For Plotinus’s position as regards both the soul and the separate intellect, he believed, had the merit of being in harmony with not only Plato but with Aristotle as well. Chapter 2 shows that Ficino built his criticism of Alexander of Aphrodisias’s mortalism on Plotinus’s idea of a ‘presence without participation’. In fact, for Plotinus, it is not only the intellect that is discarnate, but the soul too. The soul gives life to the body without participating in the nature of the body: it enlivens and forms the body from without. Plotinus believed that the living being (τὸ συναμφότερον) results not from the coming together of the body and the soul, but from the coming together of the body and an image (εἴδωλον) of the soul. I also show that Ficino lingers on Plotinus’s use of the verb παρεῖναι, which indicates a presence ‘by the side’, to stress the difference between being present to the body and being present in the body. In excavating this position, Ficino praises Plotinus for having described a form of hylomorphism in which, contra Alexander, the soul supplied its entelechy to the body without becoming metaphysically involved with the body. I devote Chapter 3 to Ficino’s criticism of Averroes’s so-called monopsychism, that is, the view that there is one single intellect for all human beings. I claim that Ficino’s insistence on and even obsession with criticising monopsychism betrays an underlying attraction towards the lofty and

10 Introduction ever-acting nature of the nous pathêtikos as described by the Arab commentator. In fact, Averroes is Ficino’s bête noire, by whom he is, however, irresistibly charmed. For even though, in Ficino’s eyes, the Commentator had ‘de-humanised’ the intellect by depriving it of all individuality, he had also revealed the undeniable tribute to Plato in Aristotle’s De anima III.5. Indeed, monopsychism was attractive philosophically inasmuch as it explained the possibility of the knowledge of universals and ensured that the intellective soul, as demanded by Aristotle, was not mixed with the body. While Ficino found the separateness of Intellect insidious, yet unsettlingly appealing, he could not admit Averroes’s view that the act of understanding occurs in the human mind through occasional contact between the formae imaginativae or phantasmata in the cogitative faculty and the intelligible forms in the material intellect. Averroes, moreover, claimed that the death of an individual brought with it the destruction of the imagination – the essential condition for individual thinking – and that all traces of individuality relapsed thereupon into nothingness, whereas the nous poiêtikos continued to enjoy its eternal thinking of Forms, completely unconcerned with human affairs. This solution, in Ficino’s eyes, robbed the individual of his or her inherent capability to understand. Thus, for Ficino, Averroes was guilty of two serious philosophical crimes, one metaphysical and one epistemological. He stood charged of denying both the ontological independence of the intellectual soul from the two intellects, and the self-determination of individual understanding. In Plotinus, by contrast, Ficino saw a rock-solid defence of the metaphysical belonging of the individual intellect to Intellect as a hypostasis. This unity could be broken, so to speak, from a psychological perspective – as we can or cannot be aware that our truest nature is to be intellects. However, the identity of intellect and Intellect is not affected by our awareness (or unawareness) of it. For Plotinus, we are intellectual by nature – whether or not we, as incarnate selves, acknowledge it. Chapter 4 analyses Ficino’s reception of Plotinus’s account of the soul’s faculties, with a special focus on the imagination. In Ficino’s commentary, the bi-dimensional psychology described in the Enneads becomes a multi-level psychology, so to speak. For in addition to Plotinus’s distinction between a higher-rational and a lower-irrational soul, Ficino ascribes to each of the soul’s powers – the intellect, reason, the imagination, and the senses – a more perfect and a less perfect level of operation. Hence, the soul, as emerges from his account, is able to use each faculty at two different heights – closer to Intellect or to the body. This view agreed with one of the primary concepts of his philosophy: that the nature of man is such that it mirrors divine things without letting go of mortal ones and is the bond which joins Being and Becoming together, as in one of the most famous images from his Platonic Theology.23 Of all the Plotinian soul’s faculties, Ficino seems to be particularly attracted to the imagination, on account of the imagination’s ability to mediate between the higher and the lower soul and to provide the soul with self-awareness. This faculty, Ficino believed,

Introduction

11

oscillated between conditions of heightened perception, on the one hand, and the vital dispositions which ruled the lower parts of the soul and governed the body, on the other. In this way, it kept the two extremes of human nature connected. Moreover, the imagination was responsible for the soul’s perception of the temporal relations between events which characterize embodied life as opposed to the timeless existence of Intellect. Because of its intermediate nature between spirit and matter, the imagination played a key role in the relationship between mind and body and was responsible for the general well-being of the individual. Ficino is very attentive to the psychosomatic dimension of the soul’s procession of images, giving detailed descriptions of the ways in which images are responsible for different physiological processes, from falling ill and recovering to being lovesick and conceiving a child. In Chapter 5, I explore some aspects of Ficino’s daemonology and of his view that stars are not causes, but ‘signifers’ of what happens on earth. The focus is primarily on Enneads III.4.3 (‘On Our Allotted Guardian Daemon’) and II.3 (‘On Whether the Stars Are Causes’). I concentrate on the philosophical implications of the soul’s interactions with entities higher on the ontological scale, whose sophistic nature had important epistemological consequences. I also compare Ficino’s fascination with external daemons as masters of illusion with Plotinus’s interest in the psychological dimension of the daemon. Plotinus considered one’s guardian daemon to be the trace left by the intellect within the soul – a token of divine life. In fact, external daemons were philosophically insignifcant for him and the ‘daemonic’, he believed, was an inner, luminous region where the soul could, and should, withdraw to reconnect with its divine source. For Ficino, by contrast, the ‘daemonic’ was a hazy – at times even murky – territory where the infuence and action of external daemons were interiorized by the soul. This interiorization often resulted in the soul becoming trapped in the web of appearances rather than becoming emancipated from them. Since Ficino believed that human souls, daemons, and planets were connected by invisible chains extending everywhere,24 Chapter 5 is also concerned with the role of astral infuences in the life of the soul. In his work on providence, Plotinus famously attacked a certain kind of astrology which assumed a causal relation between planetary and earthly events. In his Commentary, Ficino begins with Plotinus’s position but takes his discussion well beyond Plotinus, showing a remarkable knowledge of late ancient and medieval astrological literature. Indeed, Ficino’s commentary on Enneads II.3 opens up a vibrant new world, one which expands from Saturn to the Moon, from the Alexandria of Ptolemy to Renaissance Florence, into which Plotinus temporarily disappears. In this world, we see the Hellenistic poet Aratus and the Persian astrologer Abû Ma’shar scan the sky, and Porphyry arguing with Iamblichus on whether our guardian daemon is given to us according to one single star or to the general disposition of the heavens. We learn about the planets which hunt the Zodiac and even hear stories from Ficino’s

12 Introduction everyday life, such as that of two twin sisters, born simultaneously (sine intermissione) under the exact same constellation. However, Ficino says, the two little girls went on to face different, yet equally tragic fates: one died of illness after seven weeks, while the other was suffocated after seven months by an unskilled childminder.25 Ficino also tells us of two twin brothers born into a family in his neighbourhood – again sine intermissione – who grew up to be very different in their physical constitution, character, and fate (corporibus, ingeniis, casibus diversissimi).26 Finally, we hear how Ficino, with the help of a midwife, was able to save the life of an infant born under Saturnian infuence in the eighth month of gestation.27 These stories set the context for Ficino’s central claim that celestial bodies have no causal power over earthly events – let alone the mind, its free action, and free will. However, they can act on the psychosomatic composite (at times even perniciously as, for example, on new-born children) and on our emotional persona. This is because stars, just like daemons, are both outside and inside the soul, in the sense that their infuences, like daemonic infuences, can be interiorized, that is, transformed into a psychological or psycho-physiological act that takes place within the soul or the soul–body composite. This act of interiorization is made possible by the fuid relations of harmony and attunement which govern the universe. These relations, of which Ficino’s Plotinus is the exquisite narrator, bring together the crystalline spheres and the dusty earth, daemons and men, discarnate intellects and incarnate souls. They also explain why stars cannot be causes but sometimes can be signs. Indeed, dancing to the same tune as the other components of the interconnected universe, stars can predict the moves of their fellow dancers and tell their stories in a visible language. However, as Ficino never tires of repeating, stars do not write the stories they tell. Ficino’s entire career as a philosopher was devoted to proving that the ever-changing and free human soul was God’s most cherished creature, to which He had given the gift of immortality. It is no surprise, therefore, that the human soul, with its capacity for the most abstract philosophical contemplation and the deepest form of religious devotion, was at the centre of Ficino’s revival of the Enneads. His presentation of Plotinus as a supreme interpreter of Plato, a sublime philosopher, and a powerful theurgos, who had a god as his guardian spirit, was the crowning achievement in his lifelong praise of the human soul. For this achievement Ficino had prepared for over twenty-fve years, reading, translating, and using the Enneads as a central text to untangle the truest nature of Platonic metaphysics and philosophical anthropology. In fact, I would dare to say that after the late 1460s there is no Ficino without Plotinus. Defnitely, his Platonic Theology is as Plotinian as his Commentary on the ‘Enneads’.28 We should henceforth consider Ficino’s Plotinus as an illuminating guide to understanding the ingenious and philologically-based dialogue which Ficino had with the Greek Plotinus and the Platonists of late antiquity – however different his Plotinus might be from our current perception of who Plotinus is.

Introduction

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Notes 1 S. Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, tr. and ed. by S. Gersh, Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 2017 (hereafter Commentary on Plotinus), IV, pp. xi–ccxxxi and V, pp. 141–299. 2 Ibid., V, pp. 160–7. 3 E. R. Dodds, ‘Theurgy and Its Relationship to Neoplatonism’, Journal of Roman Studies XXXVII (1947), pp. 55–69. See also id., The Greeks and the Irrational, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1951, p. 286. 4 Dodds, ‘Theurgy’, p. 58. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Plotinus, Enneads, VI.9.11, in Enneads, tr. by A. H. Armstrong, 7 vols, Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 1966–1988 (hereafter Enneads), VII, p. 345. 8 Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, p. 287. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. Ficino’s reputation in the history of Western philosophy turned out to be not so different from that of both Iamblichus and his Latin Plotinus. Writing in the eighteenth century, for example, the German scholar Johann Georg Schelhorn, who wrote a biography of and apology for Ficino, concluded that what is found in the De Vita is not magic, but superstition. Schelhorn’s more famous contemporary, Johann Jakob Brucker, also claimed that Ficino’s way of philosophizing (philosophandi ratio) was corrupted by prejudices and superstition. See J. G. Schelhorn, Amoenitates literariae, quibus variae observationes, scripta item quaedam anecdota et rariora opuscula exhibentur, 14 vols, Frankfurt and Leipzig: D. Bartholomaeus, 1725–31, I, p. 133: ‘Ego magici nihil, superstitiosi plurimum in his deprehendo’. See S. Matton, ‘L’ éclipse de Ficin au siècle des Lumières’, in Marsilio Ficino, Commentaires sur le Traité de l'amour ou le Festin de Platon. Traduction anonyme du XVIIIe siècle, ed. by S. Matton, Paris: SEHA/Milan: ARCHÈ, 2001, pp. 5–68. This surprisingly little-quoted chapter presents a most interesting account of Ficino’s later reception. On this topic see also S. Gersh, ‘Introduction’ in Plotinus’s Legacy: The Transformation of Platonism from the Renaissance to the Modern Era, ed. by S. Gersh, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 1–16 and D. J.-J. Robichaud, Plato’s Persona: Marsilio Ficino, Renaissance Humanism, and Platonic Traditions, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018, pp. 235–43. 11 Dodds, ‘Theurgy’, p. 58. 12 Gersh, ‘Introduction’, in Plotinus’s Legacy, p. 8, n. 16. 13 H. D. Saffrey, ‘Florence, 1492: The Reappearance of Plotinus’, Renaissance Quarterly XLIX (1996), pp. 488–508, at p. 504. 14 Creuzer makes use also of Ficino’s commentary. See, for example, his note on Enneads III.8, in Plotinus, Opera omnia, ed. by F. Creuzer and G. H. Moser, 3 vols, Oxford: E Typographeo Academico, 1835, III, p. 195: ‘Iam, si quaeris, quomodo hoc ipso libro Plotinus accipiat hanc vocem, cum etiam θεωρίαν γῆς, φυτ ν, δένδρων agnoscat: actum agerem, si post Marsilii Ficini Commentarium hanc rem recolere vellem’. See A. Corrias, ‘Plotinus’s Language of Seeing: Marsilio Ficino on Enneads V.3, V.8, and III.8, The International Journal of the Classical Tradition XXVI (2019), pp. 251–69, at p. 268. 15 For an insightful discussion of the use of eclecticism in the history of Western philosophy, see P. Donini, ‘The History of the Concept of Eclecticism’, in The Question of ‘Eclecticism’: Studies in Later Greek Philosophy, ed. by A. A. Long and J. M. Dillon, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1988, pp. 15–33.

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16 See Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, IV, p. xxxi. 17 Plotinus, Opera omnia. Cum latina Marsilii Ficini interpretatione et commentatione (facsimile of Basel: Perna, 1580), Villiers-sur-Marne: Phénix, 2005 (hereafter In Plotinum), p. 28 [Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, in Opera omnia, 2 vols, Basel: Henrici Petri, 1576 (repr. Turin: La Bottega di Erasmo, 1962; Paris: Phénix, 2000), II, p. 153–1800 (hereafter Opera omnia), at p. 1569.] 18 D. J.-J. Robichaud, ‘Working with Plotinus: A Study of Marsilio Ficino’s Textual and Divinatory Philology’, in Teachers, Students, and Schools of Greek in the Renaissance, ed. by F. Ciccolella and L. Silvano, Leiden: Brill, 2016, pp. 120–54, at p. 148. 19 See, however, a few remarks in Chapter 2, pp. 68–9. 20 See Chapter 3. 21 Marsilio Ficino, The Letters of Marsilio Ficino, tr. by members of the Language Department of the School of Economic Science, 10 vols, London: ShepheardWalwyn 1975- (hereafter The Letters), VII, p. 22 [Ficino, Epistolae, in id., Opera omnia, I, pp. 607–964 (hereafter Epistolae), at p. 872]. This passage can be found, with very few changes, in the Proem to Ficino’s translation of Plotinus, which is addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici. See Ficino, ‘Proem’ to Commentary on Plotinus, in D. J. O’Meara, ‘Plotinus’, in Catalogus translationum et commentariorum: Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries, ed. by P. O. Kristeller and F. E. Cranz, Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press/Toronto: Pontifcal Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1960–, VII, pp. 55–73, at pp. 69–70 [Ficino, In Plotinum, n. p.; Opera omnia, p. 1537]. 22 Ficino, The Letters, VII, p. 22 [Epistolae, p. 872]. See also ‘Proem’ in O’Meara, ‘Plotinus’, p. 70 [In Plotinum, n.p.; Opera omnia, p. 1537]. 23 See Ficino, Platonic Theology, III.2.6, in id., Platonic Theology, 6 vols, tr. by M. J. B. Allen and ed. by J. Hankins, Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 2001–2006 (hereafter Platonic Theology), I, p. 243. 24 See Chapter 5, p. 159. 25 Ficino, In Plotinum, pp. 122–3 [Opera omnia, p. 1625]. 26 Ibid. [ibid.]. 27 See Chapter 5, p. 167. 28 See also Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, IV, pp. xi–ccxxxi and V, pp. 141–299.

1

The Birth of the Latin Plotinus

1. The Labours and Pleasures of Giving (Re-)Birth to Plotinus I have, in fact, told your brother Filippo, also a man of learning and integrity, that under present circumstances I cannot write anything at all to friends who are away from the city, or even greet those who are here. This is because Plotinus, a follower of Plato, has claimed the whole of me for himself. Hence, by your strong language and stinging verse you are directly accusing Plotinus of envy, on the grounds that he himself belongs to no one and is striving to ensure that I, who normally belong to absolutely everyone, will likewise belong to no one. On the contrary, Amerigo, I am now striving to enable Plotinus to belong to all, and while I am devoting myself fully to one who will shortly belong to all, it seems to me that I am devoting myself to everyone.1 With these words Ficino apologized for his long silence in a short undated letter to his friend Amerigo Corsini. His mind entangled in the twists and turns of the text, his spirit trapped in its philosophical depths, he worked intensively on his Latin version of the Enneads between 1484 and 1486, fnding it diffcult to abandon the labours and pleasures of translation. To convey the semantic richness of Greek philosophical language in Latin is no easy task, and when dealing with Plotinus this task becomes even harder. His style is enigmatic and unpredictable; his words pregnant with a profound meaning easily lost in translation. Anyone who has rendered the Enneads, or parts of it, into another language will certainly agree with Lloyd Gerson that Plotinus’s translator has to face ‘almost insurmountable challenges’ as well as ‘the desperate choice between being true to the letter or the spirit of the text’.2 In his Life of Plotinus, Porphyry describes the style of his master as ‘concise and full of thought’ and says that Plotinus ‘puts things shortly and abounds more in ideas than in words; he generally expresses himself in a tone of rapt inspiration, and states what he himself really feels about the matter and not what has been handed down by tradition’.3 Admittedly, in reading Plotinus we can appreciate his endeavours to overcome the metaphysical

16

The Birth of the Latin Plotinus

chasm between philology and philosophy and to adapt the essential unity of concepts to the fragmentary nature of words.4 This tension between literary expression and philosophical insight held Ficino captive, keeping him away from his friends. In a letter to the Hungarian humanist and poet Janus Pannonius, parts of which were incorporated in the Proem to his edition of the Enneads, Ficino admitted how diffcult it was to translate Plotinus given the brevity of his style, the abundance of his thought and the profundity of his meaning.5 Giving birth to the Latin Plotinus demanded a translator with a profound capacity for both philology and philosophical hermeneutics.6 Fortunately, Ficino was as great a philologist as he was a philosopher and his Plotinus saw the light thanks to his extraordinary ability to bridge the semantic gap between Greek and Latin, especially by adjusting the Latin (through a subtle use of prefxes and suffxes, characteristic of his style) to the philosophical depth of the original Greek. Denis Robichaud has rightly observed that Ficino seldom made his readers aware of the immense effort that underpinned his translation and editing and that ‘he may have remained purposefully silent about his laborious textual work in his printed writings in order to emphasize his persona as a Platonic philosopher and increase the reputation of his acerrimum and sagacissimum ingenium’.7 Translating the Enneads, as Robichaud has it, was almost a vatic experience and Ficino certainly felt that his grand project to present Plotinus’s religiously inspired metaphysics to the Latin-speaking world would have an impact beyond philology and philosophy.8 Ficino completed his translation in January 1486, but he spent the following three years revising it and composing an extensive commentary comprising sections of varying length and philosophical depth. Eventually, in 1492, his Plotinus was published in Florence by Antonio Miscomini under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Ficino had started to work systematically on the Enneads only after his Latin editio princeps of the dialogues of Plato came to print in 1484. His engagement with Plotinus, however, dates further back than that. In the dedicatory letter to Lorenzo that introduces his commentary, he reveals that almost thirty years earlier, Lorenzo’s grandfather, Cosimo de’ Medici, had entrusted him with the project of presenting Platonic philosophy to the Western world, and had placed at his disposal not only all the books of Plato, but also those of Plotinus.9 We now have enough evidence to claim that Ficino embarked upon his study of the Enneads at the very outset of his work on Plato, using them as a commentary on Plato’s dialogues.10 Plato and Plotinus thus entered Ficino’s philosophical life simultaneously, and would keep constant company on Ficino’s desk in the years to come. It should not surprise us then that Ficino’s Latin Plato appears as well acquainted with the principles of the Enneads as his Latin Plotinus is with the Platonic dialogues. Whether Plotinus had considered himself a faithful interpreter of Plato has been long discussed.11 It is certain, however, that he was regarded as

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such by Ficino. Both philosophers, for him, contributed to the production of a harmonious form of Platonism in which theoretical differences presented themselves as marginal divergences when compared to their agreement on the most important metaphysical principles. It did not matter that Plato was some 600 years senior to Plotinus: from Ficino’s perspective, Plato was as much Plotinian as Plotinus was Platonic. Ultimately, they were complatonici – Platonists to the same extent. This view, of course, did not prevent Ficino from appreciating the originality of Plotinus’s interpretation of Plato. However, I do not think that Ficino would have agreed with those contemporary and later scholars who described Plotinus as ‘neo-Platonic’, as, for him, originality did not mean novelty.12 It meant a penetrating and more metaphysically structured approach which excavated Plato’s philosophical insights from mythology and expressed them on a different narrative level.13 In a letter of 1492, Ficino urged his friend Filippo Carducci to welcome and sponsor the Latin Plotinus who had just come to light. He wrote: Our divine Plato long ago begat the great Plotinus: Plotinus, now pregnant with Plato, is about to give birth very soon. Plato gave light to Plotinus; Plotinus will give back light to Plato as soon as he himself comes forth into the light.14 One pregnant with the other, and both brought to a new birth by Ficino, Plato and Plotinus, in turn, would give birth to a philosophical tradition which was to celebrate the divine nature of man. During the time in which Ficino was translating and commenting on Plato’s dialogues, the Enneads constituted a valuable hermeneutical tool and a constant source of inspiration. With his profound insights into the nature of the soul and the transcendence of the divine principle, Plotinus provided a far-reaching exegesis of Plato’s dialogues, often by rewriting in philosophical terms the truth concealed by Plato’s rhetorical and artistic devices.15 The Plotinus manuscript given to Ficino by Cosimo mentioned in the dedicatory letter to Lorenzo16 was very likely Parisinus graecus 1816, which is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and we can take this as the main working text for Ficino’s translation.17 The Parisinus is an apograph of Laurentianus 87.3, which had been brought to Florence from Constantinople by Giovanni Aurispa and then bought by the Italian humanist and collector of manuscripts Niccolò Niccoli. Niccoli’s entire library was purchased by Cosimo in 1441 with the intention of donating it to the library of San Marco.18 Crucially, in 1460, Cosimo commissioned the Greek scholar Johannes Scutariotes to make a copy of Laurentianus,19 most probably for himself or Ficino, while the original remained in the Dominican priory. We know that from 1462 onwards, Parisinus graecus 1816 was on Ficino’s desk, right next to his manuscripts of Plato’s works, and that he worked on it for more than 25 years, heavily annotating it at three different stages.20 In the frst stage, he mainly introduced punctuation,

18 The Birth of the Latin Plotinus made some corrections to the text, subdivided it into different paragraphs, and wrote the Greek marginalia which refers to and summarizes different passages. Most of the exegetical notes, both in Greek and Latin, were made during the second stage, which was by far the most productive.21 The work Ficino carried out on Parisinus graecus 1816 led to the production of three different Latin manuscripts: Conv. Soppr. E.1.2.562, Laurentianus 82.10, and Laurentianus 82.11. The frst of these codices is an initial draft of Ficino’s translation, which he dictated to his copyist Luca Fabiani and which contains important annotations which were later included in his commentary.22 Fabiani was also the scribe of both Laurentianus 82.10 and Laurentianus 82.11, the frst of which includes Ficino’s Proem, his translation of Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus, his entire version of the Enneads and his commentary up to Enneads IV.1. The rest of the commentary is contained in the second codex.23 The transcription of Laurentianus 82.11, as Fabiani noted, was completed on 12 November 1490, two years before it was published.24 Judging from some of the corrections in his hand found in Laurentianus 87.3, it appears that, at this time, Ficino had not only been working on Parisinus graecus 1816 for about 25 years, but that he began reading the Enneads even before 1462, that is, before he was given Parisinus graecus 1816.25 There are two other important codices which bear witness to Ficino’s familiarity with Plotinus before 1484: Ambrosianus graecus 329 and Borgianus graecus 22.26 These manuscripts can help us understand his philosophical interests and what exactly he was looking for in the Platonic corpus. Ambrosianus graecus 329, now in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, is in Ficino’s own hand, and was probably written between 1468 and 1483, that is, during the period in which he was translating and commenting on Plato’s dialogues.27 This manuscript seems to be a sort of Platonic anthology or Ficino’s bedside book, which contains, among other texts, Plato’s Phaedo (ff. 17r–108r), and the following excerpts from Plotinus’s Enneads: IV.2 (ff. 146r–150r), IV.1 (ff. 150v–151r), IV.7 (ff. 151r–157v), and IV.8 (ff. 168r–179v).28 Even a cursory inspection of Ambrosianus graecus 329 reveals that all the passages selected by Ficino are interpretations of Plato’s psychology and that he was using Plotinus for his exegesis of Plato well before starting to work systematically on the Enneads.29 Borgianus graecus 22 was copied by Scutariotes around 1460 and includes passages from Plotinus’s Enneads IV.7 (ff. 166r–167r), from the pseudo-Platonic Epinomis (f. 116r), and from the Letters (f. 146r), from Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite’s On the Divine Names (f. 5r), as well as extracts from Thomas Aquinas (f. 156r) and Proclus (f. 166r). It is no accident that both these manuscripts contain passages from Enneads IV, which is entirely devoted to the analysis of the metaphysical and epistemological status of the soul. For in the Enneads Ficino found a confrmation of what he considered the most important truth expressed by Platonism – the divinity of human nature. Fortifed by this initial realisation, he would go on in

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the years to come to discover far more in Plotinus than a salutary corroboration of this central Platonic principle. In Ficino’s own philosophy, psychology and anthropology are closely interlaced with metaphysics. Plotinus had provided authoritative, metaphysically grounded answers to questions on immortality, virtue, freedom, fate, and other problems related to ‘being human’. Lloyd Gerson has observed that: ‘Plotinus’s Enneads in general hardly ever disconnect the anthropology from the metaphysics’30 and that, for him, the harmony between these two disciplines ‘is further evidence of the truth of Platonism’.31 It is precisely this ‘anthropologically-oriented’ metaphysics that attracted Ficino to Plotinus, together with the fact that in the Enneads the soul takes centre-stage not because Plotinus places it at the centre of the universe but because the soul is the universe. A very famous passage from Enneads III.4.3 reads: ‘for the soul is many things, and all things, both the things above and the things below down to the limits of all life’32 – a powerful expression of Plotinus’s idea of man as anchored within an ordered ontological system imbued with the divine. Ficino builds his own philosophical anthropology by elaborating on the role and nature of the human person within this system. In this context it is interesting to note that Enneads IV.7, in which Plotinus inquires whether each individual one of us human beings is immortal, or whether the whole human being is destroyed, or whether some of it goes away to dispersion and destruction but some of it, the part which is the self, abides forever,33 appears in both Ambrosianus graecus 329 and Borgianus graecus 22. The frst codex contains a complete transcription of this treatise; the second includes summaries of some of the sections which Ficino considered to be most relevant for his arguments on immortality, especially from Enneads IV.7.6.34 Enneads IV.7 is essentially a commentary on the Phaedo, which, among Plato’s dialogues, must have been especially dear to Ficino’s heart.35 In fact, we might have expected him to write a lengthy commentary on this work, but he never did. Nor did he write a full commentary on Enneads IV.7, but instead produced only short summaries of the different chapters. This is because both the arguments of the Phaedo and those of Enneads IV.7 were included and extensively commented upon in his magnum opus, the Platonic Theology, published in 1482.36 Ficino had studied Plotinus’s doctrine of the soul thoroughly already by the time he commenced work on the Platonic Theology and makes extensive use of Plotinus’s psychology to complete and illuminate Plato’s views. Books XV and XVI, for example, which are devoted to investigating the relationship of the soul to matter and the body, are full of references to Enneads IV.37 He begins his commentary on Enneads IV.1 and IV.2 by saying: ‘Since we have elsewhere examined in more detail what Plotinus says here about

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the soul, having done so especially in the frst, third, and seventh books of the Theology, we will therefore here touch upon these issues briefy’.38 By the late 1480s then, Ficino appears to have concluded that Enneads IV had already been examined at suffcient length and that any additional discussion would be redundant. There is, however, an intriguing section of Enneads IV that he seems motivated to treat in greater detail: the frst part of Enneads IV.3, where Plotinus discusses how our individual souls are ontologically related to the Soul of the World. The reason for this, I believe, is that Plotinus’s account of the relationship between individual souls and the Soul of the World gave Ficino the opportunity to argue against what for him was a most detested doctrine – the ‘unicity of the intellect’ or ‘monopsychism’, according to which all human beings participate in but a single mind. The chief proponents of this doctrine followed the medieval Arabic philosopher Averroes who, in his Long Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘De anima’, described both the ‘active’ and ‘passive’ intellect (nous poiêtikos and nous pathêtikos) as separated from the individual human mind.39 This view had far-reaching consequences, especially because Averroes had left unclear how the two intellects relate to one another, which caused further exegetical problems. Notably, for his Latin readers, the separate nature of the two intellects implied that intelligence did not belong essentially to the individual human soul, which would perish together with the body. Instead, the knowledge acquired on earth would, after death, be reabsorbed into the unique nous pathêtikos, which exists as a unity separate from all individual minds.40 This doctrine was transmitted through a Latin translation of the frst half of the thirteenth century, traditionally claimed to be by Michael Scot,41 as well as through the references in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa contra Gentiles and De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas. It is important to point out that Ficino’s Averroes is the Averroes of the Long Commentary and that Ficino ignored the different stages in the development of the Commentator’s teachings on the intellect which, as is now agreed, are refected in Averroes’s three commentaries on Aristotle’s De anima, i.e. the Short Commentary, the Middle Commentary, and the Long Commentary.42 In fact, as far as I know, the Short Commentary was never translated into Latin, while the Middle Commentary was translated into that language at the end of the ffteenth century (from an Hebrew translation).43 During the time in which Ficino was working on his Plotinus, monopsychism was gradually taking hold among Aristotelians, especially at the University of Padua. Nicoletto Vernia, for example, openly maintained that the immortality of the individual human soul was contrary to Aristotelian philosophy, while Agostino Nifo called Averroes the ‘Arab Aristotle’ and openly subscribed to the doctrine of the unicity of the intellect as the correct interpretation of the De anima. The popularity of the doctrine attracted the attention of the bishop of Padua, Pietro Barozzi who, on 4 May 1489, issued a decree entitled ‘Edict against those who debate about the unity of

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the intellect’ (Edictum contra disputantes de unitate intellectus) which prohibited discussion of this topic outside universities.44 Ficino, who devoted the ffteenth and longest book of his Platonic Theology to attacking the central doctrines of Averroism, was especially keen to dismantle the theoretical foundations of monopsychism. For even though Averroes had to some extent ‘platonised’ Aristotle by consecrating the independence of the intellect with respect to the body, he had simultaneously ‘de-humanised’ the intellect by depriving it of all individuality. The Enneads, by contrast, offered metaphysically grounded evidence for a cognitive life which embraced the divine without transcending personal identity. Plotinus claims that our souls are one and the same with each other as well as with the Soul of the World, and yet that they exist in their unique individuality.45 This is true, he says, for embodied as well as for disembodied souls, because their principium individuationis is neither the body, nor even the soul itself. It is rather, the intellect, which ‘remains distinct in otherness, having the same essential being’46 in the eternal, unchangeable and undivided reality of Intellect. After death Socrates will continue to be the same individual that he was on earth, for in or out of the body, his true self will remain identical to himself. In fact, as we shall see, his true self never became embodied. In Ficino’s view, Plotinus succeeded where Averroes failed, because he managed to preserve and explain the essential unity of the noetic world without erasing the individual dimension of life and knowledge.47 It is no surprise then that he comments upon the initial eight chapters of Enneads IV.3 (which, as I said, discuss in detail how our souls are said to relate to the Soul of the World) with great excitement, but then refrains from commenting on the second half of the Ennead entirely. Instead he notes that if he were to continue writing such detailed remarks, the commentary ‘would expand to immense proportions’ (opus excrescet in immensum).48 This architecture suggests a deliberate choice to concentrate all interpretative efforts on Plotinus’s account of the interactive process between the one and the many, for Plotinus’s position offered a great potential store of arguments against Averroes. I shall discuss these issues in Chapter 3.

2. Plato, Plotinus, and the Metaphysics beyond Reason of the ‘Enneads’ We have seen that Enneads IV in its entirety served as a work of reference for Ficino from the very beginning of his career as a translator and interpreter of the Platonists; he certainly regarded it as offering the most exhaustive exegesis of Plato’s views on the soul. All the Plotinian passages Ficino copied into Ambrosianus graecus 329 are commentaries on Plato’s psychology: Enneads IV.2, for example, is an exegesis of the psychogenesis of Timaeus 34c–35a, while Enneads IV.8 refers to different sections from both the Phaedo (65a, 66c, 67a, 81a, 83d, 95d, 113a, 113e) and the

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Phaedrus (247a and 249e). Ficino’s knowledge of Enneads IV must have been quite solid from a very early stage of his Platonic studies given that he was able to identify when Plotinus was commenting on specifc passages in Plato’s dialogues. An interesting example of how he relates the text of Plotinus to that of Plato can be seen on f. 109v of Ambrosianus graecus 329. After quoting Phaedrus 245b–246a, where Plato describes self-movement as a proof for immortality, Ficino writes ‘This same argument is contained in the tenth [book] of the Laws, which this little work [i.e. Ambrosianus graecus 329] brings together after Plotinus’s discourse on immortality’.49 As Paul Henry has observed, this note is an example of how Ficino intended to complete Plato with Plotinus from the outset.50 Interestingly, Plotinus’s psychology also features in connection with the arguments on self-motion in Ficino’s commentary on Phaedrus 245c–246a: I have also proved that the irrational life subject to the body is not the soul’s true substance, nor is it freely self-moving or self-acting. In part it depends on the rational soul (whether particular or universal) as a mirror image depends on the face; in part it is excited by natural infuences; in part it is impelled by external objects.51 Even though Ficino does not mention Plotinus explicitly here, the idea of the irrational life as a refection (or mirror-image) of the rational soul onto the body is distinctively Plotinian, as I shall discuss in in Chapter 2. However, for Ficino, Plotinus was more than a spiritual disciple and an interpreter of Plato. Plato, in turn, was more than a master and a source of inspiration for Plotinus. The two were intimately connected beyond doctrinal agreement and philosophical hermeneutics. For each of them carried and nourished within his own philosophy the philosophy of the other – Plato found lucidity and profoundness in Plotinus, and Plotinus was born as a Platonist by Plato. Ficino suggests this spiritual relationship both in his letter to Filippo Carducci mentioned above52 and in his Exhortation to the readers of the Latin Enneads, where he presents Plotinus as the subject to a double-fold daemonic possession by both Plato himself, and by Plato’s guardian daemon: To start with, I invite all of you, who came to hear the divine Plotinus, to think that it is Plato himself, speaking in the guise of Plotinus, that you are going to hear. For either Plato was reincarnated in Plotinus (something the Pythagoreans will easily grant us), or the same daemon was given frst to Plato and then to Plotinus (something the Platonists will not deny); it is entirely the same spirit which breathes both in the mouth of Plato and in that of Plotinus. Breathing in Plato, however, it pours forth a more fruitful breath, whereas in Plotinus it produces a more dignifed breath – and if not to say more dignifed, at any rate no less dignifed, and sometimes almost more profound. Therefore, the

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same divinity, through the mouth of both, poured forth divine oracles for the human race, oracles worthy in both of them of a most sagacious interpreter who in the case of Plato devotes his efforts to unveiling what is hidden and in that of Plotinus endeavours carefully to express everywhere his most secret meanings and to explain his most gnomic expressions. Remember, moreover, that you will by no means penetrate to the exalted mind of Plotinus either with the guidance of sense or human reason, but instead by means of a certain more sublime intuitive understanding. For, to speak in Plato's manner, we call other men reasonable souls, whereas we call Plotinus, not a soul, but an intellect.53 For Ficino, Plotinus’s spirit is sometimes deeper than that of Plato and his ‘exalted mind’ is identifed with a sublime intellect rather than with a rational soul. Ficino was especially attracted by this aspect of Plotinus’s personality, which was also refected in the metaphysics ‘beyond reason’ of the Enneads, according to which the highest forms of knowledge and life are to be found in a state of pure non-discursive intellection. Like Plotinus, Ficino believed that a full union with God could be reached only once the soul abandoned the rational and intellectual domain of the self, that is, when it became emancipated from the multiplicity of thoughts and was able to see divine nature in its absolute unity. This privileged access to the divine was granted to only a few men and only for a short period of time. Plotinus, who had lived by his intellect rather than by his rational soul, was doubtless among them: as Porphyry tells us, his master was able to turn magical spells back on his enemies and had a god, not an ordinary daemon, as his guardian spirit.54 For Ficino, the highest fulflment of the soul’s life was the visio dei, a state reached only by transcending the orderly, yet manifold, dimension of rational thinking. Michael Allen has argued that Ficino regarded Moses’s encounter with God on Mount Sinai, which took place in ‘mystical obscurity’, as the most sublime example of the soul’s ascent to the divine. In that moment, Moses withdrew into the deepest recesses of his soul, abandoning not only the ghostly and chaotic nature of sense-experience, but also the driving infuence of rational inquiry and the neat arrangement of thoughts and ideas. For the God of the Christian tradition cannot be intellectually comprehended, but only loved and worshipped with prayers.55 As Ficino argues in his commentary on Plato’s Parmenides, it is only during ecstatic raptures that the soul attains a true union with God.56 ‘The light of the Good’, he explains, ‘compels us to leave aside the intelligence and its formulae, and the intellect itself, and the Ideas and all intelligible realities’.57 Just as we cannot contemplate the Sun with open eyes, so too, we must close the eyes of our intelligence when we direct our soul towards God, for ‘it is forbidden and impious to ever direct our intelligence’s gaze toward that which is superior to the intelligible’.58 After all, he says in his Commentary on Plotinus, God is to be found within, in a much deeper region of the soul than reason and intelligence can reach:

24 The Birth of the Latin Plotinus The enjoyment of God is more penetrating in the innermost fruit [of the soul] than in the intelligence, inasmuch as the intelligence is accustomed to penetrating an object more deeply than the senses. To enjoy God, therefore, is not so much to see as to touch; nor does it fow from the outside, but rather from the inside; and it is also to be divinely struck and to be made into God, just as someone who wants to enjoy food is eventually made into the food or perhaps vice versa.59 Plato, for Ficino, was the founder of Platonic theology and the greatest of philosophers. Plotinus was his most profound interpreter. And yet, for Ficino, Plotinus’s theology had somehow transcended that of Plato, since it had outlined the way in which, in order to fnd God, the soul must turn inwards and dissolve all forms of otherness.60 In short, Plotinus had described in philosophical terms the vision which Moses had experienced on Mount Sinai and, in doing so, he had been more profound than Plato himself.

3. Plotinus and Christianity Despite its hierarchical architecture, Plotinus’s philosophy had dissolved the barriers between man and God. Indeed, Ficino believed that Plotinus had ‘humanised’ the man–God relationship by placing the location of their re-union in the innermost region of the soul (in medullas animae).61 Deep within, the individual human not only rejoins God, but through divine contact penetrates into God and, ultimately, becomes God.62 This transformation was made possible for Plotinus by the fuidity with which Being unfolded (and folded back up) through different levels of life and perfection. However, even if this fuid metaphysical structure provided a mechanism through which the divine could reach down to man and vice versa, facilitating the return of the soul to its abode, it would not have come without problems to an audience expecting to hear a story of alliance and harmony between philosophy and Christian religion. The role of Intellect as the second hypostasis, in particular, was not easy to justify, for Intellect is too subordinate to the One to be considered ‘God’ in the way that Christ is considered God in the Trinity. At the same time, Intellect’s role in producing the essence of being made it impossible to identify it as a creatura, in the same way in which man is a creatura.63 To make sense of this second hypostasis – a sort of demi-God (or demiOne) armed with an almost unlimited (and, from a Christian perspective, illicit) power which seemed to deprive the One of its primacy and uniqueness – Ficino had to rearrange Plotinus’s scheme and to redistribute the metaphysical roles.64 Indeed, the fact that both the One and the Intellect are said to produce forms of life called for an explanation, for in what sense could Intellect, which is created but not Creator, be said to be the creator of something? Ficino argues that, for Plotinus, the One is called ‘frst being’

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(essentia prima), ‘frst life’ (vita prima), and ‘frst intellect’ (intellectus primus).65 The ‘frst life’, he says, ‘is nothing other than the most inward and perpetual power, and also the activity of the frst being and form that is most powerful of all things in its agency’.66 When this life or being turns inward to itself, it is called ‘frst intelligible’ (intelligibile primum), ‘to the extent that it is living and fertile (viva est atque fecunda), and able to conceive a thought in itself, move the thing conceived, and form it completely’.67 Plotinus also calls it ‘intellect’ (intellectus), ‘in so far as it looks towards its vital action that has arisen in itself as it is turned back to itself’;68 he calls it also ‘something capable of thinking’ (cogitativum aliquid), ‘since it has determined to distribute to the outside what it has seen within’.69 To sum up, the One is essentia when considered in regards to its being, vita when considered in regards to its inner activity, and intelligibile primum, intellectus, and cogitativum aliquid when considered as refexio, i.e. a ‘turning inward’ into itself. As essentia, the One is limitless agency, but as intellectus, too, it is a productive force. As Ficino has it, the intellect observes (spectat) and sees (videt) within (intus) and produces new life by generating thoughts out of this inner spectacle. After all, in Plotinus, contemplation (θεωρία), life, and production are tightly interconnected. In fact, θεωρία is a fully fedged poietic act. As Pierre Hadot has observed: ‘Life itself, at every level, is contemplation – a violent, but highly Plotinian paradox’.70 One should think only of what Plotinus says in Enneads III.8 about Nature producing new forms out of her silent contemplation. Imagining Nature herself speaking, Plotinus writes: And my act of contemplation makes what it contemplates, as the geometers draw their fgures while they contemplate. But I do not draw, but as I contemplate, the lines which bound bodies come to be as if they fell from my contemplation.71 Something similar, for Ficino, happens within the One when it produces new forms out of an act of seeing, i.e. intellectus. Hence, life is produced out of both essentia and intellectus primus according to ‘a dynamic generative principle of forms and of their interrelations’.72 I shall not pursue this topic further, as in the ‘Analytical Study’ which introduces his translation of Ficino’s commentary on Enneads III Stephen Gersh has already provided a thorough analysis of Ficino’s account of the One and Intellect.73 However, I would like to quote Ficino’s commentary note on Enneads V.8.12, where he distinguishes the productive acts of the two hypostases according to the forces behind these acts, i.e. the will (voluntas) or pleasure (voluptas) for the One, and intelligence (intelligentia) for the Intellect – a note which expresses his viewpoint stripped down to the basic principles: Surely Intellect is generated from the Good, and likewise Soul and the world [are generated] from Intellect not because of a pondering

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The Birth of the Latin Plotinus judgement, but because of a productive nature. However, while in the Good this nature is the will, or pleasure, in the frst Intellect it is its intelligence. Of the voluntary creation of the world [I shall speak] somewhere else.74

Yet, even after having recovered its primacy and uniqueness, having been re-equipped with the power of Intellect, and having been established as the ἀρχή of creation, the One remained essentially different from the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. How, after all, could the loving, world-interested creator God be identifed with Plotinus’s One, when the One has no interest in the world? Lloyd Gerson writes: In endowing things with existence, the One is unlimited. It does not run out of power, or goodness. There is nothing that could exist that does not. Yet what could exist is not the One’s business. That birds and bees can and do exist, that griffns could exist, but do not, and that square circles cannot exist are owing to facts about οὐσία, to put it crudely. When the One produces existence, it uses the template of οὐσία. Its casual power is a pure stream, fowing out and over whatever it is that can receive it according to its own nature.75 The God of Ficino, unlike the One, cares about his creatures. What goes on in the supra- and sublunary world is God’s business. God has precise reasons for creating birds and bees, but not griffns; He reveals himself to men in the sacred texts and ecstatic experiences. Moreover, whereas in Plotinus’s system the absolute unity and perfection of the One allow neither knowledge nor self-consciousness, the Christian God is all-knowing, and men seek to affect him through prayer, either because of fear or the desire to please him. They love him and are loved in return. Man’s enjoyment of God, in the Augustinian sense of fruitio Dei, i.e. the joy of the soul that penetrates the divine presence and fnds fulflment in its union with the divine, is a primary concern for Ficino. That said, the essential differences between the Plotinian One and the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition never come to the fore in Ficino’s commentary. In fact, Ficino makes continuous efforts to give the religious spirit enlivening the Enneads a Christian favour, for example when he quotes the Gospel of Mark in the Exhortation to the readers: Anyhow I hope – which is even more fortunate – that God’s help will not fail Marsilio Ficino when he translates and comments on the divine treatises of Plotinus. Now, with the protection of heaven, let us happily begin to translate the frst treatise of Plotinus and briefy comment on it with a summary, turning to the other treatises in succession. And you should suppose that Plato himself is talking about Plotinus when

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he exclaims: ‘This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, listen to him’.76 If Plato had met Plotinus, Ficino believed, he would have certainly regarded him as his spiritual child. In fact, in a Ficinian universe, it was well possible that the spirit of Plato might have observed Plotinus philosophising and, ‘well pleased’ with him, entrusted him with the task of expressing Platonism to a new philosophical depth. Quoting the Gospel, however, was not an apologetic device for Ficino. He truly believed that between Platonism and Christianity there was an intimate and immemorial connection. His Epitome for Plato’s Phaedo commences with a powerful analogy between the life of Socrates and that of Christ which, as he is keen to point out, is far from being a matter of mere biographical facts or personality features: Our book De religione confrms something which is known enough by itself, i.e. that the life of Christ is a model of all virtue. The eighth book of our Letters shows that the life of Socrates is somehow an image of Christian life or, at least, a shadow of it. The Old Testament is confrmed in Plato, the New Testament in Socrates.77 Like Plato, Plotinus, for Ficino, was not unfamiliar with Christianity: he started as, and always remained, a disciple of Ammonius Saccas, whom Ficino believed to have been a Christian Platonist. Plotinus was also a friend of ‘the even more Christian Origen’ mentioned by Porphyry in the biography of his master.78 We now know that the Origen in question was not the author of De princiipis, but instead an accomplished pagan philosopher and a fellow student of Plotinus. However, the Christian heresiarch and the disciple of Ammonius Saccas were thought to be one and the same until the seventeenth century and Ficino certainly believed this. For this reason, it comes as no surprise that Plotinus’s putative friendship with such a committed Christian made him appear to Ficino as a Christianizing philosopher, if not a Christian one.79 Moreover, according to Ficino, Plotinus condemned the pagan gods and, exasperated by the all too many heretics who perverted Plato’s philosophy, had made implicit appeals to Christianity whenever Platonism had come under attack. So, he vigorously criticised the Gnostics for their dissent from Christian views as much as for their divergence from the views of the Platonists.80 For Ficino, Enneads I.2, ‘On Virtue’, was especially important for an understanding of the relation between Plotinus and Christianity. Here the different virtues are described as stepping stones in the process of the soul’s emancipation from the body and progressive identifcation with the higher self. To be ‘good’, for Plotinus, is to be devoted to what is more akin to the soul’s own essence, that is, to be intellectual, while to be ‘evil’ is to remain attached or attracted to matter. Hence, the hierarchy between ‘evil’ and ‘good’ refected different degrees of ontological, epistemological, and moral

28 The Birth of the Latin Plotinus perfection. The highest virtue of all is not merely to be sinless, but to be god (θεὸν εἶναι).81 For Ficino, purifcation through the exercise of virtue echoed the ascent of the soul to God in St. Paul’s Epistles, an ascent in which we are led by the divine spirit ‘from clarity to clarity’ until we are regenerated.82 After all, St. Paul’s claim that ‘for now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known’,83 might have sounded radically Plotinian to Ficino. Only in the visio facialis will the soul attain a fullness of being and knowledge, reaching the last stage in the process of deifcation. Likeness to God was the ultimate goal of Plotinus’s metaphysics and ethics, when the soul eventually ceased ‘to see through a glass darkly’ and came to behold the divine by touch (τῇ ἐπαφῇ), i.e. through the absolute coincidence of sapientia and intellectus, truth and knowledge, subjectivity and objectivity: Wisdom, theoretical and practical, consists in the contemplation of that which intellect contains; but intellect has it by immediate contact (νοῦς δὲ τῇ ἐταφῇ). There are two kinds of wisdom, one in intellect, one in soul. That which is There [in intellect] is not virtue, that in the soul is virtue.84 Ficino’s commentary on this passage is most intriguing. With his exceptional ability to unfold philosophical concepts through a skilful use of language, he specifes that in Intellect wisdom is called tactus (‘touch’), while in the human intellect it is called contactus (‘contact’).85 Contactus, he specifes, refers to a real union between the intellect and knowledge, not to an ‘imaginary notion’ (imaginaria notio). In the intellect, knowledge transcends the use and infuences of images. Images are, rather, used by reason which is a step below the intellect.86 Contactus, however, can also mean ‘infection’ or ‘contagion’, and Ficino may well be suggesting that knowledge can be spread like a contagion through contact between Intellect and intellect when he writes ‘this possession [of Forms] certainly happens frst in the divine mind, then it is transferred to ours’.87 A similar transference seems to be suggested in the Platonic Theology too, when Ficino refers to tactus as the cognitive proximity between man and God. He writes that when the soul ‘reclines at the banqueting table of the higher mind (epulis superioris mentis accumbit)’,88 there is ‘a natural and everlasting vision of the truth, or rather a kind of touching (tactus), to use Iamblichus’s words, a touching which is prior to and more outstanding than all knowledge and argumentation’.89 At the same time, Ficino was keen to stress that Intellect alone beholds the totality of Forms, while the individual intellect is limited and can receive these Forms only when devoted completely to the virtue which is infused into us when we turn towards it.90 From this perspective, he remarks, to become godlike is to recognize the intimacy of the relation we have with God and to embrace our (divine) nature as His children.91

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Plotinus’s philosophy was, for Ficino, essentially compatible with Christian doctrine in both its conception of absolute divine transcendence and its belief in the capacity of humans to become godlike through their proximity and relationship to the divine. There was, however, one aspect which presented Ficino with an intractable diffculty: the notion that human souls could transmigrate into the bodies of animals.92 In various places he ruefully remarks that Plotinus is the only Platonist to have spoken of transmigration literally. I am not completely sure why he makes this claim, but I am inclined to believe that it has to do with the place he gave Plotinus in the history of Platonic hermeneutics, as we shall see in the next paragraphs. Admittedly, metempsychosis had an eminent place in Plato, famously in the myth of Er. Here different souls, including the souls of Orpheus, Agamemnon, and Thamyras choose to reincarnate into animals, precisely into a swan, an eagle, and a nightingale.93 Yet, at the end of the Argumentum that introduces his translation of Book X of the Republic, Ficino reassures the reader that Plato himself believed that this ridiculous story, which does not differ at all from the tales of old wives, should be interpreted allegorically.94 He also says that what Plato really means is not that rational souls migrate ‘into the life of an animal’ (in vitam bruti), but ‘into an animal life’ (in vitam brutam), that is, they make themselves somehow similar to beasts.95 ‘This [view]’, Ficino remarks, ‘is accepted almost by all Platonists, except, especially, Plotinus’.96 Again, in his Epitome for the Phaedo, he claims that in Plato reincarnation refers to the contamination of the human imagination by the imagination of beasts, which is how many of the Platonists understood metempsychosis, ‘except for Plotinus’ (excepto Plotino).97 I shall return to the issue of transmigration in Chapter 3, but we might ask why Ficino differentiated between Plotinus’s account of reincarnation into animals and Plato’s. What made him claim that Plato considered it a legend worthy only of old wives’ chit-chat – while Plotinus seemed to have given it a convinced philosophical endorsement? In Enneads III.4, while wrestling with the implications of Plato’s myth of Er, Plotinus speculates about the kinds of life the soul will go on to have after death. Those who cultivated human nature the most, he says, would become men again, while those who lived by sense alone, would become animals. They would be reincarnated as wild animals if their sense-perception had been accompanied by anger, or as lustful and gluttonous beasts if their sensitive soul had been flled with desire for the fesh. Speaking of humans who became birds, Plotinus explains: Those who loved music but were in other ways respectable turn into song-birds; kings who ruled stupidly into eagles, if they had no other vices; astronomers who were always raising themselves to the sky without philosophical refection turn into birds which fy high.98 Animal life was not the worst possibility, since there was also the chance that a soul, if it lived a life of dull sense-perception, would become a plant.99

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Admittedly, transmigration served an undeniably important philosophical purpose in Plotinus.100 But so did it in Plato. In fact, in the myth of Er, Plato introduced metensomatosis as a pedagogical concept to support his anthropology and eschatology. I believe that Ficino’s misgivings about Plotinus’s treatment of this topic stemmed directly from the specifc role that he crafted for Plotinus within the Platonic tradition. As previously noted, Ficino believed that Plotinus had unveiled the ‘sublime mysteries’ which Plato had concealed from ‘vulgar eyes’101 and rewritten them in a highly sophisticated philosophical style. In the Enneads Socrates’s tales were retold in philosophical terms, while Plato’s epideictic and sometimes ludic prose was replaced with a style which is lucidly technical, even when it overfows with meaning. In other words, for Ficino, Plotinus had demystifed Plato – hence, why would Plotinus include transmigration in his strictly philosophical rewrite of Plato’s myths, unless he thought that transmigration did not need to be demystifed? Near the very end of the commentary, after discussing one of the Enneads’ most rapturous passages on the soul’s union with God (VI.9.9), Ficino addresses Plotinus directly, getting off his chest a complaint which he must have nurtured for decades: But, Plotinus, after you have admitted such a thing, you will also admit, as a consequence, that once the soul is transformed into God, it does not descend from there and that the soul which is naturally able to convert itself into God with an inner act and to become God, cannot be transformed at any time and by its own motion into a brute animal.102 For Ficino, the doctrine of metempsychosis could only be taken literally within the context of Plotinus’s philosophical rhetoric. The complaint above is important as it shows that he did not want to ignore an element of Plotinus’s thought which was irreconcilable with the principles of Christian theology. Although he sought to downplay doctrinal differences wherever he could, staying true to the spirit of Plotinus was just as important to him as staying true to his central belief about the agreement between the Platonists and the Christians, even where this meant admitting unorthodox positions.

4. The Post-Plotinian Plotinus It took Ficino twenty-two months to translate the Enneads, after which he immediately embarked upon the commentary. However, between 1486 and 1489, he interrupted it to translate Porphyry’s De abstinentia ab esu animalium and the frst twenty-eight chapters of his Sententiae ad intelligibilia ducentes. He also produced a paraphrased translation of Iamblichus’s De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, Chaldaeorum, Assyriorum, a number of sections in paraphrase from Proclus’s commentary on Alcibiades I – to which he gave the title De anima et daemone – and an extract from his On Hieratic Art,

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which he entitled De sacrifcio et magia.103 He also made a Latin version of Synesius’s De somniis and Psellus’s De daemonibus and translated and commented upon Priscianus Lydus’s paraphrase of Theophrastus’s De anima. He might have turned to later Platonic texts in order to gather additional exegetical material on Plotinus’s complex psychology, or perhaps he just wanted to expand his account of the soul and its relationship with the divine by consulting those Platonists whom he regarded as the philosophical heirs of Plotinus.104 Signifcantly, Ficino translated all the passages in which Porphyry explicitly expanded upon his master’s doctrine of the soul. For example, under the title De occasionibus, he included chapters of Porphyry’s Sententiae which directly interpreted Plotinus’s psychology in respect to the immortality of the soul and its independence from the body. From De abstinentia, apart from passages dealing with the main topic of the book – why some people do not eat meat – he selected the sections in which Porphyry discussed theurgical rites, as well as the classifcation of different daemons and the ascent and descent of the soul. Indeed, in a letter to Braccio Martelli, Ficino states explicitly that he decided to translate De abstinentia because it helped to clarify some obscure aspects of Plotinus’s daemonology.105 Undoubtedly, daemons play a leading role in the post-Plotinian texts translated by Ficino, which deal mainly with theurgy. In fact, we know that in the very years when he was translating these authors, he was also engrossed in the study of astrology, magic, musical theurgy, and sympathetic medicine. The third book of his De vita libri tres, entitled De vita coelitus comparanda (‘On How to Obtain Life from the Heavens’), which is concerned with how the soul can attract heavenly powers through a ritualistic use of the physical world, dates to the same period. It might have been precisely the question of how to draw the divine down to earth that led Ficino to the study of those philosophers who, unlike Plotinus, showed a great concern for theurgy.106 Plotinus’s disinterest in theurgical practices has a specifc theoretical premise: for him there was no need to recover a connection with the divine, for the connection had never been lost. As is known, he believed that a part of us remains undescended, eternally connected to Intellect in an ongoing act of contemplation. Only the irrational soul becomes embodied: And, if one ought to dare to express one’s own view more clearly, contradicting the opinion of others, even our soul does not altogether come down, but there is always something of it (τι αὐτῆς) in the intelligible.107 This ‘something’ is completely unaffected by embodiment and continues to exist without the body, even while the rest of our self is in the body. The aim of man is to direct his incarnated being towards his discarnate part and, should he succeed, ‘he can recognise his immortality, understand the nature of his unintegrated empirical ego and proceed to the ultimate union with the One’.108 The bare bones of this view are contained in the idea that

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every man is double, ‘one of him is the sort of compound being and one of him is himself (ὁ μὲν τὸ συναμφότερόν τι, ὁ δὲ αὐτός)’.109 It is clear that the undescended ‘something’ is not only our ideal self, but our real self. In fact, our ideal and our real selves coincide. Within this framework, there is no need for theurgical rituals capable of attracting the divine to earth, for man himself (ὁ δὲ αὐτός) is not on earth. It is with Plotinus’s successors, especially Iamblichus, that theurgical rituals of re-unifcation acquired a meaningful place within the Platonic tradition. For while Porphyry accepted Plotinus’s view of the undescended soul, later Platonists, from Iamblichus onwards, posited that the self descended into the body in its entirety. For these Platonists, theurgy consequently became essential in restoring the lost connection with the supernatural.110 In his commentary on the Timaeus, Proclus reported that Iamblichus had attacked those – like Plotinus and Theodore of Asine – who believed that an element in us is always impassive and always enjoys intellection.111 Scholars have set out the contrast between Plotinus’s and Iamblichus’s views in rather stark terms. John Finamore, for example, has argued that ‘this opposition in viewpoints was a turning point for the future of neoplatonism’.112 Ficino, however, interprets Iamblichus as broadly following the Plotinian approach. In the Platonic Theology he writes: Plotinus, Theodore of Asine and Iamblichus go so far as to claim that the mind of man, which is not human but divine, lives in the intelligible world and operates unceasingly through the unceasing contemplation of the ideas.113 However, he must have been familiar with the doxographical note in Proclus’s commentary on the Timaeus. We know that he had access to two manuscripts containing Proclus’s text: Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 24 (which ends abruptly at II.169.4) and Vatican City, BAV, MS Chigiano R VIII 58. Both codices, as shown by Paola Megna in her excellent study of Ficino’s indebtedness to Proclus’s commentary, present evidence of Ficino’s thorough reading. He highlighted numerous passages in the margins and summarised some others, both in Greek and in Latin.114 In fact one of the highlighted passages identifed by Megna in the Vatican manuscript is III.333.28–334.4, where Proclus reports Iamblichus’s criticism of the undescended soul.115 It is not clear why, having read and selected this passage as one of particular interest, Ficino ascribed Plotinus’s view that a part of our soul remains aloft to Iamblichus too.116 Admittedly, malgré Proclus, Iamblichus’s original view on this matter is not straightforward,117 perhaps because, as Gersh has observed, ‘Plotinus’s distinction between a higher soul independent of the body and a lower soul that combines with the latter to form the “animate being” takes on a more religious tone in Iamblichus’.118 Moreover, Iamblichus’s claim that there is a divine presence in us through which we are always connected to the gods could be taken as

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a confrmation of Plotinus’s position, even more so if one approaches the sources in the frame of mind of someone looking for correspondences rather than disagreements, as Ficino did.119 In the De mysteriis I.15.11–12, for example, Iamblichus claims that what in us is divine (τὸ γὰρ θεῖον ἐν ἡμῖν), intellectual, and one (νοερὸν καὶ ἕν) or, if you prefer to call it intelligible (ἢ εἰ νοητὸν αὐτὸ καλεῖν ἐθέλοις), is aroused by prayers to strive towards what is akin to itself.120 Moreover, in his commentary on the Phaedo, Damascius reports that for Iamblichus some pure souls never descend (οὐδέποτε κατιέναι αὺτας) and that the form of their life (εἶδος τῆς ζωῆς) produces a descent which is not separated from the things above (πρὸς τὰ ἐκεῖ ἀδιάκοπον).121 As L. G. Westerink demonstrated, Ficino read and studied Damascius’s commentary (which he believed to be by Olympiodorus) in a codex which is now Riccardianus gr. 37, when he was collecting material for the Platonic Theology and working on his Epitome for the Phaedo.122 In fact, one of Ficino’s marginal notes on this manuscript reads: ‘Iamblichus says that some souls always remain in the hands of God’.123 Finally, in his commentary on Enneads IV.3.10 Ficino claims that ‘the view that our intellect can remain blessed in the divine sphere while the rational power as though cast down to earth becomes most wretched, does not seem totally at odds with Iamblichus, although it was rejected by Porphyry the student of Plotinus, and criticised by Proclus’.124 Hence, we may assume that in the passage from the Platonic Theology quoted above,125 Ficino did not deliberately force Iamblichus to agree with Plotinus on a doctrine with which he, Ficino, never explicitly agreed (we shall see that, for Ficino, the whole soul is physically in the body). He did not purposefully downplay doctrinal differences between his sources either, although it is perhaps the case that he regarded these differences as irrelevant to an understanding of the two Platonists’ philosophies and but marginal aspects of the comprehensive and harmonious tradition to which Plotinus and Iamblichus belonged.126 Both philosophers, in Ficino’s eyes, agreed that we bear a degree of divinity which needs to be awoken. Equally, if not more, importantly, Plotinus, Iamblichus, and even Porphyry agreed on the fact that once ‘intellect with God is blessed (intellectus apud Deum est beatum) […] the soul will never depart from this condition (anima numquam inde discessura)’.127 For Ficino, post-Plotinian philosophers expounded and commented on Plotinus, just as Plotinus had expounded and commented upon Plato. In Parisinus graecus 1816, their names, especially that of Iamblichus,128 are repeatedly mentioned in his marginal notes and in the Argumentum to his paraphrase of the De mysteriis Ficino admits that this work on Iamblichus is interlaced with his study of Plotinus.129 Ficino’s Latin paraphrase of De mysteriis was dedicated to Lorenzo’s son, Giovanni de’ Medici, on the occasion of his nomination as cardinal in 1488, because, as Ficino says in his dedicatory letter, among members of the Academy Iamblichus was regarded as a great priest and divinus.130 Indeed, Ficino presents Iamblichus as a priest and a theurgos and, as such, opposed to Porphyry, who was

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called the ‘Philosopher’ by the Platonists.131 Iamblichus’s religious inspiration, his view of a universe in which all is interconnected and traces of the divine are to be found everywhere, his belief in the effcacy of rituals and in higher intelligences reaching down for men, all this was immensely appealing to Ficino. Indeed, Plotinus and Iamblichus both held sway over him in their respective ways. Plotinus’s idea of the undescended soul accounted for our supersensible identity and essential divinity – Ficino’s most strenuously defended belief. In the Enneads, moreover, we fnd the urge to turn inwards in order to reach upwards to our true self and, eventually, to the One. This confrmed Ficino’s view that the soul’s spiritual ascent to God is ‘an internal ascent of consciousness’ which moves ‘from the external world to higher acts of contemplation’.132 Finally, Ficino regarded the Plotinian ‘escape in solitude to the solitary’133 as a splendid image of the true encounter with God, which only a few men, like Moses and St. Paul, had the privilege to experience through forms of ecstatic raptures during their life on earth. However, in Iamblichus’s world, the recovery of the soul's divinity was made easier by the presence of the divine on earth. As Gregory Shaw beautifully puts it, for Iamblichus the natural world: is theophanic activity, and to enter this ‘divine action’ (theourgia) the soul must enter the rhythm of its pulse. In the esoteric mystagogy of Iamblichus, material objects and the complexities of embodied life are transformed from obstacles into icons of demiurgic activity. The opacity of embodied life becomes transparent, transfgured theurgically into symbols of the gods.134 A universe of this kind magnifcently suited Ficino’s belief in the importance of divine ceremonies, talismans, and prayer as conductive to the purifcation and ascension of the soul. By such theurgical means, the soul could acquire the power to receive the divine gifts lavished on the world and become able ‘to obtain life from the heavens’. In Ficino’s mind, Iamblichus had completed Plotinus as a result of expanding the avenues leading to the divine beyond pure rationality.135 Hence, it is not surprising that Iamblichus is a massive presence in the third book of the De vita, which Ficino claims to be a digression from the commentary on the Enneads but which, in fact, is heavily based on post-Plotinian sources and permeated by theurgy.136 ‘Yes, everywhere nature is a sorceress’, Ficino writes in De vita, as Plotinus and Synesius say, in that she everywhere attracts us to particular foods, just as she attracts heavy things by the power of the earth’s centre, light things by the power of the Moon’s sphere, leaves by heat, roots by moisture, and so on.137 Besides the power of nature to enchant, two aspects in particular reveal the commitment of Ficino’s Plotinus to the philosophy of his successors:

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his daemonological theory and his doctrine of the vehicles of the soul. In Plotinus’s universe, as in any Platonic universe worthy of its name, daemons shared space with men; they inhabited the region close to earth, had bodies made of air and were capable of being affected by human prayers. However, their existence and deeds had no philosophical relevance and little or no bearing upon the nature of the soul.138 This irrelevance was grounded, once again, on the doctrine of the undescended soul, for if we never disconnect from Intellect, there is no need for spiritual beings serving as intermediaries between the human realm and higher realities. Daemonic nature, for Plotinus, was worthy of philosophical inquiry only when considered as a part of the soul, which led Proclus to accuse him of having downgraded daemons to the level of human beings.139 It was in the work of Plotinus’s successors, with their belief in a fully descended self and in the consequent necessity of magical rituals to re-establish the metaphysical bond with the divine, that daemons acquired philosophical relevance. Ficino embraced post-Plotinian daemonology and fully included it in his commentary. In fact, he transformed Plotinus’s universe into Iamblichus’s ‘theophanic’ world, as Shaw would have it, where daemons were living manifestations of the divine with an important role in human ceremonial and religious life as well as in cognitive and emotional processes. I shall discuss daemonological matters in Chapter 5. Here it is enough to say that Ficino was well aware that Plotinus understood daemons as entirely psychological notions – his interpretation of Enneads III.4.3 masterfully illuminates this view.140 In his commentary, however, external daemons share centre stage with daemons as partes animae. The reason for this lies in the fact that, as we have said, while he was studying and translating the Enneads, Ficino resorted to Plotinus’s successors to unravel the most diffcult passages, especially those concerned with daemonology, as he himself admitted to Braccio Martelli.141 The other distinctively post-Plotinian doctrine to which Ficino’s Plotinus is deeply committed is the doctrine of the ‘vehicle of the soul’ (ὀ χ́ ημα της ψυχής). The ὀ χ́ ημα was regarded as a semi-material envelope which the soul acquired in its descent from the intelligible world to the earth. It was called ‘vehicle’ because its function was to carry the soul through the spheres, enabling its passage from the spaceless and timeless dimension of the divine to the world of generation.142 The number of vehicles varied from author to author and so did interpretations about its substance and fate, for some believed that after death the vehicle remained in the intelligible world for a certain time, while others supposed that it remained there forever. This doctrine proved to be extremely popular among Platonists up to the seventeenth century and it was often used in religious and theological contexts. However, in Plotinus’s metaphysical system the soul did not need a vehicle as a means of journeying to the earth, for, as we know, its truest part remained undescended. As a result, the doctrine of the ὀ χ́ ημα is absent from the Enneads or, at any rate, not systematically developed. It was only with later authors that the theory was fully worked out and found a place within Platonism. In the commentary, however, Ficino widely uses it to explain

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transmigration into the bodies of animals as well as to prove the independence of personal identity, including the emotional self, from the body.143 For the soul’s memories and the contents of the imagination, the Platonists believed, were carried in the vehicle. I will discuss these issues in Chapter 3. The result of Ficino’s solitary and prodigious work on the Enneads is a Plotinus read and explained by Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus, a postPlotinian Platonist committed to philosophy as well as to theurgy. Reborn into the Western world in 1492, this Plotinus was presented as committed to recovering a unitary wisdom in which adherents of different beliefs, even if they disagreed on specifc points, could overcome their disagreements in order to combine philosophical enlightenment with powerful religious inspiration. Yet, the Latin Plotinus remains extraordinarily true to the Greek Plotinus in both literary style and lexical choices. In fact, while Ficino’s commentary transfgures Plotinus in the different ways mentioned above – yet never blurring or obfuscating Plotinus’s thought through doctrinal bias – the translation adheres to the text in devoted fashion, striking a perfect balance between remaining true to its ‘letter’ and its ‘spirit’.144 A detailed study of Ficino as a translator of the Enneads will require a different book. It is essential, however, to keep in mind that, as I have explained in the Introduction, from Ficino’s perspective the spirit of his translation is not at all different from that of his commentary. However, it certainly is to modern eyes. In the commentary, Plotinus’s voice is extracted, expanded, transferred, and often transformed by his commentator’s voice. The original text is often submerged in the wide pool of secondary sources and even disappears within Ficino’s wide scholarship, as, for example, in the long excursus on astrology in his commentary on Enneads II.3.145 In the translation, by contrast, Plotinus speaks to the Latin public with nothing added, omitted or transformed from the original text. Ficino’s mastery of Greek and his sensitive feeling for the nuances of meaning contributed to a Latin version of the Enneads which is still consulted by scholars of Plotinus today. Hence, for us modern readers the most distinctive and paradoxical character of Ficino’s Plotinus is his being impressively true to himself in the translation but radically post-Plotinian in the commentary.

Notes 1 Ficino, The Letters, VII, p. 25 [Ficino, Epistolae, p. 873]. See also Epistolae, p. 870. 2 L. P. Gerson, ‘Introduction’, in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed. by L. P. Gerson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 1–9, at p. 8. On Plotinus’s writing style see: L. Brisson, ‘Plotinus’s Style and Argument’, in The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism, ed. by P. Remes and S. SlavevaGriffn, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2014, pp. 126–44; D. Gutas, ‘The Text of the Arabic Plotinus: Prolegomena to a Critical Edition’, in The Libraries of the Neoplatonists, ed. by C. D’Ancona, Leiden: Brill, 2007, pp. 371–84, at pp. 380–1; R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism, London and Indianapolis:

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4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11

12 13 14 15

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Hackett, 1995, pp. 41–4; G. Stamatellos, Plotinus and the Presocratics: A Philosophical Study of Presocratic Infuences in Plotinus’s Enneads, New York: State University of New York Press, 2007, pp. 5–7. For a fascinating overview of the different forms of literary and philosophical narrative in Plotinus see S. R. L. Clark, Plotinus: Myth, Metaphor, and Philosophical Practice, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2016. On some linguistic aspects of Ficino’s translation of Plotinus see A. Corrias, ‘Plotinus’s Language of Seeing’; D. J.-J. Robichaud, ‘Working with Plotinus’; id. and M. Soranzo, ‘Philosophical or Religious Conversion? Marsilio Ficino, Plotinus’s Enneads and Neoplatonic Epistrophê’, in Simple Twists of Faith. Cambiare culto, cambiare fede: persone e luoghi. Changing Beliefs, Changing Faiths: People and Places, ed. by S. Marchesini and J. W. Nelson Nova, Verona: Alteritas, 2017, pp. 135–66, at pp. 148–55. Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, XIV, in Enneads, I, pp. 1–87, at pp. 40–41. See also M. J. B. Allen, ‘Catastrophe, Plotinus and the Six Academies of the Moon’, in his Synoptic Art: Marsilio Ficino on the History of Platonic Interpretation, Florence: Olschki, 1998, pp. 52–92, at p. 55, and Robichaud, Plato’s Persona, pp. 224–5, where Robichaud quotes a few most interesting marginal notes on Plotinus’s philosophical narrative written by Ficino on Parisinus graecus 1816. On this MS, see pp. 17–18. See Wallis, Neoplatonism, p. 41: ‘In contrast to Plato, Plotinus’s treatises exhaust the resources of language in endeavouring to attain successively closer approximations to what remains fnally inexpressible’. Ficino, Epistolae, pp. 871–2: ‘ob incredibilem tum verborum brevitatem, tum sententiarum copiam sensusque profunditatem’. See Allen, ‘Catastrophe, Plotinus and the Six Academies of the Moon’, p. 54. See Corrias, ‘Plotinus's Language of Seeing’, p. 254. Robichaud, ‘Working with Plotinus’, p. 148. See ibid., p. 147: ‘In working with the stylistic brevity of Plotinus’s text, Ficino conceives his charge almost in vatic and theurgical terms’. Ficino, ‘Proem’ in O’Meara, ‘Plotinus’, p. 69 [In Plotinum, n.p.; Opera omnia, p. 1537]: ‘Me electissimi medici sui Ficini flium, adhuc puerum, tanto operi destinavit, ad hoc ipsum dedicavit indies. Operam praeterea dedit, ut omnes non solum Platonis, sed etiam Plotini libros Graecos haberem’. See Saffrey, ‘Florence, 1492’, p. 490. See S. Gersh, ‘Marsilio Ficino as Commentator on Plotinus: Some Case Studies’, in Plotinus’s Legacy, pp. 19–43, at pp. 19–21. See C. J. de Vogel, ‘On the Neoplatonic Character of Platonism and the Platonic Character of Neoplatonism’, Mind LXII (1953), pp. 43–64; L. P. Gerson, From Plato to Platonism, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2013, pp. 255–82 and id., ‘Plotinus and Platonism’, in Brill Companion to the Reception of Plato in Antiquity, ed. by D. Baltzly, H. Tarrant, and D. Layne, Leiden: Brill, 2017, pp. 316–35; D. J. Yount, Plotinus the Platonist: A Comparative Account of Plato and Plotinus’s Metaphysics, London: Bloomsbury 2014, especially pp. ix–xiv; J. M. Rist, Plotinus: The Road to Reality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967, pp. 169–87. For the use of the term ‘Neoplatonic’ as early as the ffteenth century see Gersh, ‘Introduction’, in Plotinus’s Legacy, pp. 1–16, at p. 7. I agree with Lloyd Gerson that Plotinus himself would have not ‘embraced a label suggesting innovation’. See Gerson, ‘Introduction’, p. 3. Ficino, The Letters, X, p. 31 [Epistolae, p. 935]. See Allen, ‘Catastrophe, Plotinus and the Six Academies’, p. 55 and Gersh, ‘Introduction’, p. 7.

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16 See n. above. 17 See P. Henry, Études plotiniennes: Les manuscrits des Ennéades, Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1948, pp. 31–2 and id. ‘Les manuscrits grecs de travail de Marsile Ficin, traducteur des Ennéades de Plotin’, in Congrès de Tours et de Poitiers de la Association ‘Guillaume Budé’, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1954, pp. 323–8, at p. 323. 18 See Saffrey, ‘Florence, 1492’, p. 491. See also C. Förstel, ‘Marsilio Ficino e il Parigino greco 1816 di Plotino’, in Marsilio Ficino. Fonti, testi, fortuna. Atti del Convegno internazionale (Firenze, 1-3 ottobre 1999), ed. by S. Gentile and S. Toussaint, Rome: Storia e Letteratura, 2006, pp. 65–88; S. Gentile, ‘Marsilio Ficino’, in Autograf dei letterati italiani: Il Quattrocento, I, ed. by F. Bausi, M. Campanelli, S. Gentile, and J. Hankins (with T. De Robertis), Rome: Salerno, 2013, pp. 138–68; Gersh, ‘Introduction’, pp. 5–7. R. Marcel, Marsile Ficin, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1958, pp. 466ff.; P. O. Kristeller, Supplementum Ficinianum, 2 vols, Florence: Olschki, 1937, II, clvii–clix; O’Meara, ‘Plotinus’, pp. 68–73; Robichaud, ‘Working with Plotinus’; id., ‘Fragments of Marsilio Ficino’s Translation and Use of Proclus’s Elements of Theology and Elements of Physics: Evidence and Study’, Vivarium: A Journal for Medieval and Early-Modern Philosophy and Intellectual Life LIV (2016), pp. 46–107, at pp. 67–86. On Niccolò Niccoli and his manuscripts see G. Zippel, Nicolò Niccoli: Contributo alla storia dell’umanesimo con un’appendice di documenti, Florence: Bocca, 1890. See also M. C. Davies, ‘An Emperor without Clothes? Niccolò Niccoli under Attack’, Italia medievale e umanistica XXX (1987), pp. 95–148. 19 Ficino thanks Cosimo for the Platonic manuscripts in a letter dated 4 September 1462. This letter is printed in Kristeller, Supplementum, II, pp. 87–8. See Gentile, ‘Introduzione’ in Ficino, Lettere, ed. by S. Gentile, 2 vols, Florence: Olschki, 1990, I, pp. i–ccxcix, at p. xliii and A. Della Torre, Storia dell’ Accademia Platonica, Florence: Carnesecchi, 1902, pp. 537–8. In a wellknown anecdote Ficino recounts that as long as Cosimo was alive, he kept his desire to himself; but, after his death, he manifested it from heaven when, at the very moment that Ficino’s translation of Plato was being published, in 1484 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola went to Florence and persuaded Ficino to translate Plotinus. See Ficino, ‘Proem’, in O’ Meara, ‘Plotinus’, p. 69 [In Plotinum, n.p.; Opera Omnia, p. 1537]: ‘Divinitus profecto videtur effectum, ut dum Plato quasi renasceretur, natus Picus heros sub Saturno suo Aquarium possidente, sub quo et ego similiter anno prius trigesimo natus fueram, ac perveniens Florentiam quo die Plato noster est editus, antiquum illud de Plotino herois Cosmi votum mihi prorsus occultum, sed sibi caelitus inspiratum, idem et mihi mirabiliter inspiraverit’. See P. R. Blum, Philosophy of Religion in the Renaissance, Farnham: Ashgate, 2010, pp. 107–8; Saffrey, ‘Florence, 1492’, pp. 492–3, S. Toussaint, ‘Introduction’, in In Plotinum, pp. i–xxi; B. Tambrun, Pléthon: Le retour de Platon, Paris: Vrin, 2007, pp. 9–10 and pp. 241–2. 20 Henry, Les manuscrits des Ennéades, pp. 50–62. 21 Ibid., pp. 54–9. See Robichaud, ‘Fragments of Marsilio Ficino’s Translation’, pp. 67–8; On Ficino and the text of the Enneads see also R. Saccenti, Il trattato sulle tre ipostasi di Plotino nella traduzione e nel commento per note di Marsilio Ficino, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Pisa, 2004–2005, pp. 4–7. 22 See P. O. Kristeller, Supplementum, I, p. 26 and A. M. Wolters, ‘The First Draft of Ficino’s Translation of Plotinus’, in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone. Studi e documenti, ed. by G. C. Garfagnini, 2 vols, Florence: Olschki, 1986, II, pp. 305–29. Conv. Soppr. E. 1. 2. 562 is a very important text, as

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23 24 25 26

27

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it proves that Pico’s motivational infuence on Ficino goes beyond astrological coincidences. Sebastiano Gentile has convincingly argued that this codex contains annotations in the hand of Pico, who also noted down ‘1484’ as the year in which the Latin version of Plotinus was begun (the same year in which, according to Ficino, Pico had met him in Florence and persuaded him to start his translation). See S. Gentile, ‘Pico e Ficino’, in Pico, Poliziano e l’Umanesimo di fne Quattrocento, ed. by P. Viti, Florence: Olschki, 1994, pp. 127–47. On p. 132 Gentile concludes that: ‘Sembrerebbe quindi che il Ficino proprio per soddisfare il desiderio di Pico di leggere Plotino avesse fatto approntare per lui dal fedele segretario Luca Fabiani una copia provvisoria della sua versione’. See also id., ‘La traduzione di Plotino in un codice postillato da Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’ in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone. Mostra di manoscritti, stampe e documenti, ed. by S. Gentile, S. Niccoli, and P. Viti, Florence: Le Lettere, 1984, pp. 146–7. See Kristeller, Supplementum, I, p. 12. Ibid. For a detailed description of these codices see Gentile, Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone. Mostra di manoscritti, stampe e documenti, pp. 147–50. See Saffrey, ‘Florence, 1492’, p. 492. See S. Gentile and S. Rizzo, ‘Per una tipologia delle miscellanee umanistiche. Il codice miscellaneo tipologie e funzioni’, in Segno e Testo II (2004), pp. 379–407. It is important to point out the existence of another miscellaneous codex, i.e. Riccardianus 92, also in Ficino’s hand, which contains Latin summaries of Enneads I.6 and Enneads III.5, devoted to investigating beauty and love respectively, along with the text of Plato’s Symposium, extracts from the Phaedrus and from other books on love. It is very likely that Ficino used this codex when he was working on his commentary on Plato’s Symposium. See Gentile, Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone. Mostra di manoscritti, stampe e documenti, pp. 58–60. See R. Di Dio, ‘Selecta colligere: Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance Reading Practices’, in History of European Ideas LXII (2016), pp. 595–606; id., ‘A Set of Preparatory Notes for De Amore: Marsilio Ficino and his Metaphysics of Light’, in Praxis des Philosophierens, Praktiken der Historiographie: Perspektiven von der Spätantike bis zur Moderne, ed. by M. Meliadò and S. Negri, Munich: Verlag Karl Alber, 2018, pp. 43–75. Henry, Les manuscrits des Ennéades, p. 40. On Ambrosianus graecus 329, see R. Di Dio, ‘Marsilio Ficino e la traduzione crisolorina della Repubblica. A proposito di alcuni marginalia del cod. Ambr. F 19 sup.’, in Medioevo Greco XIII (2013), pp. 73–88; id., Marsilio Ficino’s Notebooks: A Case of Renaissance Reading Practices, Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Warwick, 2014–2015. See Saffrey, ‘Florence, 1492’, p. 491. The Phaedo, in Leonardo Bruni’s Latin translation, appears also in another manuscript, Additional 11274, in the British Library in London, identifed as an autograph of Ficino by Ernesto Berti, who believes it was copied around 1455, at the very beginning of Ficino’s Platonic career. As shown by Paul Oskar Kristeller in his ‘The Scholastic Background of Marsilio Ficino: With an Edition of Unpublished Texts’, Traditio II (1944), pp. 257–318, at p. 267, Ficino had read the Phaedo in translation well before starting to learn Greek. See E. Berti, ‘Un codice autografo di Marsilio Ficino ancora sconosciuto: il Lond. Add. 11274’, in Per Roberto Gusmani. Studi in ricordo, I. Linguaggi, culture, letterature, ed. by G. Borghello and V. Orioles, Udine: Forum, 2012, pp. 41–73; id., ‘Marsilio Ficino e il testo greco del Fedone di Platone’, in Les traducteurs au travail. Leurs manuscrits et leurs méthodes, ed. by J. Hamesse, Turnhout: Brepols, 2001, pp. 349–425.

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The Birth of the Latin Plotinus Gerson, From Plato to Platonism, p. 284. Ibid. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.3, III, pp. 150–1. Ibid., IV.7.1, IV, p. 339. Henry, Les manuscrits des Ennéades, p. 44. Se J.-M. Charrue, Plotin lecteur de Platon, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1978; R. Chiaradonna, ‘Plotin lecteur du Phédon: l’ âme et la vie en IV 7 [2] 11’, in Ancient Readings of Plato’s ‘Phaedo’, ed. by S. Delcomminette, P. D’ Hoine, and M.-A. Gavray, Leiden: Brill, 2015, pp. 154–72. In his epitome for the Phaedo, Ficino says that he will run through the dialogue ‘with a fast step or, more correctly, a fast leap’, since its mysteries had been suffciently covered in his Platonic Theology. See Ficino, ‘Epitome’ for Plato’s Phaedo, in Opera omnia, II, pp. 1390–5 (hereafter In Phaedonem), at p. 1390: ‘Huius ergo Phaedonis deinceps argumentum passu, imo saltu celeri percurremus. Eius enim mysteria satis in theologia exposuisse videmur’. The same justifcation is given to Lorenzo in the Epilogue of his notes on Enneads IV.7, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 537 [In Plotinum, p. 467; Opera omnia, p. 1754]: ‘You desire, O magnanimous Lorenzo, at long last a brief summary of the protracted discussion: indeed, the discussion of the immortality of the soul both in the Theology and in the present instance has already been extended to a great length (Desideras, magnanime Laurenti, brevem tandem longae disputationis summam: disputationis inquam de immortalitate et in Theologia et in praesentia in longum iam productae)’. See, for example, Ficino, Platonic Theology, XV.12.4, V, p. 289: ‘[The soul] remaining in itself, it has compounded one animate being under itself, an irrational animate being, not from itself and the body, but from the body and its own particular living image. But this is Plotinus’s view’. Here Ficino is explicitly referring to both Enneads 1.1.7, 1–6, I, p. 109 (see Chapter 2, p. 59) and Enneads IV.8.4, 3–7, p. 409: ‘[Souls] possess also a power directed to the world here below, like a light which depends from the sun in the upper world but does not grudge of its abundance to what comes after it’. Another example of the infuence of Enneads IV.7 on the psychology of the Platonic Theology is to be found in XVI.I.23, V, p. 253: ‘Hence Plato in his Letters and Laws, and also Plotinus in his treatise On the Immortality of Souls concede that some feeling and concern for our affairs remain in souls even after they have been separated [from bodies]. For Plotinus this means that such souls take note of human affairs to the extent that a certain habit or affection inclining them towards bodily things lingers in them’, which makes a reference to Enneads IV.7.15, 8–12, IV, p. 391: ‘And many souls which were formerly in human beings did not cease to beneft mankind when they were out of the body: they have established oracular shrines and give help by their prophecies in other ways and demonstrate through themselves that the other souls have also not perished’. See Plato, Letter II, 311c and Laws, XI.927a. For these references to Plato and Plotinus see Ficino, Platonic Theology, V, p. 342, n. 9 and n. 10. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 323 [In Plotinum, p. 359; Opera Omnia, p. 1729]: ‘Quoniam quae hic Plotinus de anima disserit alibi latius pertractavimus, praesertim in primo et tertio et septimo Theologiae libro, ideo hic breviter attingemus’. It must be said that for Averroes, it is the intellect which is unique, not the soul, hence, the term ‘mononousism’ would be much more appropriate than ‘monopsychism’. I shall, however, use the traditional label, with which we are all more familiar. On Ficino’s rejection of Averroism see M. J. B. Allen, ‘Marsilio Ficino on Saturn, the Plotinian Mind, and the Monster of Averroes’,

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Bruniana & Campanelliana XVI (2010), pp. 11–29 (repr. in Renaissance Averroism and Its Aftermath, ed. by A. Akasoy and G. Giglioni, Dordrecht: Springer 2013, pp. 81–97); B. P. Copenhaver, ‘Ten Arguments in Search of a Philosopher’: Averroes and Aquinas in Ficino’s Platonic Theology’, Vivarium XLVII (2009), pp. 444–79; A. Corrias, ‘L’ immortalità individuale dell’ anima nel Commento a Plotino di Marsilio Ficino’, Bruniana & Campanelliana XIX (2013), pp. 21–31; G. Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons: Marsilio Ficino’s Theory of the Imagination’, in Diseases of the Imagination and Imaginary Disease in the Early Modern Period, ed. by Y. Haskell, Turnhout: Brepols 2012, pp. 19–50; and id., ‘Phantasms of Reasons and Shadows of Matter: Averroes’s Notion of the Imagination and Its Renaissance Interpreters’, in Renaissance Averroism and Its Aftermath, pp. 173–93. On Averroism in Italy during the Renaissance see E. Coccia, La trasparenza delle immagini: Averroè e l’averroismo, Milan: Mondadori 2005, pp. 22–7; G. Giglioni, ‘Introduction’ in Renaissance Averroism and Its Aftermath, pp. 1–34; P. F. Grendler, The Universities of Italian Renaissance, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, pp. 283–9; J. Hankins, ‘Lorenzo de’ Medici as Patron of Philosophy’, Rinascimento XXXIV (1994), pp. 15–53; id., ‘Marsilio Ficino on Reminiscentia and the Transmigration of Souls’, Rinascimento XLV (2005), pp. 15–53; D. N. Hasse, ‘The Attraction of Averroism in the Renaissance: Vernia, Achillini, Prassicio’, in Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin Commentaries, 3 vols (81–3 of BICS supplement), ed. by P. Adamson, H. Baltussen, and M. W. F. Stone, London: BICS, II, 2004, pp. 131–47; id., ‘Arabic Philosophy and Averroism’, in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, ed. by J. Hankins, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 113–36; and id., ‘Averroica secta: Notes on the Formation of Averroist Movements in Fourteenth-Century Bologna and Renaissance Italy’, in Averroes et les Averroïsmes juif et latin, ed. by J.-B. Brenet, Turnhout: Brepols, 2007, pp. 307–31; D. A. Iorio, The Aristotelians of Renaissance Italy: A Philosophical Exposition, Lewiston: Mellen 1991; J. Kraye, ‘Lorenzo and the Philosophers’, in Lorenzo the Magnifcent: Culture and Politics in Medicean Florence, ed. by M. Mallett and N. Mann, London: The Warburg Institute, 1996, pp. 151–66; Kristeller, Renaissance Thought II, pp. 111–18; J. Monfasani, ‘Aristotelians, Platonists and the Missing Ockhamists: Philosophical Liberty in Pre-Reformation Italy’, Renaissance Quarterly XLVI (1993), pp. 246–76; C. B. Schmitt, ‘Renaissance Averroism Studied through the Venetian Editions of Aristotle-Averroes (with Particular Reference to the Giunta Edition of 1550–1552)’, in Convegno Internazionale. L’Averroismo in Italia, Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1979, pp. 121–42 (repr. in id., The Aristotelian Tradition and Renaissance Universities, ch. 8, London: Variorum, 1984). 40 Averroes’s genuine views on the soul’s immortality and its relationship with the intellect are contested. His Latin interpreters, however, emphasized the external and separable character of the passive intellect, as well as Averroes’s rationalistic position towards psychology. See, for example, H. A. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect, and Theories of Human Intellect, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 and O. N. Mohammed, Averroes’s Doctrine of Immortality: A Matter of Controversy, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1984. Ficino is aware that monopsychism owes more to Averroes’s interpreters than to Averroes himself. See, for example, Platonic Theology, XV.14.3, V, p. 163: ‘Averroes himself did not arrive at his opinion [i.e. that intellect is one] through the free judgement of his own mind, but because he did not know

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The Birth of the Latin Plotinus how to interpret the books of Aristotle in any other way, [given] their corrupt translation into Arabic. Nor does he offer his own view: he is testing rather his wits and their powers. He affrms only that mind is immortal. He does not affrm that it is one: he just offers an opinion and leaves it unresolved. He says, moreover, that he is making an attempt; that he is just imagining; that he is leaving the opportunity for discussion to his successors’. In ibid., n. 101, p. 340, Michael Allen argues that here Ficino is possibly referring to Averroes, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima libros III.5, ed. by F. S. Crawford, Cambridge [MA]: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953, pp. 362–9 and 399. On Scot’s authorship of the translation see D. N. Hasse, Avicenna’s ‘De Anima’ in the Latin West: The Formation of a Peripatetic Philosophy of the Soul 1160–1300, London: The Warburg Institute, 2000, p. 9; id., Latin Averroes Translations of the First Half of the Thirteenth Century, Hildesheim: Olms, 2010; F. S. Crawford, ‘Prolegomena’, in Averroes, Commentarium magnum, pp. xi–xxi; S. W. De Boer, The Science of the Soul: The Commentary Tradition on Aristotle’s ‘De anima’ c.1260–c.1360, Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2013, p. 16. Even though the original Arabic text of Averroes’s Long Commentary has been lost, extracts survive in some glosses (in Arabic, but written in Hebrew characters) in the manuscript Modena, Biblioteca Estense, α.J.6.23. See M. Geoffroy and C. Sirat, L’original arabe du Grand Commentaire d’ Averroès au ‘De anima’ d’ Aristote. Prémices de l’ édition, Paris: Vrin, 2005. In this context it would be most interesting to study the manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Ricc. 902, which Ficino read and annotated in his youth and which contains the Latin translation of Averroes’s Long Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘De anima’ (ff. 2r–53v) with marginal notes in Ficino’s own hand. See P. O. Kristeller, Iter Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other Libraries, 6 vols, Leiden: Brill/London: The Warburg Institute, 1963–1997, I, p. 180. See Sebastiano Gentile’s entry n. 1 in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone. Mostra di manoscritti, stampe e documenti, pp. 1–2. See, among others, Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes; M. Geoffroy, ‘L’intellect chez Averroès: traçabilité d’ une doctrine’, in Averroes, La béatitude de l'âme: Éditions, traductions et études, ed. by M. Geoffroy and C. Steel, Paris: Vrin, 2001, pp. 42–81; A. L. Ivry, ‘Averroes’s Three Commentaries on the De anima’, in Averroes and the Aristotelian Tradition, ed. by J. Aertsen, K. Braun, and G. Endress, Leiden: Brill, 1999, pp. 199–216; R. C. Taylor, ‘Improving on Nature’s Exemplar: Averroes’s Completion of Aristotle Psychology on Intellect’, in Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin Commentaries, II, pp. 107–30. See Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, pp. 262–3. D. N. Hasse, Success and Suppression: Arabic Science and Philosophy in the Renaissance, Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 2016, p. 343. Pietro Barozzi, Edictum contra disputantes de unitate intellectus, in P. Ragnisco, Documenti inediti e rari intorno alla vita ed agli scritti di Nicoletto Vernia e Elia del Mendigo, Padua: G. B. Randi, 1891, pp. 8–9, at p. 9: ‘Mandamus ut nullus vestrum sub poena excommunicationis latae sententiae quam si contrafaceritis ipso facto incurratis audeat vel praesumat de Unitate intellectus quovis quaesito colore pubblice disputare; et si hoc ex Aristotelis sententia fuisse secundum Averroin hominem doctum quidem sed scelestum’. See Grendler, The Universities of the Italian Renaissance, pp. 283–4; Hasse, Success and Suppression, pp. 184–7; C. Martin, Subverting Aristotle: Religion, History and Philosophy in Early Modern Science, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2014, pp. 51–69; Monfasani, ‘Aristotelians, Platonists, and the Missing Okhamists’.

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45 S. Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp.160–7. 46 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.5, IV, p. 49. 47 See M. J. B. Allen, ‘Prometheus among the Florentines: Marsilio Ficino on the Myth of Triadic Power’, Rinascimento LI (2011), pp. 27–44. On Plotinus’s notion of individuality see: A. H. Armstrong, ‘Form, Individual and Person in Plotinus’, in Dionysus I (1977), pp. 49–78; H. J. Blumenthal, ‘Did Plotinus Believe in Ideas of Individuals?’, Phronesis XI (1966), pp. 61–80; C. Tornau, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un individu ?’, in Les Études philosophiques III (2009), pp. 333–60. 48 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 393 [In Plotinum, p. 371; Opera omnia, p. 1738]. 49 Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS Ambrosianus graecus 329, f. 109v: ‘Eadem argumentatio est in Xo De legibus quam iste operculus colliget post Plotini verbum de immortalitate’. See Henry, Les manuscrits des Ennéades, p. 38. 50 Ibid., p. 41. See A. Corrias, ‘Ficino interprete di Plotino. Alcune considerazioni sull’uomo e sull’anima’, Interpres XXXV (2017), pp. 98–120, at pp. 102–4. 51 Ficino, Commentary on the ‘Phaedrus’, in M. J. B. Allen, Marsilio Ficino and the Phaedran Charioteer, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1981, pp. 65–129, at pp. 88–9. Here Ficino closely relates the Phaedrus and the Laws again, for while he is discussing the soul’s selfmotion he refers to his Epitome of Book 10 of the Laws. The soul, he says, has a power of its own by means of which it can be regarded as the principle of both its own motion and that of other substances. See Ficino, ‘Epitome’ for Book 10 of Plato’s Laws, in Opera omnia, II, pp. 1515–20, at p. 1518: ‘Sic ergo defnies: anima est substantia propriam habens potentiam qua et moveatur ex se et caetera moveat’. Self-motion was an important feature of the soul, which made it both immortal and superior in nature to the body. In ibid., Ficino writes: ‘What moves by itself precedes what receives its motion from other things. Likewise he [i.e. Plato] believes that the soul, I mean the rational soul, comes before the whole corporeal machine, for no body is able to move by itself (Quemadmodum vero res ex se mobilis rem ab alia mobilem antecedit, sic animam dico rationalem antecedere [Plato] putat totam machinam corporalem, cum nullum corpus valeat ex seipso moveri)’. Existing prior to the body, the soul is also the principle of the body’s life, a concept which was developed and expanded on in Plotinus’s description of the genesis of the living being in Enneads I. 52 See p. 17. 53 Ficino, ‘Exhortatio ad auditores et legentes Plotinum’, in O’Meara, ‘Plotinus’, p. 70 [In Plotinum, n. p.; Opera omnia, p. 1548]: ‘Principio vos omnes admoneo, qui divinum audituri Plotinum huc acceditis, ut Platonem ipsum, sub Plotini persona loquentem vos audituros existimetis. Sive enim Plato quondam in Plotino revixit, quod facile nobis Pythagorici dabunt sive Daemon idem Platonem quidem prius affavit, deinde vero Plotinum, quod Platonici nulli negabunt, omnino aspirator idem os Platonicum affat atque Plotinicum. Sed in Platone quidem affando spiritum effundit uberiorem, in Plotino autem fatum angustiorem, ac ne augustiorem dixerim, saltem non minus augustum, nonnunquam ferme profundiorem. Idem itaque numen per os utrumque humano generi divina fundit oracula, utrobique sagacissimo quodam interprete digna, qui ibi quidem in evolvendis fgmentorum incumbat involucris, hic vero tum in exprimendis secretissimis ubique sensibus, tum in explanandis verbis quam brevissimis diligentius elaboret. Mementote praeterea vos haudquaquam vel sensu comite vel humana ratione duce, sed mente quadam sublimiore excelsam Plotini mentem penetraturos. Profecto (ut Platonice loquar) caeteros homines rationales animos appellamus, Plotinum vero non animum sed intellectum’.

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The Birth of the Latin Plotinus For the translation (with slight modifcations), see Saffrey, ‘Florence, 1492’, p. 495. For an interesting reading on this passage based on Ficino’s understanding of Plato’s and Plotinus’s rhetorical style see Robichaud, Plato’s Persona, pp. 203–4. This story is told in Chapter X of Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus. See M. J. B. Allen, ‘Dove le ombre non hanno ombre: Marsilio Ficino e l’ascesa al Sinai’, Rinascimento XLIX (2009), pp. 15–26, at p. 24. See Corrias, ‘Plotinus’s Language of Seeing’, p. 262. On Ficino and the contemplation of God see J. Kraye, ‘Moral Philosophy’, in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. by E. Kessler, J. Kraye, C. B. Schmitt, and Q. Skinner, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 303–86, at pp. 349–52. See M. Vanhaelen, ‘Introduction’, in Ficino, Commentaries on Plato II: ‘Parmenides’, ed. and tr. by M. Vanhaelen, 2 vols, Cambridge [MA] and London: Harvard University Press 2012, I, pp. xxv. On the dispute between Ficino and Pico over the Parmenides see M. J. B. Allen, ‘The Second Ficino-Pico Controversy: Parmenidean Poetry, Eristic, and the One’, in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone. Studi e documenti, II, pp. 417–55 (repr. in id., Plato’s Third Eye: Studies in Marsilio Ficino’s Metaphysics and Its Sources, ch. 10, Aldershot: Variorum, 1995); Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Dell’ Ente e dell’Uno, ed. By R. Ebgi, Milan: Bompiani, 2010, pp. 124–38; M. Vanhaelen ‘The Pico-Ficino Controversy: New Evidence in Ficino’s Commentary on the Parmenides’, Rinascimento XLIX (2010), pp. 1–39; ead., ‘Introduction’, pp. xx–xv. Ficino, Commentaries on Plato, II: ‘Parmenides’, p. 201. Translation slightly modifed. Ibid. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 767 [Opera omnia p. 1800]: ‘fruitio tanto sit penetrantior in medullas quam intelligentia, quanto intelligentia solet obiectum profundius penetrare quam sensus. Igitur frui Deo non tam est videre quam tangere, nec id quidem extrinsecus, sed penitus illabi, ac divinitus affci, effcique Deum sicut qui et alimento vescitur, tandem effcitur alimentum, vel forte vicissim’. For the different stages through which the rational soul becomes united with God see Ficino, De raptu Pauli, in Espistolae, pp. 697–706, which is in the form of a letter addressed to Giovanni Cavalcanti, in which Ficino refers to St. Paul’s ascent to the third heaven (II Corinthians 12:2). See D. Conti, ‘Non Plato solum, verum etiam Platonici: un incompiuto testamento spirituale di Marsilio Ficino’, in Ficino, Commentarium in epistolas Pauli, ed. By D. Conti, Turin: Nino Aragno, 2018, pp. xxix–clxxix, at pp. xxxix–xl. Writing fve centuries after Ficino, John Michael Rist seems of the same opinion. See his ‘Integration and the Undescended Soul in Plotinus’, in The American Journal of Philology LXXXVII (1967), pp. 410–22, at p. 422: ‘As so often Plotinus was the man able to read Plato’s intentions behind the apparently conficting statements in the dialogues. That Plotinus saw further than Plato in these matters is certain; that he saw further in the same direction is, to my mind, equally certain’. See n. above. See later, p. See D. J.-J. Robichaud, ‘Ficino on Force, Magic, and Prayers: Neoplatonic and Hermetic Infuences in Ficino’s Three Books on Life’, Renaissance Quarterly LXX (2017), pp. 44–87, at p. 55 and id., ‘Philosophical or Religious Conversion?’, p. 149. On the role of Intellect in producing being see Gerson, ‘Plotinus’s Metaphysics: Emanation or Creation?’.

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64 In his re-arrangement of the metaphysical powers Ficino established what Stephen Gersh has defned as ‘a kind of concord in discord between Plotinus’s system and Christian dogma’. See Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. xxxvi. See also M. J. B. Allen, ‘Marsilio Ficino on Plato, the Neoplatonists and the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity’, Renaissance Quarterly XXXVII (1984), pp. 555–84. At p. 562, quoting P. O. Kristeller as the frst to note it, Allen says: ‘Ficino followed Augustinian precedent and transferred most of the attributes and function of Mind to God Himself: its role in creating the animal and material universe; its status as the supreme entity and the highest truth; its dual status as the supreme thinker and the supreme thought, as the Platonic Ideas and the Mind that contemplates them’. See P. O. Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, tr. by V. Conant, New York: Columbia University Press, 1943, pp. 164–70. On Ficino’s interpretation of Plotinus’s One, see J. M. Dillon, ‘Ficino and the God of the Platonists’, in Laus Platonici Philosophi: Marsilio Ficino and his Infuence, ed. By S. Clucas, P. J. Forshaw, and V. Rees, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011, pp. 13–24. 65 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 123 [In Plotinum, p. 353; Opera omnia, p. 1716]. 66 Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]. 67 Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]. 68 Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]. 69 Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]. 70 P. Hadot, Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision, tr. by M. Chase, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1993, p. 42. See Corrias, ‘Plotinus’s Language of Seeing’, p. 263. 71 Plotinus, Enneads, III.8.4, III, p. 369. 72 Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. xxxvii. 73 Ibid., pp. xxxi–liii, especially xxxii–xxxviii. 74 Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 553 [Opera omnia, p. 1769]: ‘Generatur vero intellectus a bono, et anima mundusque simul ab intellectu, non consilio deliberante, sed natura foecunda: natura vero tum in bono voluntas est, sive voluptas, tum in intellectu primo ipsa eius intelligentia. De voluntaria creatione mundi alibi’. 75 Gerson, ‘Plotinus’s Metaphysics: Emanation or Creation?’, p. 573. 76 Ficino, ‘Exhortatio’, in O’Meara, ‘Plotinus’, p. 71 [In Plotinum, n. p., Opera omnia, p. 1548]: ‘Spero tamen id quod admodum felicius est, divinum auxilium in traducendis explicandisque divinis Plotini libris Marsilio Ficino non defuturum. Sed iam caelestibus hinc auspiciis et nos ad transferendum primum Plotini librum, et argumento breviter exponendum, reliquosque deinceps, feliciter accedamus. Et vos Platonem ipsum exclamare sic erga Plotinum existimetis: Hic est flius meus dilectus, in quo mihi undique placeo, ipsum audite’. The quotation at the end is from the Gospel of St. Matthew (17:3) and was pronounced by God on the occasion of Christ’s baptism and of his transfguration. See also Mark 1:11, 9:7; and Luke 3:22, 9:35. 77 Ficino, In Phaedonem, p. 1390: ‘Noster De religione liber rem satis per se notam probat, Christi vitam esse virtutis totius ideam. Octavus autem Epistolarum nostrarum liber Socratis vitam vitae Christianae imaginem quandam aut saltem umbram esse demonstrat, et Testamentum quidem Vetus per Platonem confrmat, Novum vero per Socratem’. See chapter 23 of Ficino’s De Christiana religione and his letters Concordia Mosis et Platonis in Epistoale, pp. 866–7 and Confrmatio Christianorum per Socratica, in ibid., p. 868. For a critical edition of the latter, see Allen, Synoptic Art, pp. 209–10. See D. Conti, ‘Marsilio Ficino tra Cristo e Socrate’, in Cristo nella flosofa dell’età moderna, ed. by A. Del Prete and S. Ricci, Florence: Le Lettere, 2014, pp. 59–76.

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78 Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 191 [Opera omnia, p. 1663]: ‘Plotini mentem non fuisse a Christiana lege penitus alienam ex eo conjicere possum, quod cum Ammonii semper Christiani discipulus fuerit, et Christianissimi Origenis semper amicus convenisse dicitur una cum Origene atque Heremnio’. See Allen, ‘Catastrophe, Plotinus and the Six Academies’, p. 82: ‘[Plotinus] was an uncommitted fgure, perhaps even a sympathetic fgure, a Gamaliel in the development of Platonism in the third century in a Rome which was rapidly undergoing conversion to Christianity’. For Plotinus and Origen see Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, III.25, XIV.23, and XX.42, in Enneads, I, pp. 11, 43, and 57. 79 See M. J. B. Allen, ‘At Variance: Marsilio Ficino, Platonism and Heresy’, in Platonism at the Origins of Modernity: Studies on Platonism and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. by D. Hedley and S. Hutton, Dordrecht: Springer, 2008, pp. 31–44, at p. 38. On the scholarly dispute over the identity of the Origen mentioned by Porphyry in The Life of Plotinus see M. J. Edwards, ‘Ammonius, Teacher of Origen’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History XLIV (1993), pp. 169–81 and R. Goulet, ‘Porphyry, Ammonius, les deux Origène et les autres’, Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses LV (1977), pp. 471–96. 80 See Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 191 [Opera omnia, p. 1664]: ‘Ex eorum certe opinionibus constat eorum haeresim, quamvis Christum colerent, non minus tamen a communi Christianorum sententia, quam Platonicis dissentire’. For Plotinus controversial attitude towards the Gnostics see J. Katz, ‘Plotinus and the Gnostics’, Journal of the History of Ideas XV (1954), pp. 289–98; A. Meredith, ‘Origen, Plotinus and the Gnostics’, The Heythrop Journal XXVI (1985), pp. 383–98; J.-M. Narbonne, Plotinus in Dialogue with the Gnostics, Leiden: Brill, 2011; Plotinus amid Gnostics and Christians, ed. by D. T. Runia, Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij/Free University Press, 1984; J. D. Turner, ‘Transgressing Boundaries: Plotinus and the Gnostics’, Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies I (2016), pp. 56–85; and Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, ed. by J. Bregman and R. T. Wallis, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984. 81 On the doctrine of the ‘likeness to God’ in Plotinus see: J. Annas, ‘Becoming Like God: Ethics, Human Nature, and the Divine’, in Platonic Ethics, Old and New, Ithaca [NY]: Cornell University Press, 1999, pp. 52–71; S. Lavecchia, Una via che conduce al divino. La ‘homoiosis theo’ nella flosofa di Plotino, Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2006; D. C. Russell, ‘Virtue as “Likeness to God” in Plato and Seneca’, Journal of the History of Philosophy XLIV (2004), pp. 241– 60; D. Sedley, ‘The Ideal of Godlikeness’, in Oxford Readings in Philosophy, Plato 2: Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul, ed. by G. Fine, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 309–28. 82 Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 8 [Opera omnia, p. 1556]: ‘Per hos ergo tres gradus una cum Paulo a claritate in claritatem a domini spiritu tracti in eandem imaginem transformamur, id est, virtutes nostras velut imagines divino exemplari illuc ita profecti adhibemus atque reformamur, quod et Plotinus quasi Paulum imitatus in sequentibus declarabit’. See also Ficino, De raptu Pauli, in Epistolae, p. 698. Here the stages by which the soul ascends to God become seven and Ficino refers explicitly to a purifcation of the rational soul through civil virtues (Curru fdei, spei, charitatis septies in tertium ascenditur caelum. Primo quidem per virtutes civiles purgatorias animique purgati). See also the ‘Preface’ to the Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistles’, in Opera omnia, I, pp. 425–6, at p. 425, now in Ficino, Commentarium in epistolas Pauli, p. 4, where Ficino describes four stages by which the mind is lifted up to God: sense perception corresponds to the earth, active reason to the frst heaven, natural reason to the second heaven and, fnally, divine contemplation to the third heaven. See V. Rees, ‘The Care of the Soul: States of Consciousness in the Writings of Marsilio Ficino’,

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83 84

85 86

87 88 89 90

91 92 93 94

95

96 97

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Aries VIII (2008), pp. 1–19, at p. 12. I am grateful to Valery Rees for her help in identifying Ficino’s references to St. Paul. St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 13:12. Plotinus, Enneads, I.2.6, I, p. 143. See also Ficino’s translation in In Plotinum, p. 15: ‘Sapientia quidem inspectio est eorum quae possidet intellectus. Intellectus autem tactu quodam habet. Duplex autem est utraque: altera quidem in intellectu existens, altera vero in anima et ibi quidem non virtus, in anima virtus’. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 10 [Opera omnia, p. 1558]. On contactus with the divine see Robichaud, ‘Ficino on Force, Magic, and Prayers’, p. 55. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 10 [Opera omnia, p. 1558]: ‘sapientiam in divino [intellectu] tactum dici, id est, non imaginis cuiusdam, sed rei ipsius possessionem, ac potius existentiam. In nostro autem intellectu potius appellari contactum, id est, realem (ut ita dixerim) copulam, non imaginariam notionem. In natura enim rationali quae proprie anima nuncupatur imaginaria magis possessio est: [in] intellectu autem (ut ita loquar) substantialis’. Ibid.: ‘Haec possessio primo quidem est in mente divina, deinde traducitur et in nostram’. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XII.4.5, IV, p. 51. Ibid. See Iamblichus, De mysteriis I.3.8.3–13; see also Marsilio Ficino, Iamblichus De mysteriis, in Opera omnia, II, pp. 1873–1908, at pp. 1880–1. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 8 [Opera omnia, p. 1556]: ‘Tu vero quod dicitur, neque speciem, de ipso patre intellige, super speciem atque formas existere. De intellectu vero eius flio intellige, non habere speciem ab essentia sua distinctam, sed ipsum esse speciem ipsam, formarumque omnium plenitudinem: de qua omnes accipimus, quatenus profcimus ad virtutem inde nobis illuc conversis infusam’. Ibid.: ‘per quam dedit nobis potestatem flios Dei feri’. Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. xxviii–xxxi. As we shall see, Ficino admits transmigration into other human bodies, such as spiritual bodies. Plato, Republic, X.620a. See also Phaedo 81e–82b and Timaeus 91–2. Ficino, ‘Argumentum in Platonis Respublicam’, in Opera omnia, II, pp. 1427– 38, at p. 1438: ‘Quod autem Plato de migratione animarum in corpora bestiarum tam ridiculam affert fabellam, ab anicularum fabulis nihilo discrepantem, profecto nos admonet totum allegorice exponendum’. Ibid.: ‘videlicet rationales animas, non in vitam bruti, sed brutam, id est quoddamodo bruto similem vicissimque demigrare’. See J. Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols, Leiden: Brill, 1990, I, p. 358, n. 252; id., ‘Marsilio Ficino on Reminiscentia and the Transmigration of Souls’, p. 12. For a discussion of Ficino’s interpretation of transmigration in Plato see Allen, ‘The Second Ficino-Pico Controversy’, pp. 437–9 and C. Celenza, ‘Pythagoras in the Renaissance: The Case of Marsilio Ficino’, Renaissance Quarterly LII (1999), pp. 667–711, at pp. 684–91. Ficino, ‘Argumentum in Platonis Respublicam’, p. 1438: ‘Quod quidem omnibus pene Platonicis excepto Plotino maxime placuit’. Ficino, In Phaedonem, p. 1392: ‘Idque intellige, videlicet animas nostras non tam vivifcare corpora bestiarum, quam purgatorii gratia per brutam imaginationem suam quodammodo brutorum imaginationi misceri, quemadmodum impuros aiunt daemones insanorum imaginationi saepe permixtos. Sic utique excepto Plotino plerique exponunt Platonicorum. Quod quidem patet ex eo, quod non dicit animam feri bestiam, sed induere, subire, transire’. For a detailed analysis of Ficino's treatment of transmigration in the Enneads see Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. xxx–xxi, of which I quote a part in Chapter 3, p. 108, n. 96.

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98 Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.2, III, p. 147. See also Enneads, IV.3.12 and V.2.2. 99 Even if Plato never mentioned plants, he did believe that the soul could reincarnate into an oyster. See Timaeus 92b6–7. 100 On reincarnation in Plotinus see Gerson, Plotinus, London and New York: Routledge, 1994, p. 209 and 210; A. N. M. Rich, ‘Reincarnation in Plotinus’, Mnemosyne X (1957), pp. 232–8; and G. Stamatellos, ‘Plotinus on Transmigration: A Reconsideration’, Journal of Ancient Philosophy VII (2013), pp. 49–64. 101 Allen, ‘Catastrophe, Plotinus, and the Six Academies’, p. 55. 102 Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 767 [Opera omnia, p. 1800]: ‘Sed o Plotine, postquam ista concesseras, consequenter et concessurus eras animam in Deum iam translatam inde non discessuram et animam quae naturaliter apta est, ut actu intimo convertatur in Deum, fatque Deus, non esse aptam ut motu proprio aliquando transmutatur in brutum’. 103 Sebastiano Gentile and Denis Robichaud have showed that Ficino’s knowledge of Iamblichus is earlier. See S. Gentile, ‘Sulle prime traduzioni dal greco di Marsilio Ficino’, in Rinascimento XL (1990), pp. 57–104 and Robichaud, Plato’s Persona, p. 127. 104 Saffrey, ‘Florence, 1492’, p. 503. See J.-J. Robichaud, ‘Marsilio Ficino and Plato’s Divided Line: Iamblichus and Pythagorean Pseudepigrapha in the Renaissance’, in Pythagorean Knowledge from Ancient to the Modern World: Askêsis-Religion-Science, ed. by A.-B. Renger and A. Stravu, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2016, pp. 437–52; id., Plato’s Persona, pp. 127 and 183. 105 Ficino, Epistolae, p. 875: ‘Cum superioribus diebus apud Philippum, et Nicolaum Valores agro Maiano versarer, et in quodam ibi secessu naturam daemonum indagarem, affuit repente Plotinus divinumque oraculum de daemonibus nobis effudit, verbis et brevissimis et obscurissimis involutum. Visum itaque nobis operae pretium accire Porphyrium, tum Plotini discipulum, tum perscrutandis daemonibus deditissimum, qui facile daemonicum sui praeceptoris involucrum nobis evolveret’. However, as remarked by Gersh, in ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. lxi, ‘a systematic inventory of the content of the passages from the post-Plotinian writers actually cited in his commentary indicates that it is not just daemonology but daemonology together with the closely related topics of pneumatology and transmigration that are now at the center of Ficino's interests’. 106 On Ficino and post-Plotinian Platonism see Celenza ‘Late Antiquity and Florentine Platonism’; Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. lviii–lxx. 107 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.8.8, IV, p. 421. 108 Rist, ‘Integration and the Undescended Soul in Plotinus’, p. 422. 109 Plotinus, Enneads, II.3.9, II, p. 75. 110 See J. F. Finamore, ‘Plotinus and Iamblichus on Magic and Theurgy’, Dionysus XVII (1999), pp. 83–94, at pp. 84–5: ‘Iamblichus moves Platonic philosophy toward magical ritual. Theurgy is the ritual act whereby the human soul is freed from its body and carried aloft to the gods. Iamblichus uses the word θεουργία in contradistinction to θεωρία. It is not thought or philosophy, but the work of the god (τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ ἔργον) that accomplishes the ascent of the soul’. 111 See Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus, III, 333.28–334.15, in Iamblichus, In Platonis dialogos commentariorum fragmenta, ed. by J. M. Dillon, Leiden: Brill, 1973, fr. 87, pp. 198–200. See also J. M. Dillon, ‘Iamblichus’s Criticism of Plotinus’s Doctrine of the Undescended Soul’, in Studi sull’anima in Plotino, ed. by R. Chiaradonna, Naples: Bibliopolis, 2005, pp. 337–51; Finamore, ‘Plotinus and Iamblichus’; id., Iamblichus and the Theory of the Vehicle of

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112 113 114

115 116 117 118 119

120

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the Soul, Chico [CA]: Scholars Press, 1985, p. 94; A. C. Lloyd, ‘The Later Neoplatonists’, in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. by A. H. Armstrong, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967, pp. 287–93; G. Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus, University Park [PA]: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995, pp. 11–17 and 61–80; D. P. Taormina, ‘Iamblichus and the Two-Fold Nature of the Soul and the Causes of Human Agency’, in Iamblichus and the Foundations of Late Platonism, ed. by E. Afonasin, J. M. Dillon, and J. F. Finamore, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012, pp. 63–73. For the view that Iamblichus did not entirely dismiss the idea of an undescended soul, see R. M. Van den Berg, ‘Proclus, In Platonis Timaeum Commentarii 3.333.28ff.: ‘The Myth of the Winged Charioteer according to Iamblichus and Proclus’, Syllecta Classica VIII (1997), pp. 149–62. Finamore, ‘Plotinus and Iamblichus’, p. 84. See also C. Steel, The Changing Self: A Study on the Soul in Later Neoplatonism: Iamblichus, Damascius, and Priscianus, Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, 1978, pp. 38–51. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XII.4.3, IV, p. 47. P. Megna, ‘Marsilio Ficino e il Commento di Proclo al Timeo’, Studi medievali e umanistici I (2003), pp. 93–135. On Ficino’s knowledge of Proclus’s Commentary on the Timaeus, see M. J. B. Allen ‘Golden Wits, Zoroaster and the Revival of Plato’, in Synoptic Art, pp. 1–49, at p. 26, n. 41; id., ‘Marsilio Ficino as a Reader of Proclus and Most Notably of Proclus’ In Parmenidem’, in Essays in Renaissance Thought and Letters in Honor of John Monfasani, ed. by A. Frazier and P. Nold, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015, pp. 179–95; id., ‘Marsilio Ficino’, in Interpreting Proclus: From Antiquity to the Renaissance, ed. by S. Gersh, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 353–79, at p. 356; Megna, ‘Marsilio Ficino e il Commento di Proclo al Timeo’; ead. ‘Per Ficino e Proclo’, in Laurentia laurus: per Mario Martelli, ed. by F. Bausi and V. Fera, Messina: Centro di Studi Umanistici, 2004, pp. 313–62. See also Sebastiano Gentile’s entry n. 85 in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone. Mostra di manoscritti, stampe e documenti, pp. 25–6. Megna, ‘Marsilio Ficino e il Commento di Proclo al Timeo’, p. 100. See also S. Fellina, Modelli di episteme neoplatonica nella Firenze del ‘400. Le gnoseologie di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola e di Marsilio Ficino, Florence: Olschki, 2014, pp. 82–3. See especially van den Berg, ‘In Platonis Timaeum Commentarii 3.333.28ff.’ and Clark, Plotinus, n. 21, p. 155. Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 180. In fact, Gersh identifes the view that our intellect can remain blessed in the divine sphere while our rational power is cast down to earth as one of the Iamblichean doctrines which infuence Ficino the most in his Commentary on Plotinus. See Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 176. On this point see G. Shaw, ‘The Soul’s Innate Gnosis of the Gods: Revelation in Iamblichean Theurgy’, in Revelation, Literature, and Community in Late Antiquity, ed. by P. Townsend and M. Vidas, Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011, pp. 117–29, at p. 119. For the view that, for Iamblichus, the soul is entirely descended and gives itself completely to the body see id., Theurgy and the Soul, pp. 37–44 and 118–26 and id., ‘Astrology as Divination: Iamblichean Theory and its Contemporary Practice’, in Metaphysical Patterns in Platonism: Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern Times, ed. by R. Berchman and J. F. Finamore, New Orleans [LA]: University Press of the South, 2007, pp. 89–102. I would like to thank Gregory Shaw for discussing this topic in Iamblichus with me.

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121 Olympiodorus, In Phaedonem, fr. 5, in Iamblichus, In Platonis dialogos, p. 88. 122 L. G. Westerink, ‘Ficino’s Marginal Notes on Olympiodorus in Riccardi Greek MS 37’, Traditio XXIV (1968), pp. 351–78, at p. 353. On Ficino’s work on this codex see also H. D. Saffrey, ‘Notes platoniciennes de Marsile Ficin dans un manuscrit de Proclus’, Bibliothèque d’ humanisme et renaissance XXI (1959), pp. 161–84. 123 Westerink, ‘Ficino’s Marginal Notes’, p. 358 [Florence, Riccardianus gr. 37, f. 74r]: ‘Iamblichus dicit animas quasdam semper manere penes deum’. See Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 419 [In Plotinum, p. 400; Opera omnia, p. 1741]: ‘Finally, what is to prevent souls from being forever in the higher realm through a certain best choice? Nothing, according to Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Julian (Denique quidnam prohibet optima quadam electione in superioribus semper esse? Nihil, apud Porphyrium et Iamblichum atque Iulianum). 124 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 385 [In Plotinum, p. 370; Opera omnia, p. 1737]. 125 See p. 32. 126 See Ficino, The Letters, I, p. 53 [Epistolae, p. 617]: ‘When that gold [i.e. Platonic wisdom] was put into the workshop frst of Plotinus then of Porphyry, Iamblichus and eventually Proclus, the earth was removed by the searching test of fre, and the gold so shone that it flled the whole world again with marvellous splendour’. 127 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 387 [In Plotinum, p. 370; Opera omnia, p. 1738]. I would like to thank Stephen Gersh for his guidance in understanding Ficino’s interpretation of Iamblichus’s view of the undescended soul and of the note in Proclus’s Commentary on the Timaeus, III.333.28–334.4. 128 On the importance of Iamblichus for Ficino’s reception of Plotinus see Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, pp. 176–86. On Ficino and Iamblichus see G. Giglioni, ‘Theurgy and Philosophy in Marsilio Ficino’s Paraphrase of Iamblichus’s De mysteriis Aegyptiorum’, in Rinascimento LII (2012), pp. 3–36. 129 Ficino, ‘Argumentum in librum Iamblichi’, in Iamblichus De mysteriis, p. 1873: ‘Porphyrius, qui inter Platonicos propter excellentiam philosophus appellatur, longam in Aegyptum misit epistolam ad Anebonem sacerdotem, variarum et gravium quaestionum plenam, ad omnes philosophiae partes spectantium, praesertim ad Deum, atque angelos, daemonesque, et animas, ad providentiam, ad fatum, vaticinia, magicen, miracula, sacrifcia, vota. Porphyrij quaestionibus respondit Iamblichus eius auditor. Introducit vero Porphyrio respondentem Abamonem Aegyptium sacerdotem, pro Anebone discipulo suo, ad quem Porphyrium misit epistolam. Huius ergo quaestionis totius, atque responsionis profecto divinae, tanquam in Plotino adhuc nimium occupatus singula ferme non verba, sed sensa traduxi, ut non mirum putari debeat, sicubi divulsa videatur oratio: praesertim inter ipsa disputandi principia ubi levior iactura verborum. Iam deinceps verborum etiam contextus, magis perpetuus apparebit’. 130 Ficino, ‘Dedicatory Letter’, in ibid., p. 1873: ‘Iamblichus inter academicos cognomento Divinus, et magnus ibi sacerdos’. 131 See ‘Argumentum in librum Iamblichi’, p. 1873, n. above. On Ficino and Iamblichus see Giglioni, ‘Theurgy and Philosophy’, pp. 3–36. 132 P. O. Kristeller, ‘The Theory of Immortality in Marsilio Ficino’, Journal of the History of Ideas I (1940), pp. 299–319, at pp. 301–2. 133 Plotinus, Enneads, VI.9.11, VII, p. 345. 134 G. Shaw, ‘Taking the Shape of the Gods: A Theurgic Reading of Hermetic Rebirth’, in Aries XV (2015), pp. 136–69, at pp. 144-–5. See Iamblichus, De mysteriis, II.11.100–3, tr. in id., On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans,

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136

137 138 139

140 141 142

143

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and Assyrians, and ed. by E. C. Clarke, J. M. Dillon, and J. P. Hershbell, Atlanta [GA]: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003, p. 115: ‘Hence, we do not bring about these things by intellection alone; for thus their effcacy would be intellectual and dependent upon us. But neither assumption is true. For even when we are not engaged in intellection, the symbols themselves, by themselves, perform their appropriate work, and the ineffable power of the gods, to whom these symbols relate, itself recognises the proper images of itself, not through being aroused by our thought’. See Giglioni, ‘Theurgy and Philosophy’, p. 21: ‘In Ficino’s view, theurgy presupposed a universe pervaded by an unremitting circulation of life and knowledge. While championing the absolute transcendence of divine nature, Iamblichus too had acknowledged its all-pervasive effects on material reality because the universe had been implanted from the very beginning with seeds of divine energy. It is at this juncture, in which transcendence and emanation meet, that humans were deemed capable of taking advantage of the divine life circulating everywhere in nature’. Ficino, ‘Proem’ to the book ‘On Obtaining Life from the Heavens’, in Three Books on Life, tr. and ed. by C. V. Kaske and J. R. Clark, Tempe: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1998 (hereafter Three Books on Life), pp. 238–9: ‘Now among the books of Plotinus destined for the great Lorenzo de’ Medici I had recently composed a commentary (numbered among the rest of our commentaries on him) on the book of Plotinus which discusses drawing favor down from the heavens. With all this is mind, I have just decided to extract that one (with the approval of Lorenzo himself) and dedicate it especially to your Majesty’. See B. P. Copenhaver, ‘Iamblichus, Synesius and the Chaldean Oracles in Marsilio Ficino’s De vita libri tres: Hermetic Magic or Neoplatonic Magic?’, in Supplementum Festivum: Studies in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. by J. Hankins, J. Monfasani, and F. Purnell, Binghamton [NY]: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1987, pp. 441–55 and S. Gersh, ‘Marsilio Ficino as Commentator on Plotinus’, pp. 36–41. Ficino, Three Books on Life, III.26, pp. 384–6. See, e.g., Plotinus, Enneads, III.5.6, 38; IV.3.18, 22–4; IV.4.30, 30. Proclus, Commentary on Plato’s ‘Alcibiades I, 73.7–78.6, in id., Sur le Premier Alcibiade de Platon, 2 vols, ed. and tr. by A. P. Segonds, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1985, I, pp. 59–63. See A. Corrias, ‘From Daemonic Reason to Daemonic Imagination: Plotinus and Marsilio Ficino on the Soul’s Tutelary Spirit’, British Journal of the History of Philosophy XXI (2013), pp. 443–62, at p. 447. See Corrias ‘From Daemonic Reason to Daemonic Imagination’. See n. 105 above. On the ὀ χ́ ημα in late ancient Platonism, see: A. P. Bos, ‘The “Vehicle of Soul” and the Debate over the Origin of this Concept’, Philologus CLI (2015), pp. 31–50; R. C. Kissling, The Ochêma-Pneuma of the Neo-Platonists and the De Insomniis of Synesius of Cyrene’, American Journal of Philology XLIII (1922), pp. 18–330; Proclus, Elements of Theology, ed. by E. R. Dodds, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963, pp. 313–21; J. Bidez, Vie de Porphyre, 2nd ed., Hildesheim: Olms, 1964; A. Smith, Porphyry’s Place in the Neoplatonic Tradition: A Study in Post-Plotinian Neoplatonism, The Hague: Nijhoff, 1974; Finamore, Iamblichus and the Theory of the Vehicle of the Soul; M. Di Pasquale Barbanti, Ochêma-pneuma e phantasia nel Neoplatonismo: Aspetti psicologici e prospettive religiose, Catania: CUECM, 1988. See Chapter 3, pp. 95–96. On Ficino’s understanding and use of the doctrine of the vehicle of the soul see: M. J. B. Allen, Icastes: Marsilio Ficino’s

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Interpretation of Plato’s Sophist: Five Studies and a Critical Edition with Translation, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford: University of California Press, 1989, pp. 168–204; A. Corrias, ‘The Imagination and Memory in Marsilio Ficino’s Theory of the Vehicles of the Soul’, The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition VI (2011), pp. 81–114; I. P. Coulianu, ‘Magia spirituale e magia demoniaca nel Rinascimento’, Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa XVII (1981), pp. 360–408, at pp. 391–7; R. Klein, ‘L’Imagination comme vêtement de l’ âme chez Marsile Ficin et Giordano Bruno’, Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale LXI (1956), pp. 18–38; Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, pp. 371–4; B. Ogren, ‘Circularity, the Soul-Vehicle and the Renaissance Rebirth of Reincarnation: Marsilio Ficino and Isaac Abarbanel on the Possibility of Transmigration’, Accademia VI (2004), pp. 63–94; D. P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, London: The Warburg Institute, pp. 119–33 and 133– 50; B. Tambrun, ‘Marsile Ficin et le Commentaire de Pléthon sur les Oracles Chaldaïques’, Accademia I (1999), pp. 9–48, at pp. 43–8; S. Toussaint, ‘Sensus naturae: Jean Pic, le véhicule de l’ âme et l’équivoque de la magie naturelle’, in La magia nell’Europa moderna. Tra sapienza antica e flosofa naturale, ed. by F. Meroi and E. Scapparone, 2 vols, Florence: Olschki, 2007, I, pp. 107–45; id. ‘Voir l’enfer ou l’âme dans l’Hadès, de Platon à Ficin, Michel-Ange et Rosso’, in Voir l’au-delà. L’expérience visionnaire et sa représentation dans l’art italien de la Renaissance, ed. by A. Beyer, P. Morel, and A. Nova, Turnhout: Brepols, 2017, pp. 21–52. 144 See above, p. 15. 145 See Chapter 5, pp. 166–72.

2

Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I Plotinus and Alexander of Aphrodisias

1. Ficino and Aristotle In the frst Ennead, Plotinus raises a question that he returns to several times, most notably in Enneads V: ‘Πρὸς δὲ τὸν νοῦν π ς;’ or ‘How are we related to Intellect?’, where ‘Intellect’ refers to the frst of the ontological principles derived from the One according to the system of emanations which characterises his metaphysics.1 This short, but seminal query becomes a crucial philosophical concern for Ficino, whose intellectual excitement is manifest every time he engages with it. The reason for this might be that it was not only an essentially Platonic question, but also an essentially Aristotelian one. Indeed, the interaction between the individual human intellect and Intellect as a separable and eternal entity was among the most controversial issues in philosophical exegesis bequeathed by Aristotle to his successors, who were both baffed and intrigued by his treatment of the nous in De anima III.5. Attempts to defne the nature and relationship of the nous poiêtikos and the nous pathêtikos – (the former is not a term used explicitly by Aristotle in De anima, but a plausible, if not entirely unproblematic, interpretation of the language he does use there) occupied readers well beyond the commentary tradition and constituted one of the fundamental themes in Western philosophy from Antiquity to the Renaissance.2 The fact that the language of De anima is inherently diffcult to interpret only made Aristotle’s intellect more intriguing to those who saw in its interpretation a key to the deepest questions in philosophy. The hermeneutical challenges of the De anima fascinated and troubled two of the most famous Aristotelian commentators, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Averroes. In their attempts to give an account of the separability of Aristotle’s nous poiêtikos, both interpreted it as the effcient cause of thinking, and something that exists above and beyond the individual human mind. In so doing, they contributed to the widening of the ontological and epistemological gap between the two intellects. For Alexander, the chasm was unbridgeable: he identifed the nous poiêtikos with the God of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 12 and took the nous pathêtikos as a mere cognitive potentiality resulting from the mixture of bodily elements and, as

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such, a potentiality which perished with the body. As we said in Chapter 1, Averroes took both the nous pathêtikos and the nous poiêtikos as unique, eternal entities existing outside the human mind. Unlike Alexander, he believed that the potentiality for knowledge was not inherent to human nature, but that it came into being only when the nous pathêtikos came into contact with individual minds through the forms of their imagination, and that these forms were then actualized by the nous poiêtikos. Moreover, he argued that the death of an individual brought with it the destruction of the imagination – the essential condition for individual thinking – and that all traces of individuality relapsed thereupon into nothingness, whereas the nous poiêtikos continued on to enjoy its eternal thinking, completely unconcerned with human affairs. Unsurprisingly, the idea that when we die the human mind either perishes with the body or loses all individuality and is engulfed by a superhuman intelligence, appalled Ficino, and we fnd him energetically arguing against Averroes on many occasions. For Ficino, Averroes had certainly ‘Platonised’ Aristotle, in so far as he had established the idea of a separate and everthinking Intellect that preserved and promoted the independence of the mind with respect to the body, but by depriving the mind of all individuality in the process, he ‘de-humanised’ it. I shall return to Ficino’s engagement with Averroes in Chapter 3, but for now, let us turn to his arguments against Alexander, which are less elaborate, but no less scathing. In the Platonic Theology he writes: Out of a forced interpretation of Aristotle and in order to rob the human race of all divinity, he [Alexander] asserted that the receptive minds in us are numerically distinct, but that the agent mind, wherein alone dwells the entire divinity of mind, being the universal cause of the intelligible species, is external to men and is unique.3 After all, Ficino had no doubts about the Stagirite’s true view on the intellect: Bear in mind that Aristotle never called the agent and receptive minds two essences, nor did he put them above the soul: he called them the soul’s parts, and said they were two different powers in the soul. But should anyone call that Averroistic mind a soul, he would be abusing the word ‘soul’.4 It is important to stress that Ficino’s philosophical education at the Studio Fiorentino in the 1450s was Aristotelian.5 His frst teacher, Niccolò Tignosi da Foligno, wrote commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics and the De anima, and was likely responsible for developing Ficino’s interest in the Aristotelian tradition.6 The codex Riccardiano 135 at the Riccardiana Library in Florence has been identifed as an important source for the study of Ficino’s early Aristotelian education. It contains Leonardo Bruni’s

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Latin translation of the Nicomachean Ethics and marginal commentary notes in Ficino’s hand dated 1455. Both Arnaldo Della Torre and Antonio Rotondò argued that these notes might well have been taken by Ficino during Tignosi’s lectures, whereas Arthur Field believes that there is no obvious relationship between this manuscript and Tignosi’s commentary. David Lines has even doubted that Ficino studied with Tignosi.7 Whether or not these marginalia can be related to Tignosi's teaching, further study on this codex will certainly shed new light on the role of Aristotelianism in the development of Ficino’s thought. One thing is certain: in the 1450s, Ficino was fully immersed in the study of Aristotelianism, and was already trying to show its intrinsic Platonic nature. Another important codex in this respect is Palagi 199, held at the Moreniana Library in Florence and dated 1454–1455. This manuscript, discovered and edited by Paul Oskar Kristeller in 1944, contains, among other works, some important texts which deal with Aristotle in different ways and to different degrees.8 On the frst page we fnd a table of Aristotelian categories; on ff. 1v–5v a treatise on philosophy (Summa philosophie Marsilii Ficini ad Michaelem Miniatensem), which includes a survey of Aristotle’s logical works; on ff. 5v–9r we fnd another treatise (Tractatus physicus), which contains different physical defnitions taken from Aristotle and other writers; on ff. 12r–17v a philosophical treatise (Tractatus de anima editus per Marsilium), which mainly deals with Aristotle’s psychology; fnally, on ff. 22r–40v, a series of questions about light and sensory perception based on the second book of the De anima.9 On the frst page, just after the table of categories, there is what Kristeller calls an encomium of Aristotle, a note of high-praise which reads ‘Aristotle, [man] of great knowledge, student of Plato, worn out from disputation, today, sits in schools, adorned with a crown (Aristoteles magne scientie Platonis discipulus disputando fatigatus hodie in scholis sedet coronatus)’.10 To me, however, this sentence looks more like a logical example in which the list of Aristotelian categories is applied to linguistic expression. In fact, the encomium closely resembles a passage from the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville that offers similar praise to ‘Augustine, the great orator, the son of that man, standing in the temple today, wearing a priest’s fllet, is worn out from arguing (Augustinus, magnus orator, flius illius, stans in templo hodie, infulatus disputando fatigatur)’.11 Isidore’s passage was quoted, almost verbatim, by Alcuinus of York in chapter 10 of his De dialectica and became quite popular during the Middle Ages.12 Most likely, Ficino had it in one of his textbooks on logic and rephrased it by adapting it to the character of Aristotle. In any case, MS Palagi 199 testifes to Ficino’s longstanding interest in Aristotelianism. Indeed, I believe that Aristotle had a greater formative infuence on Ficino than previously thought and that his concern with Alexander’s and Averroes’s interpretations originated also in his urge to rescue the original Aristotle, the magne scientie Platonis discipulus who introduced him to the pleasures of philosophy.

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To rescue Aristotle was to rescue his De anima. For it was from material in this text that Alexander and Averroes crafted what Ficino saw as two abominable accounts of man. The former was guilty of downgrading the soul to matter and making it mortal; the latter of giving it an impersonal immortality in which man, as such, was lost: Alexander agrees with Plotinus on this point, for, in addition to the one intellect, he also attributes to us many intellects; however, he disagrees with Plotinus because he affrms that these many intellects are mortal. On the other hand, Averroes is in agreement with Plotinus, for he states that all intellect is immortal; however, he dissents from Plotinus insofar as he assigns one intellect to us. Take, then, from Alexander the number of the human intellect, from Averroes the immortal function of every intellect, and you will obtain the complete opinion of our Plotinus.13 To Ficino, Plotinus’s notion of the undescended soul, in its state of separation and unbroken actuality, intriguingly resembled Aristotle’s much contested nous poiêtikos. It was through exploring this resemblance that Ficino found a way to measure the philosophical stature of Plotinus, whose solution to the controversial aspects of the separate intellect involved bringing into light the harmony between Plato and Aristotle. Whereas Alexander and Averroes lost sight of what Ficino regarded as the most important feature of human nature, that is, the individuality of both uninterrupted thinking and immortality, Plotinus made each and every man able to think in Intellect. For Plotinus, our undescended part, a little shard left behind and forgotten by the embodied soul, is truer to our essential nature than any form of worldly knowledge. It is in this part that we rejoice in the fullness of thinking and being. This constitutive bond with Intellect accounts for our essentially intellectual nature and supersensible identity, which are not diminished by embodiment. Ficino writes: Alexander acknowledges that the intellectual nature can be the specifc life of the body. Averroes, on the other hand, maintains that it is not the life of the body, nor does it infuse any life into it. Plotinus, fnally, says that there is an intellectual life, but it is not a life that has any familiarity with the body. Nevertheless, he concedes that this intellectual nature by its presence propagates a certain familiar life to bodies, from which, together with the body, a living being, but not a man is made.14 It was precisely the idea that man’s supersensible identity was not affected by the operations performed by the embodied self, which Ficino found most appealing in Plotinus. For the intellectual soul described in the Enneads remains eternally integral and identical to itself. Hence, to Ficino, Plotinus seemed to have corrected Alexander and Averroes by providing a plausible account of the separateness of both the intellect and the intellectual

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soul which allowed the inherently intellectual nature of man and his individual immortality. After all, in his Life of Plotinus, Porphyry claims that Stoic and Peripatetic doctrines are covertly woven into his master’s work (XIV.4–7) and that during the seminars in Plotinus’s school, students would read passages from Platonic as well as Aristotelian commentaries (XIV.10– 14). In those meetings, observes Ficino, ‘[Plotinus] profusely connected Platonic with Aristotelian doctrines (Platonica cum Peripateticis abunde coniunxit)’.15 A potentially obvious explanatory remark is warranted here. Ficino’s harmonizing approach to the Plato–Aristotle relationship is fundamentally different from that of Plotinus. From Ficino’s ffteenth-century perspective, centuries of contentious interpretative work on Aristotle had transformed the Stagirite into someone very different from the philosopher who had been Plato’s faithful, although not uncritical, student. From such a perspective, ‘harmony’ implied a twofold reconciliation: of Aristotle with himself and of Aristotle with Plato. The perspectives of Plotinus and his students differed, for they assumed an uncontested doctrinal and methodological fliation between Aristotle and his master.16 This fliation did not exclude, of course, a theoretical opposition to or even a misreading of some of Plato’s doctrines on Aristotle’s part, but they believed that Platonism and Aristotelianism were essentially intermingled.17 Thus, in reading Plotinus, one should keep in mind that he took Aristotelian doctrines as rooted in Platonism and as useful hermeneutical tools for the understanding of Plato’s dialogues.18 He simply assumed harmony and did not feel the need to defend it. This is true also in those cases in which Plotinus is critical of Aristotle. To quote Lloyd Gerson, Plotinus was prepared to treat Aristotle and the Peripatetics as ‘dissident Platonists, mistaken regarding the precise nature of fundamental principles yet valuable contributors to the project of articulating the lineaments of the hierarchically ordered universe’.19 In contrast, when reading Ficino’s Plotinus, we must keep in mind that Ficino not only assumes, but also defends this harmony – and he does so extensively throughout his Commentary, both implicitly and explicitly. His intention is to rescue Aristotle, reconcile him with Plato, and prove that contemporary Alexandrists and Averroists were wrong in their mortalist interpretation of the De anima III.5.

2. The Soul’s εἴδωλον and the Coming into Being of the συναμφότερον Alexander of Aphrodisias famously claimed that the soul ‘is a form of the body, and not a substance itself just on its own’.20 As such, the soul, for him, was simply a function of the physical makeup from which it resulted; chronologically and metaphysically posterior to the body, it was completely organic and, indeed, perishable. In Ficino’s eyes, this view constituted a hermeneutical crime, so to speak. As is known, the revival of Alexander’s materialism did not come fully into force until the sixteenth

58 Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I century, when Pietro Pomponazzi formulated his mortalist interpretation of the Aristotelian soul.21 However, after something of a decline in the previous century, interest in the commentator from Aphrodisias, was ‘reaching a new high point’ towards the end of the ffteenth century, and ‘in about ffty years the West came to know, both in Greek original and in Latin translation, virtually all the extant work of Alexander’.22 A Latin translation of his De anima by the Venetian patrician Gerolamo Donato was published in 1495 and in the third book of his In calumniatorem Platonis, published in 1469, the Greek émigré Cardinal Bessarion claimed that no one could understand the soul to be immortal based on a reading of Aristotle’s text.23 Indeed, although Ficino did not live to see Alexander’s full sixteenth-century renaissance, the increasing interest of many of his contemporaries in Alexander’s materialistic interpretation of the De anima did not bode well at all for the Aristotelian tradition in Ficino’s opinion. Thus, he turned to Plotinus who, he believed, could provide enough evidence on which to build this much sought-after answer to Alexander and his followers. In the Enneads, the soul is presented as the causal principle and organising presence of the body without, in any way, ceasing to be immaterial and divine in its own right. Plotinus writes that ‘certainly the life of the compound will not be that of the soul’.24 Nor is the soul said to ever grant its nature, entirely or in part, to the body. Plotinus did not completely oppose hylomorphism as long as he believed that the soul is the principle of the body’s life.25 In fact, he provides his own Platonic alternative to hylomorphism in which the soul is not the form of the body, but makes the form in the body: The form in matter is inseparable, and it comes afterwards to the matter which is already there. But soul makes the form in matter and is other than the form [which it makes].26 He rejected the Aristotelian notion of entelechy on the grounds that it explained neither intellection nor the soul’s metaphysical priority and transcendence with respect to the body.27 We should keep in mind Alexander’s interpretation of the controversial passage in De anima where Aristotle says that it is still unclear whether or not the soul is the actuality of the body in the way that a steersman is the actuality of the ship.28 This passage has been interpreted in many different ways: by some as an assertion of the separable nature and, therefore, the immortality of the soul; by others as a proof of its materiality and mortality. Apparently, Alexander falls into the latter group. He denied that the soul is the steersman (κυβερνήτης) of the body on the basis that the steersman is separable and that the ship remains such even when the steersman has walked off, ‘whereas the animal is no longer an animal once the soul is gone’.29 Plotinus’s interpretation is in a way directly opposite to that of Alexander. He starts off by stating ‘it is also said that the soul is in the body

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as the steersman is in the ship; this is a good comparison as far as the soul’s ability to be separate from the body goes’.30 However, he goes on to point out that this comparison does not account for the way in which the soul is present in the body, ‘for the steersman as a voyager would be present incidentally in the ship, but how would he be present as steersman?’.31 His view is that the soul gives life, and rules over the body, while remaining ontologically separate from it. However, despite the soul’s non-involvement with matter and even its ongoing state of discarnation, Plotinus could not avoid the challenges posed by our everyday experience of being conficted entities. ‘Man could not be a simple thing’, he writes, ‘but there is in him a soul, and he has a body as well, whether it is our tool or attached to us in some other way’.32 He distinguishes the living composite of soul and body, which he refers to as the living being (τὸ ζῷον, animal in Ficino’s translation), the ‘community’ (τὸ κοινόν, commune) or the ‘compound’ (τὸ συναμφότερον, conjunctum), from the soul.33 The composite, however, does not imply an actual descent of the soul into matter, for in its life-giving act the soul does not give itself either to the συναμφότερον or to any part of it, but gives life and motion to it indirectly. Precisely, through a sort of light emanating from the soul: The soul by its presence does not give itself qualifed in a particular way either to the compound or to the other member of it, but makes, out of the qualifed body and a sort of light which it gives of itself, the nature of the living creature, another different thing to which belong sense-perception and all other affections which are ascribed to the living body.34 This light is called an εἴδωλον (idolum) and is said to cease to exist when the whole soul looks up to the intelligible world,35 for ‘substantial being is unmixed’.36 By using the εἴδωλον as an intermediate entity, the soul is able to generate the living being and, at the same time, to preserve its separateness from the body. In quite a large number of passages, Plotinus defnes the εἴδωλον as a ‘trace’ (ἴχνος) or a ‘shadow’ (σκία) of the soul, for it bears the likeness of the soul just as traces and shadows bear the likeness of what imprints or projects them.37 It represents the necessary condition for the existence of the living being, since in no way could the soul, given the metaphysical incommensurability between soul and body, join the body directly. All this allows the conclusion that Plotinus distinguishes clearly between the συναμφότερον, formed by the body and by the εἴδωλον, and the soul itself, which remains discarnate. This claim, however, needs further unpacking. For the soul is, in turn, divided into a ‘rational’ and an ‘irrational’ soul: We, however, are formed by the soul given from the gods in heaven (ὑπὸ τῆς διδομένης παρὰ τ ν ἐν οὐρανῷ θε ν, a diis caelestibus tradita) and heaven itself, and this soul governs our associations with our bodies. The other soul (ἡ γὰρ ἄλλη ψυχή, alia anima), by which we are ourselves

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I (καθ᾽ ἣν ἡμεῖς, per quam ipsi sumus), is the cause of our well-being, not of our being. It comes when our body is already in existence, making only minor contributions from reasoning to our being.38

Even though Plotinus is not always consistent on which soul (or part of it) is the source of the ‘trace’, it can be safely assumed it is the nutritive part of the irrational soul.39 Moreover, while the rational soul is said not to be involved in the life of the body, the irrational soul is present as a whole in every part of the body. It is around the nature of this presence/non-presence that Ficino built his Plotinus-inspired criticism of Alexander. Let us now proceed step by step through Ficino’s understanding of the bi-dimensional man and how it is comprised of a rational and an irrational soul. He explains to his readers that Plotinus’s ‘somewhat poetic view is that there are two souls in man, differing from one another in substance, and that the rational soul comes from the craftsman of the world but the irrational soul from the world’s life’.40 In Ficino’s commentary, Plotinus’s rather confusing psychological bi-dimensionality becomes a remarkably structured hierarchy of cognitive faculties, listed according to their place in one or the other soul.41 The rational soul, or anima prima (‘primary soul’), as Ficino calls it, has three main powers: intellectus (‘intellect’), ratio (‘reason’), and imaginatio discreta (‘discerning imagination’ or phantasia).42 Intellectus is something which the soul has in common with Intellect and which has access to Being intuitively without rational endeavours. Its unchanging act governs the discursive and roaming understanding of ratio, which starts and ends in intellectus.43 Ratio, by contrast, works on the images received from both intellectus and imaginatio discreta by combining them into concepts and judgements. The soul, Ficino says with reference to ratio, has something of its very own, where it thinks (that is by means of a certain movement and in a certain amount of time, using its own argument, it ascends from the effect to the cause and then descends again) and where, once a goal has been determined and various ways have been found, it weights up the choice of these ways.44 Ratio, which includes also cogitation (cogitatio) and inquiry (consultatio) is man’s very own power.45 The lowest faculty of the anima prima is imaginatio discreta, ‘the soul’s innermost sense and the undivided judge of the senses which follow after it’.46 Ficino explains: This substance, endowed with these three powers, is what the Platonists call soul (anima) in the strict sense; and insofar as it is affected in such a way that it infuses a certain life throughout the body, it is also called man.47 Thus, for Ficino’s Plotinus, the soul as anima prima is the power of reasoning and judgement, but also the power of internal perception, performed

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by imaginatio discreta.48 In the anima secunda (‘secondary soul’), likewise, there are three powers: imaginatio confusa (‘confused imagination’), a sort of common sense; sensus exterior in partes quinque divisus (‘the external sense divided into fve parts’, i.e. sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch); and, fnally, potentia genitalis (‘the power of generation’), which, Ficino says, is also called natura (‘nature’) by Plotinus and is the source of reproduction, growth and nutrition.49 Ficino’s scheme unpacks Plotinus’s convoluted psychology, in which man appeared entangled in a web of immanent and transcendent powers (δυνάμεις) and in which the soul, as observed by Henry J. Blumenthal, comes across differently in different treatises, and sometimes, even within the same chapter.50 However, Ficino clearly departs from Plotinus when he attributes a somewhat rigid structure to the soul, which the soul does not have in the Enneads and which modifes its nature as a fuid and dynamic, yet unitary, substance. Ficino is aware of this and acknowledges that the anima secunda, rather than a soul in the proper sense, should be considered as a ‘life that fows out’ (vita vero effusa) of the anima prima and, as such, should be more fttingly called ‘animation’ (animatio) and ‘vivifcation’ (vivifcatio).51 ‘However’, he concludes, ‘relying on common usage, we shall call one anima prima and the other anima secunda’.52 Stressing the divide between the two souls, Ficino thought, would help readers to come to grips with the intricate patterns of Plotinus’s psychology and also give them a much clearer idea of the conficted nature of man, whose head ‘strikes the heaven’ (Enneads, IV.3.12) even while the body is engrossed in much less lofty activities like digestion, growth, and reproduction. For ‘unless someone distinguishes in this way, it will be extremely diffcult to give reasons for our divinity, on the one hand, and for those things which, in us, seem to be far from divine, on the other’.53 After all, Ficino remarks, ‘this opinion [i.e. that the soul has a bi-dimensional life] does not belong only to Plato and Pythagoras, as emerges from the Timaeus, or to the Egyptians, as Iamblichus teaches us; for Themistius affrms that Aristotle thought the same thing’.54 But let us go back to the soul’s εἴδωλον and its role within the συναμφότερον. Plotinus’s distinction between the soul and its trace saved both the soul’s participation in the life of the body and its impassibility.55 Ficino agreed with Plotinus that the soul rules over, nourishes and shapes the body through an intermediate power and, like Plotinus, he called this power ‘idolum’, that is, the ‘simulacrum of the rational soul’ (simulacrum rationalis animae).56 Thus in the Platonic Theology he explains: ‘the soul is certainly in the body through its idolum like the hair of a comet in the ether’.57 Rational souls are not exclusively committed to discursive and intuitive thinking, but reach out for the body through their life-giving power: This [the life-giving power] is the ruler of the body: it nourishes the body in the body, perceives things corporeal through the body, and

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I moves and rules the body through and in space. The Platonists call this power the idolum that is the simulacrum of the soul.58

And again: For just as the splendor of the moon projects a paleness out of itself onto a cloud, so the soul sends out its idolum onto its celestial body like a comet its tail. The idolum would vanish, if the [celestial] body vanished, just as the paleness is lost when the clouds have dissipated.59 The Plotinian inspiration here is confrmed when, immediately afterwards, he explains that ‘Plotinus thinks that the idolum is unconditionally immortal even if the vehicle is taken away from it’.60 For Ficino, the results of the soul’s projection of the idolum is ‘something accidental and quasi-vital’, an ‘image’ of the soul which is called ‘quality’ (qualitas) and ‘shadow’ (umbra):61 Just as a light shines forth from the sun which is inseparable from it, because it does not become a proper quality of the air – heat rather being generated from light now as the proper quality of air – so from our soul there shines forth a life-giving act which does not indeed become a quality proper to the body but generates something vital in the body which is now made the proper characteristic of the body. The soul indeed is a substance and a life, and its inseparable act is something substantial and life-giving, whereas the quality assigned from that source to the body is something accidental and quasi-vital. We call this act the idolum of the soul in which its sense and vegetative nature reside, whereas we name that image of the soul ‘quality’ and ‘shadow’. It is from this image and from the body that the composite being arises in which are the corporeal pleasures and sorrows, the sensing of these passions reaching the idolum and the soul, although the passions in no way do. The above comparison will be more proper if we compare the idolum of the soul that is not separated to a visual ray not separated from the eye. If this at some point has proceeded from a reddened eye, it will for the one looking generate a redness in the eye, to which you will say that the shadow of the soul rebounding in the body is similar.62 Stephen Gersh has rightly observed that in Ficino’s interpretation the idolum is ‘explicitly described as an act that is inseparable from the soul’, while ‘quality’ seems to be ‘a passivity quasi-separable from the soul’.63 Hence the soul, Ficino explains, ‘is tied to the body as though with two knots (duobus quasi nodis anima cum corpore devincitur)’.64 One knot, he says, is a tendency towards the soul, ‘that is, its life-giving act springing forth

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towards the body’, while the other is ‘an inclination toward body: namely, the quasi-vital quality itself that is infused into the body by means of the life-giving act’.65 Ficino’s position, however, differed from that of Plotinus in one important respect. For him, the soul is, literally, embodied and governs the body from within the body. Hence, remaining unmixed is perhaps a harder challenge. That is why he gives the idolum a seminal role as the metaphysical intermediary between soul and body and even provides it with a physical instrument to help its mediating action. This instrument is the spiritus, a familiar concept to many readers, especially because of its prominence in the widely-read De vita coelitus comparanda. The spiritus, as Ficino defnes it, is ‘a vapor of blood – pure, subtle, hot and clear. After being generated by the heat of the heart out of the most subtle blood, it fies to the brain; and there the soul uses it continually for the exercise of the interior as well as the exterior senses. This is why the blood subserves the spirit; the spirit, the senses; and fnally, the senses, reason’.66 Its subtle nature is less material than the fesh and the blood and its spiritual functions are closer to the soul than the body. It is through the spiritus that the idolum rules supreme over the body without becoming mixed with it. In other words, Ficino identifes the idolum, which he also calls ‘the soul’s foot’ (animae pes),67 with the secondary soul, which ‘nourishes the body in the body, perceives things corporeal through the body, and moves and rules the body through and in space’.68 The spiritus is the physical substratum where the secondary soul’s functions are implemented.69 Plotinus’s εἴδωλον allowed the soul to impart an immanent cause of life to the body without becoming ontologically enmeshed with the body. This was of the utmost importance for Ficino, for in piercing the veil of the Enneads he was keen to emphasise the metaphysical priority of the soul with respect to the συναμφότερον. He wanted to save the soul’s life-giving act without making this act an essential activity of the soul – the unpardonable mistake made by Alexander who, in Ficino’s view, was the initiator of mortalism and thereby the greatest betrayer of Aristotle.

3. A Presence without Participation The many references to the nature and role of the εἴδωλον in the Platonic Theology testify to the imposing presence of Plotinus within Ficino’s philosophical horizons from long before he started to work on the Latin translation of the Enneads. However, Plotinus’s view of the soul–body relationship posed no little challenge to Ficino. The crux of the problem is encapsulated in the question: how is the soul present in the body? The nature of this presence made the συναμφότερον greatly mysterious. For if it was easy to imagine the original life-giving act coming from the outside, it was more diffcult to understand how the soul could perform all its functions of shaping,

64 Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I nourishing, and increasing the body without being in the body. The concept of spiritus solved the problem only in part, for although it was essential to explain the ‘physiology’ of the συναμφότερον, it was certainly not enough to explain its ‘metaphysics’. Only a deep investigation of the nature and ways of the soul’s presence in or to the body could give an answer to this question. Plotinus took this investigation to great depths, as demonstrated by an episode recounted in his biography which tells us of a time when: ‘Once, I, Porphyry, went on asking him for three days about the soul’s connection with the body, and he kept on explaining to me’.70 Ficino followed Plotinus’s steps. ‘Unless it is known in which way the soul is joined to the body’, he writes in his commentary, ‘it is not known which actions or passions are proper of the soul and which of the composite’.71 In other words, it is impossible to identify what is ‘ours’ and what is not. It should be clear by now that, for Plotinus, the soul is neither a part of the body nor located spatially in the body, whether as a part of a whole or as a form in matter.72 On the contrary, it is the body which is contained in the soul.73 The soul, Plotinus says, ‘is not so much what is contained, but rather what contains (οὐ περιεχόμενον μᾶλλον ἢ περιέχον)’.74 This act of containing is not, of course, the body’s presence within the soul’s spatial limits but, as one would expect with Plotinus, a metaphysical presence. This is how Ficino explains this complex concept: The soul is not in the body as though in a place or in a vessel. And it is not there as a part in a whole or as a whole in parts, or as a quality in a substratum, or as a specifc form in matter. Rather, the body is in the soul as in something that enlivens, contains, and moves it in a stable manner.75 The image of the metaphysical embrace in which the soul holds the body resonated with, or most likely informed, Ficino’s view in the Platonic Theology that: ‘the soul exceeds the body’s proportion and is not in the body while the body is in it’.76 Less perfect forms are contained in more perfect forms, he explains, ‘as a quadrangle includes the triangle’.77 Furthermore, for him, the soul not only contains and governs the body, but also makes the body, in the sense that material life, being life on a diminished metaphysical level, is a mere projection of psychic life.78 So he writes, ‘the life of the body can be regarded as an image of the rational soul ([v]ita corporalis est animae rationalis simulacrum)’.79 Guido Giglioni explains this aspect particularly well, clarifying that ‘the body is not only ruled but made by the soul. Indeed, it can be ruled by the soul precisely because it is made by the soul’.80 In a quintessentially Platonic representation of how life unfolds from immaterial (real) into material (imaginary) being, Ficino says: A descent occurs from the substance of life to images and successively to other [images] and traces of life, just as if an artist, himself a living

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being, creates a statue which is very similar to himself, and then reproduces this in a painting and, in turn, places the painted image in front of a mirror, from where a kind of fnal mirror image appears.81 An anthropological discourse rooted in metaphysical premises of this kind could not allow something with a diminished, or ‘imaginary’ nature, such as the body, to hold within itself anything possessing a superior nature, such as the soul; nor could soul and body be said to blend into the συναμφότερον. Rather, the soul and the συναμφότερον are ‘interwoven’, Plotinus says, as two heterogeneous natures (φύσις ἄλλη ἄλλῃ, natura diversa valde diversae).82 The demands of expressing the mode of the soul’s presence in the body required careful use of language. Plotinus uses the verb παρεῖναι – usually translated as ‘to be present’ – which was particularly dear to Plato.83 By bringing together the preposition παρά (‘beside’, ‘near’, ‘by’, ‘at’) and the verb εἶναι (‘to be’), this verb suggests a presence at the side of something or someone and, in this respect, is different from ἐνεῖναι, which expresses presence within, and therefore immanence. Blumenthal notes that παρεῖναι appears six times in the frst three lines of Enneads IV.3.22,84 where Plotinus claims that the soul’s life fows into the body as light fows into and brightens the air. Yet even in doing so, light does not become, as it were, ‘brightened air’ but remains distinctly itself: Are we to say then that when soul is present to body (ὅταν ψυχὴ σώματι παρῇ) it is present as fre is present to air (παρεῖναι αὐτὴν ὡς τὸ πῦρ πάρεστι τῷ ἀέρι;)? For this too like soul is present without being present (παρὸν οὐ πάρεστι), and is present throughout the whole and mixed with none of it (καὶ δι’ ὅλου παρὸν οὐδενὶ μίγνυται), and stays still itself while the air fows past.85 I do not think that Plotinus uses the verb παρεῖναι strategically or in opposition to ἐνεῖναι to convey the idea of the soul’s metaphysical priority. However, in Ficino’s commentary, the Latin equivalents of παρεῖναι and ἐνεῖναι, i.e. adesse and inesse are skilfully deployed in order to develop a narrative of a ‘presence without participation’, that is, to stress the difference between being present to the body and being present in the body. It should be pointed out that although Ficino’s choice of words in his translation of the above passage might not strike us as expressly chosen to bring out this difference (Sed numquid dicendum est, sic animam inesse corpori, ut ignis, id est lumen inest aëri? Etenim hoc dum adest aëri, non adest),86 the metaphysical opposition between adesse and inesse emerges forcefully throughout his Commentary. Following Plotinus, he ascribes the ‘presence without participation’ to the intellect, which remains undescended and acts on the body only mediately, i.e. through the soul:

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I each and every intellect does not, through its presence, confer anything on the body except through the mediacy of soul – making it seem to be present to rather than present in body.87

However, even if it mediates for the intellect, the soul is likewise present to the body rather than in the body. In fact, one does not have to read far into the commentary to see this, for in the very incipit we fnd the following claim: The rational soul is intermediate between divine and natural forms; it does not inhere in the body, but is present in the body (neque inest corpori, sed adest), and from itself emanates the life which is in the body (quae inest corpori) and from which, together with the body, a single living being (animal unum) is composed.88 After all, the greatest lesson taught by Plotinus, Ficino believes, is that man’s true being can in no way be identifed with his body or with a life that comes from the body: This book will teach us that we – that is, ‘true man’ and what we really are in ourselves – are not a body, as we use this body as an instrument; we are not the life which belongs specifcally to the body and is imparted (addicta) to it, since we have this life in common with brute animals and since reason – because of which we are who we are – often opposes this life and rules over it. Because of the reasons given here, we are not something composed of a body and of a life specifc to the body: this is, in fact, the living being (animal). Finally, we are not a composite made up of a rational soul and an irrational life, for it is impossible for a single substance to result from the mixture of an immortal and a mortal nature. But in truth man is a soul, that is, an incorporeal and rational substance, which exists from the divine intellect, consists of itself, is not inherent in the body, but rather assists the body. Through this same presence, it produces in the body this kind of life. The composite of this life and a body is called living being. I will briefy show that our soul is present to the body, but not in the body (adest, sed non inest).89 The rational soul, which owes its existence to the divine Intellect, remains unmixed. It does not exist as a part or a function of the body but rather as an assisting power: The rational soul does not seem to be part of the body when it opposes the body and governs it. It seems to be present (adesse) in the body when it naturally desires a union with the body.90 Corporeal life, for Ficino, is ‘nothing other than the continuous act of the soul transmitted to the temperament of this body without departing from

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the soul’,91 and material forms are mere refections of Ideas. In other words, Ficino explains that while the body is ensouled, for Plotinus the soul is not embodied. An important distinction must be made here. We have seen that Plotinus believes that the soul (even its lower part) is not actually in the body, but performs its embodied activities by means of powers which it sends to the sensible world.92 For Ficino, by contrast, reason, the imagination, sense, and the vegetative power descend entirely into the body: Our souls have, besides an intellect always active in the intelligible world, reason, imagination, sense, and the vegetative power. It is indeed necessary to employ these powers in their proper functions at one time or another. Our souls use these powers in the body, and so it is proper for them to descend into bodies from time to time.93 In fact, Ficino believed, even the intellect is embodied. His distinction between ‘our intellect’ (intellectus noster) and the ‘divine Intellect’ (intellectus divinus) makes it clear that the two are separate substances, yet connected by an ontological and epistemological fliation.94 Both belong to us, but in different ways (sed aliter atque aliter).95 ‘Our intellect’, he writes ‘is a part of us for it is somehow the apex of our soul; the divine [Intellect], by contrast, somehow seems to be a part [of us] because our intellect is subjugated to the divine [Intellect] just as a certain matter, so to speak, is to form’.96 He adds that ‘through this form which is truly common to all, individual intellects, though they are not one, are nevertheless something unique’.97 His remark that this view resonates with the famous prophetic Psalm: ‘Lord, the portion of my inheritance (Dominus pars haereditatis meae)’,98 also hints at the idea that eternal contemplation is a divine endowment rather than an aspect – even though often inaccessible during embodied existence – of our epistemological equipment, as it was for Plotinus. This is made clear, for example, when he claims that ‘the contemplative activity differs from the natural activity of the mind more than simply by genus (plus quam genere)’ and that ‘it needs a new power and a new radiance, one descending from a higher principle (ab altiori principio descendente)’.99 A few paragraphs later Ficino also says that the intellect, ‘since it has fallen away from divine simplicity (cum longe a divina simplicitate degeneret), cannot obtain its perfection through itself’.100 In short, like any other faculty of the soul, intellect, for Ficino, descends into the body. Nevertheless, it maintains a privileged access to God, for ‘a certain proportion does exist between the intellect and God, not because of its commensurability at all [to God], but rather because it has a certain readiness with regard to Him, as of intellectual matter with regard to intelligible form, and of effect to cause’.101 It is important to point out that the focus of Ficino’s inquiry is not as much the intellect in itself, as the rational soul. Man, Ficino believed, is the rational soul, and the rational soul is different from the intellect precisely in that it is oriented towards the body:

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I Since [Plotinus] had indicated that the soul is self-suffcient, he adds, in order to prevent anyone from thinking that, for this reason, it does not differ at all from the mind, that the soul, even though it is self-suffcient, like the intellect, nevertheless, nurtures the body and, by nurturing it, shapes the body and flls it with life. This the mind does not do.102

Through its connection with the body, the rational soul communicates the divine life of higher realities to the lower regions of the cosmos;103 self-suffcient and immortal, but capable of shaping and nurturing the body through its lower powers, the soul is the core of Ficino’s speculations about human nature. Admittedly, Ficino identifes man’s true self with the discursive activities of ratio, while for Plotinus, as we have seen, the self is the undescended intellect eternally engaged in the contemplation of Being. Indeed, for Ficino, the queen of all mental powers is ratio. Its indefatigable inquiries into the nature of things and its ability to fail and learn from its own mistakes made ratio much closer to human nature than the infallible intellectus, which ‘fnds without searching, invents the whole before the parts and is end and means at the same time’.104 As Paul Oskar Kristeller famously argued, for Ficino ‘man is identical with its rational soul, and his excellence consists in the role played by this soul as the centre and the bond of the universe’.105 It is important to stress what I have already said, i.e. that for Ficino the rational soul is in the body in its entirety (along with its idolum), yet metaphysically separate from it. In this respect, he notes that in Enneads IV.2: the famous Aristotelian doctrine of the ‘entelechy’ whereby the soul is said to be the actuality and perfection of the body can be understood, even on Aristotle’s terms, as corresponding not only to the form and soul that is inseparable from the body but also to that which is separable from the body.106 In fact, Plotinus provided Ficino with a viable alternative to Alexander’s view that the soul is inseparable from the body and comes into existence after the living being rather than acting as the living being’s effcient cause. Even though in the commentary on the Enneads Alexander is not often mentioned directly, his materialism is constantly criticized through the polemical references to the ‘Peripatetici’ and through Ficino’s strenuous defence of the soul’s ontological independence from the body. Ficino also believed that Alexander’s interpretation of the De anima not only diverged from that of Plotinus, but also from that of the ancient commentators who had interpreted Aristotle faithfully and demonstrated his agreement with Plato on the immortality of the soul.107 Among these commentators Theophrastus, Aristotle’s pupil and successor in the Lyceum,

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stood out for his description of the individual intellect as ontologically independent of the body and, as such, immortal. Ficino knew Theophrastus’s psychology through Priscianus Lydus’s paraphrase of the fourth and ffth books of Theophrastus’s eight-book Physica. Only some extracts from this work survive, but it is listed as among Theophrastus’s writings in Diogenes Laertius’s Lives 5.42–50. Ficino translated the Paraphrase between 1487 and 1489 and his Latin version was published in Venice, together with his commentary notes, in 1497.108 In the Proem he explains that it was through gaining access to Theophrastus’s views on the soul, which he happened upon ‘by divine chance’, that he eventually realised that the Platonists and the Aristotelians (contrary to what one might assume from reading Alexander and Averroes) were in agreement.109 In that moment, he says, ‘I had everything my heart desired. And so that others may also have the same satisfaction as soon as possible, I have translated this book from the Greek language into Latin’.110 Ficino’s commentary on Priscianus’s Paraphrase of Theophrastus is very revealing of his attitude towards what he regarded as genuine Aristotelian thought and, consequently, towards the misleading position of Alexander.111 Theophrastus, in his view, had been a faithful interpreter of his master, because he saw that our rational soul is essentially intellectual and not, as Alexander maintained, a kind of formless potentiality: Theophrastus says that if our intellect, when it receives new forms and understands, is like matter absolutely in potentiality, then it will undergo a sort of essential change, which is absurd, because Theophrastus speaks of our intellectual intellect.112 Further, Theophrastus believed that ‘our intellect, which is said to be possible, that is, formable and to come from the prime intellect, has its own free and inborn act’.113 Theophrastus and Alexander, however, were not the only commentators on the De anima to occupy Ficino’s mind, for the most imposing Aristotelian presence in his writings is undoubtedly Averroes. For Ficino, Averroes’s interpretation of the nous pathêtikos not only concurred with Plotinus’s representation of the Intellect as engaged in ever-active contemplation, but confrmed the intrinsically Platonic nature of Aristotelianism. However, the insidious implication of Averroes’s monopsychism – that we are immortal, but have no individual identity once the soul has separated from the body – contributed to make Averroes as much of a mortalist as Alexander in Ficino’s eyes. Consequently, there is an intriguing ambivalence in Ficino’s Commentary on Plotinus. On the one hand it offers a sustained attack on Averroes (though not as systematic as the one he gives in the ffteenth book of the Platonic Theology), but on the other, he often fnds it hard to resist the lure of Averroistic Intellect's impassive and austerely contemplative life.

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Notes 1 Plotinus, Enneads, I.1.8, I, p. 111. Ficino translates this question as ‘Ad intellectum vero quomodo nos habemus?’. See Plotinus, In Plotinum, p. 4. 2 Aristotle, De anima, III.4.430a21–25. 3 Ficino, Platonic Theology, XV.11.10, V, p. 133. 4 Ibid., XV.11.11, p. 135. 5 See J. Davies, ‘Marsilio Ficino: Lecturer at the Studio Fiorentino’, Renaissance Quarterly XLV (1992), pp. 785–90; A. Field, The Origins of the Platonic Academy of Florence, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988, p. 140, n. 43; S. J. Hough, ‘An Early Record of Marsilio Ficino’, Renaissance Quarterly XXX (1977), pp. 301–4; P. O. Kristeller, ‘The Scholastic Background of Marsilio Ficino: With an Edition of Unpublished Texts’, Traditio II (1944), pp. 257–318. 6 On Niccolò Tignosi da Foligno, see E. Berti, ‘La dottrina platonica delle idee nel pensiero di Niccolò Tignosi da Foligno’, in Filosofa e cultura in Umbria tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, Gubbio: Centro di studi umbri presso la casa di Sant’ Ubaldo in Gubbio, 1967, pp. 533–65; Field, The Origins, pp. 129–74; J. Kraye, ‘Renaissance Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics’, in Vocabulary of Teaching and Research between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. by O. Weijers, Turnhout: Brepols, 1995, pp. 96–117, at p. 101; D. A. Lines, ‘Faciliter edoceri: Niccolò Tignosi and the Audience of Aristotle’s Ethics in Fifteenth-Century Florence’, Studi medievali III (1996), pp. 139–68; Robichaud, ‘Fragments of Marsilio Ficino’s Translation’, pp. 60–6; A. Rotondò, ‘Niccolò Tignosi da Foligno (polemiche aristoteliche di un maestro di Ficino)’, Rinascimento IX (1958), pp. 217–55; M. Sensi, ‘Niccolò Tignosi da Foligno. L’opera e il pensiero’, Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofa. Università degli Studi di Perugia IX (1971/1972), pp. 359–494. 7 Della Torre, Storia dell'accademia platonica, pp. 499–500; Field, The Origins, p. 140, n. 43; Lines, ‘Faciliter edoceri’, pp.143–6; Rotondò, ‘Niccolò Tignosi da Foligno’, p. 228. See Robichaud, ‘Fragments of Marsilio Ficino’s Translation’, p. 61. 8 Kristeller, ‘The Scholastic Background’, pp. 274–313. 9 Ibid., p. 264. 10 Ibid., p. 274. 11 Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, II.26,11, tr. in id., Etymologies, tr. by S. A. Barney, W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach, and O. Berghof, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 82. 12 See A. Luhtala, ‘Syntax and Dialectic in Carolingian Commentaries on Priscian’s Institutio de nomine et pronomine et verbo in the Ninth Century’, in History of Linguistic Thought in the Early Middle Ages, ed. by V. Law, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1993, pp. 145–92, at pp. 150–1. 13 Ficino, In Plotinum, n. p., [Opera omnia, p. 1552]: ‘Alexander autem in hoc convenit cum Plotino, quod praeter unum intellectum multos quoque nobis attribuit; discrepat vero quod hos multos asserit esse mortales. At Averrois cum Plotino consentit intellectum omnem asserens immortalem; dissentit vero dum unicum nobis assignat. Tu vero accipe ab Alexandro quidem numerum intellectus humani, ab Averroe vero immortale omnis intelligentiae munus, integramque habebis Plotini nostri sententiam’. See also Ficino, Platonic Theology XV.19.11, V, pp. 225–6: ‘Let us accept from Averroes that the receptive intellect is immortal. Let us accept from Alexander [of Aphrodisias] that the receptive intellects are certain powers naturally implanted in our souls, and that numerically there are as many of them as there are souls. Let us conclude that the souls of men are immortal. This is also the conclusion of Platonic and

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Christian theologians and of Arab ones, and it accords completely with the [view of the] original Peripatetics’. Ficino, In Plotinum, n. p. [Opera omnia, p. 1550]: ‘Alexander enim intellectualem naturam esse posse vitam corporis propriam conftetur: Averrois autem neque vitam corporis esse concedit, neque ullam corpori vitam infundere. Plotinus denique intellectualem naturam esse, quidem vitam corporis familiarem negat, concedit tamen, familiarem quandam sua praesentia vitam in corpora propagare, ex qua et corpore non homo, sed animal confciatur humanum’. Ibid., n.p. [ibid., p. 1542]. See Gerson, Aristotle and Other Platonists, p. 3: ‘The case of harmony is also partly inferential. That is, most of the Neoplatonic material – both the commentaries and the personal writings – assumes harmony rather than presenting a brief on its behalf’. See, in general, id., ‘Introduction’, in ibid., pp. 1–23. On Plotinus and Aristotle, the literature is rich and diverse. For a limited list, see: A. H. Armstrong, ‘Aristotle in Plotinus: The Continuity and Discontinuity of Psyche and Nous’, in Aristotle and the Later Tradition, ed. by H. Blumenthal and H. Robinson, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991, pp. 117–27; H. J. Blumenthal, ‘Plotinus’ Psychology: Aristotle in the Service of Platonism’, International Philosophical Quarterly XII (1972), pp. 340–64; R. Chiaradonna, ‘Plotino interprete di Aristotele. Alcuni studi recenti’, Rivista di flologia e istruzione classica CXXVI (1998), pp. 479–503. L. P. Gerson, ‘Plotinus and Platonism’, in Brill Companion to the Reception of Plato in Antiquity, ed. by H. Tarrant, D. A. Layne, D. Baltzly, and F. Renaud, Leiden: Brill, 2018, pp. 316–35; G. Karamanolis, Plato and Aristotle in Agreement?: Platonists on Aristotle from Antiochus to Porphyry, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 217–42; M. J. Nyvlt, Aristotle and Plotinus on the Intellect: Monism and Dualism Revisited, Lanham: Lexington Books, 2012. It should be noted that Plotinus, too, felt that he was on a rescuing mission, for his philosophical program was also aimed at redefning the truths of Platonism against the challenges posed by the Stoics, the Epicureans, and, of course, the Gnostics. L. P. Gerson, ‘Plotinus and the Platonic Response to Stoicism’, in The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition, ed. by J. Sellars, London: Routledge, 2016, pp. 44–55, at p. 44. Alexander of Aphrodisias, De anima, XII.8–9, tr. by V. Caston, in id., On the Soul. Part I: Soul as Form of the Body, Parts of the Soul, Nourishment and Perception, London: Bloomsbury, 2012, p. 40. See J. Kraye, ‘Pietro Pomponazzi (1462–1525): Secular Aristotelianism in the Renaissance’, in Philosophers of the Renaissance, ed. by P. R. Blum, Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012, pp. 92–115; G. Giglioni, ‘Mortalità dell’anima e precarietà delle culture umane: A proposito di una nuova edizione dei Libri quinque de fato, de libero arbitrio et de praedestinatione di Pietro Pomponazzi’, Giornale critico della flosofa italiana LXXXVIII (2009), pp. 151–7; L. Casini, ‘The Renaissance Debate on the Immortality of the Soul: Pietro Pomponazzi and the Plurality of Substantial Forms’, in Mind, Cognition and Representation: The Tradition of Commentaries on Aristotle’s ‘De anima’, ed. by P. J. J. M. Bakker and J. M. M. H. Thijssen, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, pp. 127–50; P. O. Kristeller, ‘Aristotelismo e sincretismo nel pensiero di Pietro Pomponazzi’, in Aristotelismo veneto e scienza moderna, ed. by L. Olivieri, 2 vols, Padua: Antenore, 1983, II, pp. 1077–83; O. Pluta, ‘The Transformation of Alexander of Aphrodisias’s Interpretation of Aristotle’s Theory of the Soul’, Renaissance Readings of the Corpus

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I Aristotelicum. Proceedings of the Conference Held in Copenaghen 23–25 April 1998, ed. by M. Pade, Copenaghen: Museum Tusculanum, 2001, pp. 147–65, at pp. 157–61. F. E. Cranz, ‘Alexander Aphrodisiensis’, in Catalogus translationum et commentariorum, I, pp. 77–135, at p. 81. Bessarion, In Calumniatorem Platonis, III.22.7, Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1503, p. 51: ‘Ut nemo ex Aristotelis opinione possit animam dicere distingui ad corporis distinctionem: et eandem post corporis corruptionem permanere’. See E. Del Soldato, ‘Illa litteris Graecis abdita: Bessarion, Plato, and the Western World’, in Translatio studiorum: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Bearers of Intellectual History, ed. by M. Sgarbi, Leiden: Brill, 2012, pp. 109–22, at pp. 119–21; J. Hankins and A. Palmer, The Recovery of Ancient Philosophy: A Brief Guide, Florence: Olschki, 2008, pp. 27–9; E. Kessler, Alexander of Aphrodisias and His Doctrine of the Soul: 1400 Years of Lasting Signifcance, Leiden: Brill 2011, pp. 23–4. Plotinus, Enneads, I.1.6, I, p. 107. See T. A. Pino, ‘Plotinus and the Aristotelian Hylomorphic Body: Making Room in Entelechy for the Soul as Substantial Form’, Dionysius XXXI (2013), pp. 41–56, at pp. 41–2: ‘While for Plotinus the soul could never be defned, in itself, as entelechy, yet for him the psychosomatic composite does admit of a certain hylomorphic character so that the soul indeed informs body and supplies its entelechy. As such, the arguments against entelechism serve a very precise function and should in no way be misread as a violent departure from Aristotle. Rather, they serve to qualify the Peripatetic position and provide a particular synthesis of the Stagirite’s teaching with the classic doctrines of the Platonists. When seeking to know what the soul is, its reduction to entelechy is insuffcient. Yet when seeking to understand the animation of the body, Plotinus himself does not rescind from an Aristotelian perspective’. See also, L.-A. Dyer Williams, ‘Beautiful Bodies and Shameful Embodiment in Plotinus’s Enneads’, in Embodiment: A History, ed. by J. E. H. Smith, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 70–86, at pp. 76–8. Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.20, IV, p. 99. The relationship between Plotinus and Alexander is far from straightforward and scholars have long discussed the extent to which Plotinus may have been infuenced by Alexander. The following bibliography, though not at all exhaustive, gives an indication of how rich and diverse scholarship on the topic is: A. H. Armstrong, ‘The Background of the Doctrine that the Intelligibles Are Not Outside the Intellect’, in Les sources de Plotin: dix exposés et discussions, ed. by A. H. Armstrong, V. Cilento, E. R. Dodds, H. Dorrie, P. Hadot, R. Harder, P.-P. Henry, H.-Ch. Peuch, H. R. Schwyzer, Vandœuvres-Genève: Fondation Hardt, 1960, pp. 393–425; H. J. Blumenthal, ‘Plotinus Enneads IV.3.20–1 and Its Sources: Alexander, Aristotle and Others’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie L (1968), pp. 254–61; D. Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2015, p. 182; F. P. Hager, ‘Die Aristotelesinterpretation des Alexander von Aphrodisias und die Aristoteleskritik Plotins bezüglich der Lehre vom Geist’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie XLVI (1964), pp. 174–87; P. Henry, ‘Une comparaison chez Aristote, Alexandre et Plotin’, in Les sources de Plotin, pp. 429–44; F. M. Schroeder, ‘Light and the Active Intellect in Alexander and Plotinus’, in Hermes CXII (1984), pp. 239–48; id., ‘From Alexander of Aphrodisias to Plotinus’, in The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism, ed. by P. Remes and S. Slaveva-Griffn, London: Routledge, 2014, pp. 293–309; R. W. Sharples, ‘Alexander of Aphrodisias: Scholasticism and Innovation’, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, II, ed. by W. Hasse, Berlin: de

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Gruyter, XXXVI.2 (1987), pp. 1177–243, at pp. 1220–3. Especially interesting is the study by Blumenthal, who has identifed De anima 13.9ff. as one of the possible sources for Enneads IV.3.20–1. He examined, in great detail, the apparent correlation between Plotinus’s and Alexander’s analysis of the presence of the soul in the body. The issue of Plotinus’s engagement with Alexander is especially interesting as it was Porphyry himself, as we said, who confrmed that his master had studied Alexander among other Peripatetic philosophers. See, especially, Plotinus, Enneads IV.7.8. On Plotinus’s interpretation of the Aristotelian entelechy see H. J. Blumenthal, Plotinus’ Psychology: His Doctrines of the Embodied Soul, The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971, pp. 12–15; Gerson, Plotinus, pp. 135–9; Pino, ‘Plotinus and the Aristotelian Hylomorphic Body’; J. M. Rist, ‘On Plotinus’s Psychology’, Rivista di storia della flosofa italiana LXI (2006), pp. 721–7; C. Tornau, ‘Plotinus’s Criticism of Aristotelian Entelechism in Enn. IV 7 [2].8/5.25–50’, in Studi sull’anima in Plotino, ed. by R. Chiaradonna, Naples: Bibliopolis, 2005, pp. 149–78. See Aristotle, De anima II.1.413a8–9. Alexander of Aphrodisias, On the Soul, XXI.1–8, pp. 47–8. Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.21, IV, p. 101. On the analogy of the steersman–ship in Alexander and Plotinus see Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul, pp. 182–5. Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.21, IV, p. 101. See Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 397 [In Plotinum, p. 387; Opera omnia, p. 1739]: ‘It [the soul] is present to the body not as a pilot is present to a ship but as the power of piloting is infused into the helm (non tamen [adest] ut gubernator navi sed virtus gubernatoria infusa gubernaculo)’. On this analogy see also Ficino, Platonic Theology, XV.5.3, V, p. 65: ‘Take the pilot who both guides the ship and stands in the ship. Is this the way the soul relates to the body? No, for the pilot does not completely fll the ship; he is not present to all of it; he does not move it through his own efforts alone but by way of the rudder’. Plotinus, Enneads, IV.7.1, IV, p. 329. On the drama of embodied life see especially, P. Remes, Plotinus on the Self: The Philosophy of the ‘We’, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 179–212. Plotinus, Enneads, I.1.5, I, pp. 103–5. For Ficino’s translation see In Plotinum, p. 3. Plotinus, Enneads, I.1.7, I, p. 109. Ibid., I.1.12, p. 120. See Plotinus, Enneads, I.1.2, I, p. 97. The same ability to give life to matter without actually descending into matter belongs to the Soul of the World, as Plotinus says: ‘The making act of the soul is not a declination, but rather a nondeclination’. See Enneads, II.9.4, II, pp. 236–7. See, for example, Enneads, I.1.12, 25–30; II.3.9.21–3; IV.4.18, 1–9; IV.4.20, 15–16; IV.4.22, 1–5; IV.4.28, 1–21; and VI.4.15, 15–18. On the ‘trace of the soul’ see G. Aubry, ‘Metaphysics of Soul and Self in Plotinus’, in The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism, pp. 310–22, at pp. 314–16; Blumenthal, ‘Plotinus’ Psychology: Aristotle in the Service of Platonism’, pp. 340–64; Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul, pp. 144–5; E. K. Emilsson, Plotinus on Sense-Perception: A Philosophical Study, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 341–3; D. M. Hutchinson, Plotinus on Consciousness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 45–66; P. Kalligas, ‘Eiskrisis, or the Presence of the Soul in the Body: A Plotinian Conundrum’, Ancient Philosophy XXXII (2012), pp. 147–66; Karamanolis, Plato and Aristotle in Agreement?, pp. 222–9; C. Noble, ‘How Plotinus’ Soul Animates his Body: The Argument for the SoulTrace at Ennead IV.4.18.1–9’, Phronesis LVIII (2013), pp. 249–79; J. Phillips, ‘Plotinus on the Generation of Matter’, International Journal of the Platonic

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I Tradition III (2009), pp. 103–37. On Plotinus’s view of the soul and body relationship see: Pino, ‘Plotinus and the Aristotelian Hylomorphic Body’; A. N. M. Rich, ‘Body and Soul in the Philosophy of Plotinus’, Journal of the History of Philosophy I (1963), pp. 1–15; Dyer Williams, ‘Beautiful Bodies and Shameful Embodiment’. Plotinus, Enneads, II.1.5, II, pp. 21–3. For Ficino’s translation see In Plotinum, p. 99. See also Enneads, VI.7.4, VII, pp. 99–101: ‘What is it, then, to be a man (ἄνθρωπος)? That is, what is it which has made this man here below, which exists in him and is not separate? Is, then, the rational forming principle itself a rational living being, or is the living being the composite, but the principle itself, one which makes the rational living being? What is it, then, itself? Or does “living being” stand for “rational life” in the form? Then man is rational life. Is he then life without soul? For either soul will provide the rational life and the man will be an activity of soul and not a substance, or the soul will be the man. But if the rational soul is going to be the man, how is the soul not man when it goes into another living being?’. The solution to these convoluted questions is that man is both the ‘rational forming principle’ of the ‘rational living being’ and the ‘the rational living being itself’. However, the two are metaphysically separate, the former being prior to the latter and different from the soul which is present in the latter. See also ibid., VI.7.5, VII, p. 101: ‘Man, therefore, must be another forming principle other than the soul. What is there to prevent man from being a composite, a soul in a particular kind of forming principle, the principle being a sort of particular activity, and the activity being unable to exist without that which acts?’. See Gerson, Plotinus, p. 136: ‘The distinctive form of dualism that is emerging is not a crude dualism of body and soul but a dualism of something like a non-hylomorphic composite and an additional principle, the true self. The composite is part of nature, the product of the universal soul. The self is an independent principle in a human being, with a separate lineage in Intellect’. See Enneads, IV.4.27 and 28. On the source of the soul-trace and the moment in which it is imparted to the human body see Hutchinson, Plotinus on Consciousness, pp. 47–9. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 403 [In Plotinum, p. 392; Opera omnia, p. 1739]: ‘Opinio quasi poetica esse geminas in homine animas per substantiam inter se differentes: rationalem quidem ab ipso mundi opifce, irrationalem vero a mundi vita’. Given Plotinus’s view of the essential indivisibility of the soul, I prefer to use the word ‘bi-dimensionality’ rather than ‘dualism’, which implies a metaphysical divide, for Plotinus describes different levels of operations, or δυνάμεις, of the same substance, i.e. the soul. I agree with Henry J. Blumenthal that Plotinus considers the soul as ‘a continuum which is seen as extending from above’. See Blumenthal, ‘Plotinus’ Psychology: Aristotle in the Service of Platonism’, p. 350. Ficino, In Plotinum, n.p. [Opera omnia, p. 1549]. The expression ‘primary soul’ derives from Aristotle’s De anima II.4.416b21. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Habet [anima] iterum aliquid cum intellectu divino quasi commune, intellectum scilicet non discurrendo, sed intuendo veritatem assidue contemplantem, cuius quidem intuitu stabili vaga rationis discursio regitur, illinc exordiens, illuc denique desinens’. The distinction between intellect – which gives access to the ultimate forms of knowledge – and reason – the ability to use discursive thought – derives from Aristotle. However, Plotinus emphasises both the idea that ‘non-rational’ thought is the fulflment of our being and that the discursive process of reason has a circular motion.

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44 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Habet aliquid proprium, ubi ratiocinatur, id est, motu quodam et tempore ab effectu ad causam argumentationibus suis ascendit, iterumque descendit et ubi proposito fne et viarum inventa diversitate de illarum electione consultat’. 45 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Tota quidem haec facultas, ratio, cogitatio, consultatio, maxime hominis propria nominatur’. 46 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘sensum animae intimum atque simplicem sensuumque sequentium iudicem’. 47 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Haec substantia his tribus praedita viribus anima proprie a Platonicis nominatur et quatenus sic affecta est ut vitam quandam in corpus effundat humanum, nominatur et homo’. 48 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘In prima quidem ab intellectu ratio, a ratione imaginatio profciscitur’. 49 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘In secunda [anima] vires quoque tres praecipue sunt, imaginatio, id est, communis quidam sensus, deinde sensus exterior in partes quinque divisus: postremo potentia genitalis quae et natura vocatur, generationis, augmenti, nutritionis origo’. 50 Blumenthal, Plotinus’s Psychology, p. 1. On Plotinus’s psychology see also M. Andolfo, L’ipostasi della ‘Psyche’ in Plotino: struttura e fondamenti, Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1996; Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul, pp. 134–70; G. H. Clark, ‘Plotinus’ Theory of Sensation’, Philosophical Review LI (1942), pp. 357–82; Gerson, Plotinus, pp. 125–52; G. M. Gurtler, ‘Plotinus on the Soul’s Omnipresence in the Body’, International Journal of the Platonic Tradition II (2008), pp. 113–27; Emilsson, Plotinus on Sense-Perception; J. Yhap, Plotinus on the Soul: A Study in the Metaphysics of Knowledge, Cranbury [NJ]: Associated University Presses, 2003. 51 Ficino, In Plotinum, n.p. [Opera omnia, p. 1549]. 52 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Communi tamen licentia freti illam quidem animam dicemus primam, hanc vero secundam’. 53 Ibid. n.p. [ibid., p. 1551]: ‘Et profecto nisi quis ita distinguat, diffcillime assignare poterit rationes partim divinitatis nostrae partim eorum, quae a divinitate in nobis aliena videntur’. 54 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Neque Platonis tantum et Pythagorae haec sententia est, ut ex Timaeo patet, atque Aegyptiorum, quod docet Iamblichus, verum etiam Aristotelem ita sensisse Themistius asserit’. Ficino is referring here to the famous passage from Plato’s Timaeus where it is said that the lower parts of the soul are mortal, while the intellect is immortal. See Plato, Timaeus, 72d4–e1 and 90a. See also Iamblichus, On the Mysteries, III.21, p. 173: ‘In the present case, to be sure, they declare the soul is a joint cause of the divine mixture, and it is clear that (on this theory) it becomes equal in worth to the gods, and gives to them a constituent part of itself, and in turn receives something from them, and it also imposes measures upon the superior beings, and is itself limited by them’. Finally, see Themistius, On Aristotle ‘On the Soul’, 106.29–107.3, tr. by R. B. Todd, London: Duckworth, 1988, p. 132 [In libros Aristotelis ‘De anima’ paraphrasis, ed. by R. Heinze, Berlin: Reimer, 1899, p. 106]: ‘And most of the weightiest arguments concerning the immortality of the soul that [Plato] propounded essentially refer back to the intellect: the one based on self-motion (it was shown, that is, that only the intellect was self-moved, if we could think of movement in place of activity); the one that takes the processes of learning to be [acts of] recollection, and the one [positing] the similarity to god. It would also not be diffcult to apply to the intellect those of his other arguments thought particularly credible, as also the more credible of those elaborated by Aristotle himself in the Eudemus’. A fragment from Aristotle’s Protrepticus, preserved in

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I Iamblichus’s Protrepticus VIII.9–21 seems to endorse Themistius’s interpretation of the Eudemus. See Iamblichus, The Exhortation to Philosophy, tr. by T. Moore Johnson and ed. by J. Godwin, Grand Rapids [MI]: Phanes Press, 1988, p. 52: ‘Nothing therefore either divine or blessed subsists in man except the element of intellect and insight, which alone is worthy of any attention or study: for this alone of us is immortal and divine. And, moreover, the fact that we can participate in this intellectual power, though our life is naturally miserable and grievous, and yet is tempered with so much that is sensuously agreeable, demonstrates that in relation to other things on the earth man seems to be a God’. On this passage see Gerson, Aristotle and Other Platonists, p. 56. Iamblichus’s Protrepticus was translated by Ficino, but his translation was never published. See Robichaud, Plato’s Persona, pp. 91–4. See Noble, ‘How Plotinus’s Soul Animates His Body’, p. 3: ‘Plotinus integrates into his psychology Aristotle’s hylomorphic thesis that organic bodies are alive in virtue of their formal component, while at the same time adhering to the Platonist thesis that soul proper is no part of the composition of any body’. Ibid. See Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, p. 28. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XIII.5.2, IV, p. 211. See also the reference to Plotinus’s εἴδωλον in id., Commentary on the ‘Phaedrus’, p. 88–9 in Chapter 1, n.p. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XIII.2.11, IV, p. 135. See also ibid., XII.4.5, p. 49: ‘The corporeal life is the image of the rational soul, but the soul’s intellectual life is the image of the divine life and mind’. Ibid., XVIII.4.4, VI, p. 107. Ibid., p. 109. See Plotinus, Enneads, IV.4.29. See Ficino, Platonic Theology, VI, p. 305, n. 39 and p. 306, n. 57. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 435 [In Plotinum, p. 410; Opera omnia, p. 1743]. See Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 205. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, pp. 435–7 [In Plotinum, p. 410; Opera omnia, p. 1743]: ‘Sicut ex Sole micat lumen ab eo inseparabile quod non ft aeris propria qualitas – sed a lumine generatur calor propria iam qualitas aeris – sic ab anima nostra emicat vivifcus actus qui non ft quidem propria corpori qualitas sed generat vitale aliquid in corpore factum iam corpori proprium. Anima quidem substantia est et vita, actus ille suus inseparabilis substantiale aliquid est et vivifcum. Qualitas hinc tributa corpori accidentale quiddam est et quasi vitale. Actum illum appellamus idolum animae in quo sensus est vegetalisque natura; “qualitatem” vero illam imaginem animae nominamus et “umbram”. Ex hac et corpore ft compositum in quo voluptates doloresque sunt corporales quarum passionum sensus ad idolum animamque perveniunt, passiones vero nequaquam. Superior comparatio magis propria fuerit, si idolum animae ab anima non seiunctum comparaverimus radio visuali ab oculo non disiuncto. Qui si quando ab oculo rubente processerit, ruborem aspicienti procreabit in oculo cui similem esse dixeris umbram animae in corpore resultantem’. Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 205. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 436 [In Plotinum, p. 411; Opera omnia, p. 1743]. See Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 205. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 437 [In Plotinum, p. 411; Opera omnia, p. 1743]: ‘unus quidem vergit ad animam: id est, vivifcus eius actus emicans erga corpus, alter vero declinat ad corpus: id est, qualitas ipsa quasi vitalis per hunc actum infusa corpori’. Ficino, Three Books on Life, I.2, p. 111. See also Ficino, Platonic Theology, VII.6.1, II, p. 235, and IX.5.2, III, pp. 57–9. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XIII.2.18, IV, p. 140. On the role of the spiritus in Ficino, see Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, pp. 206–15. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XIII.2.11, IV, p. 135.

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69 Most interestingly, in describing the soul–body relationship, Ficino is more Platonic – or rather Plotinian – than Christian. The view discussed above, and especially the vital role played by the idolum differed from the position held by theologians of his day, who endorsed the classical version of hylomorphism: that man was composed of a rational soul and a body and that the soul was the direct and essential form of the body. This had become the orthodox Christian position at the Council of Vienne (1311–1312), which condemned as heretical any doctrine asserting that the rational soul was not the form of the body in itself and essentially (per se et essentialiter). This formulation was intended to condemn the teachings of the Franciscan monk Peter John Olivi (1248–1298), who held that it was not the intellect which informed the body, but rather the vegetative and sensitive parts of the soul. The rational soul, Olivi claimed, did not give life to the body, nor did it rule over it directly, but solely by means of its lower parts. See Hankins, ‘Marsilio Ficino on Reminiscentia and the Transmigration of Souls’, p. 9. 70 Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, XIII.11–13, in Plotinus, Enneads, I, p. 39. 71 Ficino, In Plotinum, n.p. [Opera omnia, II, p. 1550]: ‘Nisi cognoscatur, quomodo anima coniungatur corpori, non cognoscetur quae actiones vel passiones sint animae propriae at quae compositae’. 72 See Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.20, IV, p. 97. 73 Ibid. See Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul, pp. 183–5. 74 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.20. 75 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 397 [In Plotinum, p. 386; Opera omnia, II, p. 1739]: ‘anima non est in corpore sicut in loco vel vase, nec ut pars in toto, vel totum in partibus nec ut qualitas in subiecto nec ut species in materia, sed corpus est in anima ut in vivifcante, comprehendente moventeque stabili’. 76 Ficino, Platonic Theology, VI.6.3, II, pp. 164–5. In fact, here Ficino might be quoting directly, although silently, from Enneads IV.3.20. 77 Ficino, Platonic Theology, XV.4.1, V, pp. 55–7. 78 See Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, p. 28. 79 Ficino, Platonic Theology, XII.4.5, IV, p. 48. 80 Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, p. 28. 81 Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 24 [Opera omnia, p. 1565]: ‘Fit ergo descensus a substantia vitae ad imagines deinceps alias atque alias et vestigia vitae; perinde ac si artifex ipse vivens sui ipsius statuam simillimam fabricet et hanc deinde referat in pictura pictamque imaginem speculo rursus obiiciat, unde ultima quaedam appareat specularis imago’. 82 Plotinus, Enneads, I.1.4, I, p. 100 [In Plotinum, p. 3]. The Greek expression which in ibid., p. 101, Armstrong translates as ‘being interwoven’ is ‘ὡς διαπλακεῖσα’, which Ficino paraphrases as follows: ‘anima diffusa et explicans se per corpus’. See Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 3. I suspect that Plotinus’s would not have been too happy with this translation, which, despite Ficino, suggests a materialistically-oriented position. 83 For the use of this verb in Plato see F.-G. Hermann, Words and Ideas: The Roots of Plato’s Philosophy, Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, 2007, pp. 59–76. 84 See H. J. Blumenthal, ‘Plotinus “Ennead” IV.3.20–1 and Its Sources’ and id., Plotinus’ Psychology, p. 18. 85 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.22, IV, p. 103. Mine italics. See Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 397 [In Plotinum, p. 387; Opera omnia, p. 1739]: ‘The soul, properly speaking, is not in the body, but present to the body (anima non proprie inest sed adest corpori)’ and ibid., p. 398 [Ibid., p. 388; Ibid.]: ‘The soul is present to the body separately, as light is present to the air (anima adest corpori separabiliter, sicut lumen aeri)’. See also Platonic Theology, XV.5.5, V, p. 67: ‘Light comes to air and light shines there as it had formerly shone in itself

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I [whereas] the air shines as it had not shone before. The light shines through itself, but the air shines through the light. But is the shining of the light different from the shining of the air? No! Otherwise the air would remain bright when the light departs. One shining therefore brightens both of them, but shining is proper to light through its essence but to air through participation. So one being is in a way proper to them both. But the light is not in the air, although it is commonly said to be so. Rather the air is in the light, if only because that which is narrowly confned and subject to passion is contained within that which is vaster and never subject to passion’. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 388. My italics. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 327 [In Plotinum, p. 359; Opera omnia, p. 1730]: ‘intellectus quilibet sua praesentia nihil tribuit corpori nisi per animam: ut videatur adesse potius quam inesse’. Ficino, In Plotinum, n.p. [Opera omnia, p. 1548]: ‘Anima rationalis media est inter formas divinas atque naturales, neque inest corpori, sed adest, et vitam ex se propagat, quae inest corpori, ex qua et corpore ft animal unum compositum’. My italics. Ibid. [Ibid.]: ‘Docebit [liber] enim nos – id est, hominem verum, atque hoc ipsum quod ipsi proprie sumus – non esse corpus, quia hoc utimur ut instrumento; non esse vitam omnino corpori propriam et addictam, quoniam haec nobis cum brutis est communis et quia saepe huic ipsa ratio per quam ipsi sumus adversatur et imperat; non esse quiddam ex corpore et propria eius vita compositum, eisdem omnino de causis quas hic assignavimus – hoc enim esse animal – non denique ex anima rationali et vivente irrationali coniunctum, quoniam ex indissolubili et dissolubili unum confci nequeat; sed hominem esse animam, id est, substantiam incorpoream rationalem ex divino quidem intellectu existentem, in se vero consistentem, corpori autem non inhaerentem, sed potius assistentem, atque ipsa sui praesentia vitam hanc in corpore producentem, ex qua et corpore compositum animal appellatur. Animam vero nostram corpori quidem adesse, sed non inesse, sic breviter ostendemus’. My italics. See also Ficino, In Plotinum, n. p. [Opera omnia, p. 1549]: ‘Even though the rational soul is separate from the body according to its being, it nevertheless produces a life which, in the single nature of the living being, is connected to the body (Quae [i.e. anima rationalis] etsi separata est secundum esse a corpore, producit tamen vitam coniunctam corpori in uno animalis esse)’. On the descent of the soul into the body and the embodied soul in Ficino’s commentary see Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, pp. 192–205. Ibid. [Ibid., p. 1549]: ‘non inesse quidem apparet, ubi corpori repugnat et imperat; apparet etiam et adesse, ubi corporis coniugium naturaliter amat’. See Ficino, Platonic Theology, XII.4.5, IV, pp. 48–50. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XII.4.5, IV, pp. 48–49. See Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, p. 28. See, especially, Enneads, IV.7.8 and IV.8.5. See Aubry, ‘Metaphysics of Soul and Self in Plotinus’, pp. 314–16; Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul, pp. 145–6; Hutchinson, Plotinus on Consciousness, pp. 46–9. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 545 [In Plotinum, p. 471; Opera omnia, p. 1755]: ‘Animae nostrae praeter intellectum in mundo intelligibili semper agentem habent rationem imaginationem sensum vim vegetalem. Quas sane vires offciis propriis quandoque oportet uti. His autem utuntur in corpore: itaque consentaneum est eas in corpora quandoque descendere’. See, especially, his commentary on Enneads I.13, in In Plotinum, n.p. [Opera omnia, p. 1554].

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95 Ibid. [ibid.]. 96 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Nostrum quidem esse nostri partem, quia quodammodo sit apex animae, divinum vero quodammodo videri partem, quoniam intellectus noster divino tanquam formae velut quaedam materia subditur’. 97 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘per quam sane communem omnibus formam intellectus singuli, etsi non unus, sunt tamen aliquid unum’. 98 Ibid. [ibid.]. 99 Ficino, Platonic Theology, XVIII.8.19, VI, p. 147. 100 Ibid. For the descent of the intellect or the superior soul into the body, see Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, pp. 201–2, with a focus on Ficino’s commentary on Enneads IV.3.10. 101 Ficino, Platonic Theology, XVIII.8.20, VI, p. 147. 102 Ficino, In Plotinum, n. p. [Opera omnia, p. 1550]: ‘Quoniam vero animam signifcaverat in seipsa consistere, ne quis putet propterea nihilo a mente differre, adiungit animam, etsi existit in se, sicut et mens, tamen fovere corpus et fovendo formare atque vita replere: quod sane mens ipsa non effcit’. 103 Ficino, Platonic Theology, III.2.6, III, p. 243. See M. J. B. Allen, ‘The Absent Angel in Ficino’s Philosophy’, Journal of the History of Ideas XXXVI (1975), pp. 219–40, p. 232; V. Rees, ‘Ficino’s Advice to Princes’, in Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy, ed. by M. J. B. Allen, V. Rees, and M. Davies, Leiden: Brill, 2002, pp. 339–57, at p. 348. 104 Hadot, The Simplicity of Vision, p. 41. 105 Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, II, p. 97. See also id., The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, p. 347: ‘In contrast to the other parts of the soul, [reason] is not bound to any established order, and hence it is the only one that is free. The peculiarity of the human soul consists in its liberty and in the variety of its possibilities, therefore ratio is the essential and characteristic part of the soul, which for that very reason is called rational, not intellectual’. 106 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 327 [In Plotinum, p. 359; Opera omnia, p. 1730]: ‘entelechiam illam Aristotelicam qua anima dicitur actus et perfectio corporis accipi posse etiam apud Aristotelem non solum pro forma et anima a corpore inseparabili sed etiam pro ea quae sit a corpore separabilis’. 107 See Ficino, ‘Proem’ to Commentary on Plotinus, in O’Meara, ‘Plotinus’, p. 70 (In Plotinum, n.p. Opera omnia, p. 1537). See J. Monfasani, ‘Marsilio Ficino and the Plato–Aristotle Controversy’, in Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy, pp. 179–202, at p. 184. 108 On Ficino and Priscianus Lydus see Allen, Icastes, pp. 187–8, n. 19; Kristeller, Supplementum, I, pp. cxxviii–cxxix; C. B. Schmitt, ‘Priscianus Lydus’, in Catalogus translationum et commentariorum, III, pp. 75–82, at pp. 77–80. On Theophrastus in the Renaissance see id., ‘Theophrastus’, in Catalogus translationum et commentariorum, II, pp. 239–322. 109 Ficino, ‘Proem’, in Explanatio in Prisciani Lydi interpretationem super Theophrastum, in Opera omnia, II, pp. 1802–36, at p. 1802. See id., Epistolae, pp. 896–7: ‘Incidi denique divina quadam sorte in librum Theophrasti de anima a Prisciano quodam Lydo breviter quidem, sed tamen diligenter expositum, ea potissimum ratione, qua Plutarchus, Iamblichus Platonici Peripateticique insignes, Aristotelicam de anima sententiam explicaverant’. On Ficino’s conviction that Platonists and Peripatetics agreed on the substantiality and immortality of the rational soul see his Platonic Theology, XV.19.11, V, pp. 224–5: ‘Since Themistius asserts that Plato, Aristotle, and Theophrastus held one and the same view concerning the mind, then if we wish to conclude this Peripatetic disputation on a happy note, let us take the Platonic and Peripatetic truth, dispersed as it is through various interpreters, and assemble it into one’. He then

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul I goes on to underline those aspects of both Averroes’s and Alexander’s view on the soul which were in agreement with Platonism. Ficino, The Letters, VIII, p. 13 [Epistolae, p. 897]. See also ‘Proem’, in Explanatio in Prisciani Lydi interpretationem super Theophrastum, p. 1802. It should be remarked that Priscianus’s Paraphrase is far from faithful to Theophrastus’s view of the soul. In fact, it is imbued with elements from the late Platonic tradition, especially from Iamblichus. Priscianus describes his exegetical approach as follows: ‘Such is the method of inquiry about each sense, which one must take over above all from the philosophical results of Iamblichus in his [books] On the Soul, from which we too now, wishing to sketch the outline of his precise enquiry about each [sense], have written these things briefy; since our present project is not this, to go in detail through his dissection of them, but [to study] the works of Theophrastus, [aiming] both, if he adds anything beyond what Aristotle has handed down, to bring it together, and, if he offers us anything by his raising of diffculties, to work it out as well as we can’. Tr. in Priscianus Lydus, On Theophrastus on Sense-Perception with Simplicius, tr. by P. Huby, On Aristotle’s ‘On the Soul’ 2.5–12, tr. by C. Steel, London: Bloomsbury, 2013, p. 15. See Priscianus Lydus, De sensu, XV.17– 23, in Metaphrasis in Theophrastum, ed. by I. Bywater, in Supplementum Aristotelicum, I.2, Berlin: Reimer, 1886, pp.1–37, at p. 7. See Huby, ‘Introduction’, in Priscianus Lydus, On Theophrastus on Sense-Perception, pp. 3–6, at p. 4: ‘The result is that we have to use some detective work to establish what is going on, but I am inclined to think that what we have in Priscian is quite a large amount of fairly pure Iamblichus’. Consequently, in translating Priscianus, Ficino found Theophrastus revealed as a Platonising Aristotelian, closer to Plotinus than to Aristotle. No wonder that he regarded him as the rescuer of Aristotle’s Platonism. Ficino, Explanatio in Prisciani Lydi interpretationem, p. 1829: ‘Theophrastus ait si intellectus sit ut materia simpliciter in potentia, quando accipiens novas formas intelliget, essentialem quandam subibit mutationem, quod est absurdum, quod Theophrastus ait de intellectu nostro intellectuali’. My italics. Ibid., p. 1827: ‘Intellectus noster, qui possibilis dicitur, id est ab intellectu primo formabilis, habet innatum actum proprium atque liberum’.

3

Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul II Plotinus and the Averroistic Intellect

1. Imagination and Thinking Ficino’s image of Averroes’s nous pathêtikos as a monster with one head and many limbs is well known, but its descriptive force makes it worthy of requotation: Interposed [the Averroists say] is a compound made from man and from mind, like an enormous monster consisting of many limbs and one head, where the absolute form joins with things corporeal and things corporeal in turn with it. And what is absolutely one remains in itself as is ftting, but what is corporeal becomes manifold, while one mind suffces for numberless souls. And the Averroists call that compound made from mind and from each one of us the intellectual man, but each of us when separate from mind, the cogitative man.1 To this Ficino adds: They affrm that the frst [the intellectual] man understands because a part of him, his mind, understands – we are accustomed, similarly, to calling a man snub-nosed because his nose is fat – but that the other [the cogitative] man understands absolutely nothing.2 The idea that intellection is the prerogative of a universal intellect and does not belong to each of us individually was, in Ficino’s view, untenable from both an ontological and an epistemological perspective. Not only did it deny the self-determination of individual understanding; it also assumed the reabsorption of what we have learned during life on earth into a hypostasized science, thus obliterating the persistence, after death, of individual knowledge. It goes without saying that this view contradicted his most strenuously defended belief: that each individual human soul is intellectual and immortal

82 Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul II by nature. Plotinus, as I said, plays no small role in his anti-Averroistic crusade, as Ficino himself makes clear in his commentary on Enneads IV.3.1: I have put this surmise about our souls out of court in the Theology where the case against Averroes is pursued energetically. And let us here primarily apply ourselves similarly to rooting out such a belief in company with Plotinus.3 Ficino’s relationship with Averroes is often ambivalent and certainly more nuanced than that with Alexander. Since he was a philosophy student, he acknowledged a harmony between Plato, Aristotle, and the Arab Commentator in regard to their understanding of the intellect. This is clear, for example, in one of his notes in the codex Palagi 199: For that the intellect produces universality in things both Averroes in the second book of the De anima and Aristotle in the second book of the De anima [claim], where he [the subject here can be both Averroes and Aristotle] says that the intellect belongs to universals, the senses to individuals. Plato supposes the same thing in the Phaedrus.4 Indeed, scholars now agree that the great controversy elicited by monopsychism had lain dormant for centuries, for, as Richard Sorabji has it, its ‘seeds were sown in Plato, and the issue was brought to the fore by Plotinus, and refected in the rival interpretations of Themistius and Averroes’.5 However, for Ficino, the network of infuences which brought Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Averroes together was much more complex than that. For if, for him, Plotinus was more Aristotelian than Averroes, Averroes was more Plotinian than Aristotelian. Yet, despite his ‘Plotinianism’, Averroes was essentially anti-Platonic, inasmuch as he denied individual immortality.6 In fact, not even the distinction between the intellect’s external or internal existence could be considered the dividing line between Platonism and Aristotelianism, for Plotinus’s undescended intellect was not less separate from the soul than Averroes’s intellect. And so was the soul itself, as we have discussed in Chapter 2. But what did ‘separate’ mean for Plotinus? As we have seen in the case of the idea of a ‘presence without participation’, this became an essential question for Ficino. It preoccupied his mind from the early days of his Plotinian experience and the answers he elaborates in the commentary are the result of decades of intense and solitary textual inquiry. In this context, Enneads V.3.3 and V.3.4 are particularly important. In Enneads V.3.3, for example, Plotinus claims that intellect does not belong to our soul, but that, nevertheless, we shall say that it is ours (nostrum vero intellectum esse fatebimur), being different from the reasoning part and having gone up on high,

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but all the same ours (quid aliud quiddam sit praeter ipsam cogitandi naturam eique superimpositum, nostrum tamen).7 He adds, however, that ‘it is ours and not ours (nostrum iterumque non nostrum)’ and that it is ours only when we use it.8 ‘But what is this using? (sed enim quidnam uti intellectu dicendum est?)’, Plotinus asks.9 This question was a reformulation of that raised at Enneads I, i.e. ‘How are we related to the Intellect?’,10 and in Plotinus’s answer Ficino found the key to turn the lock of De anima III.5. For now, let us discuss how Ficino takes Plotinus’s claim that intellect does not belong to the soul. He sees a parallelism between Plotinus, Theophrastus, Themistius, and Averroes. The three philosophers, he says, devised the same union (copula) described by Plotinus when he talks of ‘the rational soul eternally clinging to Intellect ([anima] rationalis menti perpetuo cohaerens), just like a heaven eternally united with the celestial soul (quasi caelum animae caelesti perpetuo copulatum)’.11 This commentary section evolves in a most intriguing way, for Ficino goes on to say that Plotinus ‘Platonised’ this union precisely because he claimed that intellect does not belong to the soul: We can interpret Plotinus in a way which is even more Platonic, by saying that he denies that the intellect is a part of the soul. For it is clear that it is not a part, i.e. a faculty of its substance, for which reason it is called ‘soul’.12 It appears that, for Ficino, the anti-Platonic element in Averroes’s interpretation lays not so much in the difference Averroes postulates between the intellect and the soul, given that he himself praises this notion in Plotinus as being Platonically inspired, nor even in his notion of the intellect’s separability, which could be interpreted as a concession to Platonic metaphysics (imprimis on Aristotle’s part, even though Ficino did not personally believe that separability, for Aristotle, meant discarnation).13 Rather, Averroes’s mistake was one of denying that the soul was essentially able to access intellect, regardless of the state of incarnation (or discarnation) of both the intellect and the soul. Indeed, even though the primary activity of the soul is ‘reasoning’, the ability for intellection belongs to the soul’s truest nature. In this, intellection is irrefutably ours: The soul is called ‘soul’ as regards what concerns reasoning, whether this is performed through universal or particular concepts. But the intellect is the pure substance in itself, to which is subjoined a faculty which is called soul. Now, however, the same substance is called ‘soul’ according to its discursive faculty: it is called ‘intellect’, too, on account of its substance. For it is the same thing ‘to be’ and ‘to think’, but it is not the same thing ‘to be’ and ‘to reason’. Hence, it [i.e. the soul] always

84 Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul II thinks to the same degree, but not always to the same degree it reasons discursively.14 However, it was in a passage in Enneads V.3.4 that Ficino saw a clearer account of the intellect’s ‘belonging–non-belonging’ to us and of the problem of the actualisation of knowledge. Here, after having claimed that ‘sense-perception is our messenger, but Intellect is our king’ at the end of V.3.4,15 Plotinus writes: But we, too, are kings when we are in accord with it; we can be in accord with it in two ways, either by having something like its writing written in us like laws, or by being as if flled with it and able to see it and be aware of it as present.16 In discussing this passage, Ficino remarks: ‘The rational power, according to which we are ourselves, is used by the intellect in a twofold way: by participation, so to speak, and by form. In both cases, it knows itself’.17 Participation, he goes on, happens when, for example, we work with intellectual ideas, notions or rules, or when we recognize that our own essence depends on Intellect and is illuminated by it. However, it is only after we become familiar with relating to Intellect in this way, that reason ‘can clothe itself completely with Intellect, as matter does with form, and act under Intellect through its own act, just as matter, after repeatedly taking on heat from a fre, eventually yields to the fames’.18 He adds that ‘the Peripatetics called reason “potential intellect” and mind “agent intellect”’.19 Both these powers, Ficino believed, belong to the individual soul of man – a view which made ‘the union of twin substances’ postulated by Averroes ‘unnecessary’.20 Likewise, in the Platonic Theology he had asked: ‘If the [active] nature is a power of the agent intellect inserted into the same essence [or substance] in which the receptive power is innate, why do we need that Averroistic pile of twin substances?’.21 By postulating an active connection between intellect and Intellect, Plotinus located the process through which knowledge emerges from potentiality into actuality within the mind, making human beings essentially intellectual. Averroes, by contrast, vilifed both the intellect and the imagination, for he made intellect descend into ‘the hustle and bustle of sublunary life’, which was ‘at variance with its lofty nature’,22 and reduced the imagination to a mere ‘occasion’ for the intellect to think. And not even to think, but to be thought by another intellect. Hence, Ficino concludes: Who will explain the reason why such a divine mind, like a lackey, will everywhere accompany this bumbling little man (homunculus oberrans) who hardly ever uses his own mind? Is it by natural necessity? But in actual fact that intellect is superior [to such] and appears to need man neither for its being nor for its well-being. But it cannot conceivably be

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by [external] violence or by [others’] deliberation. Nor can one allege that it is moved when a man is moved because it is naturally adapted to the human species; for the Peripatetics adapt the intellect to man in a manner no different from the way they adapt the [celestial] mind to the heavens, yet they do not suppose that this mind is moved along with the heavens. Finally, if the Averroists say that that mind [of theirs] is not moved when a man is moved, they will be forced to admit that mind lives at times far removed from man, and that man lives far removed from the presence of mind.23 In Ficino’s view, there was no real crime in assuming a separable or separate intellect. The crime was to deprive the intellect of its power of agency. Ficino invites the reader to consider that when Plotinus distinguishes between two souls, he is interpreting ‘that famous Aristotelian dictum in a legitimate way (legitimo sensu Aristotelicum illud interpretari): the intellect comes from the outside (intellectus venit forinsecus)’.24 And he adds: ‘The intellect, that is, the higher soul (intellectus, id est, superior anima) is not the unique intellect as in Averroes’s interpretation (non intellectus interpretatione Averrois unicus), but each single intellectual soul (sed unaquaeque intellectualis anima)’.25 The gist of the discussion here is encapsulated in the adverb forinsecus, i.e. ‘from the outside’. But what does this adverb really mean in a Plotinian context? It means, Ficino makes clear, ‘from the divine mind (a mente divina) which, being almost external (quae quasi exterior), that is, not joined as a form, governs everything (id est, non coniuncta velut forma, omnibus dominatur)’.26 This quasi external ruling action of Intellect, however, does not prevent the soul from developing the full potential of its individuality; in fact, it makes it possible (effcitur) that ‘the intellectual soul, both through cogitation and also through the will – which are above the body, nature, and corporeal life – can have aspirations according to its own choice (pro arbitrio petere)’.27 What is more, this kinship with the divine makes it also possible for the intellectual soul, ‘to surpass body, nature, and fate whenever it elects entirely to do so through its own choice’.28 No less appalling to Ficino than the implied denial of essentially intellectual nature of the individual human mind was Averroes’s belief that the action of the nous poiêtikos was performed through the imagination, a much less sophisticated faculty than thinking. Even if we were to agree with the Averroists, he says, and assume that there is a separate mind, far more excellent than our mind, why would this mind choose to transfer its power down to the imagination, as they believe, rather than ‘much earlier and in a higher degree upon the substance itself of the receptive mind?’.29 Why do we need such a convoluted system of epistemological levels, in which Intellect reaches the intermediate level of the human intelligence only after passing through the imagination, which stands at a lower level than it? It would be much easier to postulate a direct communication between the nous poiêtikos and the nous pathêtikos, which, after all, was the solution adduced by

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Plotinus. Ficino was also keen to make it clear that when Plotinus postulated that the thinking act (actum intelligendi) derives from the imagination (esse absque phantasia), we should not interpret this position as if Plotinus meant that it is pure thinking that derives from the imagination, but rather that it is the imagination that depends on thinking.30 Indeed, although for Plotinus the imagination plays a key role in providing the soul with awareness of its own thinking,31 thinking – that is individual thinking – takes place whether or not we are aware of it: The rational intellect (rationalis intelligentia), i.e. cogitation, and the mobile reason (ratio mobilis) are often excited by the imagination, and especially is the active reason (activa ratio [to be understood here as the same as ratio mobilis]). The latter is the only one which always needs the imagination, Aristotle says, as both Themistius and Simplicius are to be prudently interpreted.32 ‘Finally’, he tells the reader: you must understand that Plotinus agrees [with this view] and that when he examines certain words of Aristotle, he [reckons] that this was Aristotle’s opinion about the mind, when in the third book of the De anima he wrote that the intellect always understands, that intelligence is its substance and that it lives truly immortal.33 Once again, it looks like Ficino had no doubt about Aristotle’s true view of the mind. Ficino admits that Averroes’s position as regards the nous pathêtikos and the imagination can be seen as similar to that of Plotinus when Averroes affrmed that ‘our intellect has two kinds of intelligence: the one eternal, which acts through its own being, and the other temporal, which acts through our images’.34 And that: ‘although we never become aware of the [eternal] intelligence, because it does not communicate at all with our imagination, we recognize the temporal intelligence, because its forms correspond to the images of our imagination’.35 For both Plotinus and Averroes, Intellect is always in act and, as a consequence, for it, to live and to know are certainly the same thing (idem est vivere atque cognoscere); so, it is the same to know something inwardly and to recognize it [as already known] (sic idem esse cognoscere penitus et agnoscere), that is, insofar as the same intellect recognizes that it knows with awareness (quod ipse cognoscat animadvertere).36 Averroes, like Plotinus, believed that Intellect thinks uninterruptedly. This, however, did not exonerate him from the charge of having made thinking impersonal. This was the reason why Ficino believed that monopsychism

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must be replaced by an alternative doctrine, capable of explaining the unity of the frst principle without ruling out the multiplicity of souls. Indeed, to rehabilitate the intellect and the imagination was only one step in Ficino’s project to reorganize the morphology of Averroes’s monster. Indeed, to restore the monster to the simplicity of its (Aristotelian) original form, it was frst of all necessary to redistribute the number of heads and limbs, so that there could be one intellect for each soul. As Lloyd Gerson has observed, Plotinus ‘did not conceive of achieving one’s own good as reabsorption into the One’.37 In fact, this would have been ‘like writing a book only then to erase every line’38 – and for Ficino, this was the ideal position to deploy against monopsychism. In this context, Enneads IV.9 – where Plotinus discusses the cryptic doctrine of the unity of soul – according to which ‘all souls are one’, has a key role.39 What this doctrine really means is contested.40 Plotinus himself is aware of the obscurity of the claim that ‘all souls are one’ and discusses it in a ‘defensive and argumentative tone’.41 At one point he asks: ‘Is it because they all come from one or because they all are one? And if they all come from one, is this one divided or does it remain whole, but none the less make many from itself?’.42 Certainly souls are not one because they are refections of the same Form, but because they are parts of what makes them souls, that is, Soul as the third hypostasis, which comes after the One and the Intellect, transcends both the body of the world and human bodies and is related to the Intellect in the same way in which the Intellect is related to the One. Moreover, in one single soul ‘the other parts follow as unnoticed possibilities, and all are in the part [which is brought forward]’.43 Most importantly, Plotinus’s conception of the unity of soul does not negate the existence of a plurality of souls, for ‘we do not say that it is one in such a way as to be altogether without a share in multiplicity’.44 In fact, he says, ‘it is one and a multiplicity’.45 Even though Plotinus speaks of souls, not of intellects, the arguments which he uses to refute the mutual exclusivity of unity and multiplicity, for Ficino, was a good theoretical ground on which to build his criticism of monopsychism and fne-tune Platonism and Aristotelianism. In fact, for Plotinus, ‘there is a multiplicity of intellects which correspond one-to-one to souls’,46 and indeed, Ficino applied Plotinus’s arguments to both souls and intellects.47

2. The One and the Many As is known, Plotinus distinguishes between at least three kinds of soul. Apart from Soul, he postulates a Soul of the World, which governs life in the cosmos without becoming embodied in the physical universe. This second soul is, in turn, subdivided into two different levels: a higher one, which remains disembodied and is understood to be the principle of life in the cosmos; and a lower one, which is immanent in the universe and which

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informs matter and takes responsibility for all processes involving life. The third kind of soul is the individual soul of human beings, to which Plotinus refers as ‘our souls’ (αἱ ἡμέτεραι ψυχαί). The problem of whether individuality exists solely at the level of embodied life or can be found also in the intelligible world was an important issue for Plotinus, who concluded that souls exist as separate substances even when they are not incarnated.48 Things become more complicated, however, when Plotinus suggests that all souls are one, a claim that, as I mentioned, he himself considered enigmatic: we must discuss whether it is correct to say that all the souls are one soul, like the soul of each individual. For it would be absurd if my soul and anyone else’s were one soul: for if I perceived anything, another would have to perceive it too, and if I was good, he would have to be good, and if I desired anything, he would have to desire it.49 However, if one says that something is the same in two things, this does not necessarily mean that they must share the same experiences: ‘For even in one body one hand does not perceive what happens to the other, but the soul in the whole body’.50 The identity of soul, consequently, does not imply an identity of individual experiences, which depend on the living being as a composite of soul and body.51 The individual peculiarity of experiences, therefore, cannot be adduced as evidence against the unity of the essence of souls. It is only when we leave the level of sensory perception and raise our minds up to intelligible life that we can conceive a unity of essence which does not rule out a plurality of substances. The true nature of Soul (and of soul) is a oneness which contains all differences within itself, so that it is indivisible and divisible at the same time. In order to understand this concept, which we may as well defne ‘divisible unity’ or ‘divisible indivisibility’, one must let go of the idea of empirical divisibility, i.e. divisibility into different components, which applies to material things. We must instead imagine ‘soulness’ as a whole containing different parts and which, in turn, is contained in them. To make this counter-intuitive concept more intelligible, Plotinus adduces knowledge as an example: ‘Knowledge is a whole, and its parts are such that the whole remains and the parts derive from it’.52 He goes on to explain that a single scientifc proposition, to be considered as such, must contain, potentially, the whole body of knowledge to which it belongs: So then the knower in knowing [one part] brings in all the others by a kind of sequence; and the geometer in his analysis makes clear that the one proposition contains all the prior propositions by means of which the analysis is made and the subsequent propositions which are generated from it.53 Ficino regarded Plotinus’s position, which preserved a plurality of substances (souls) in a whole (Soul), as the appropriate hermeneutical key to

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crack the mystery of the separateness of intellect in De anima III.5. This applied not only to the metaphysical pairing of Soul–souls, but also to the pairing Soul of the World–souls, thoroughly discussed in Enneads IV.3.54 In his commentary on this treatise Ficino attacks monopsychism at length, more or less explicitly. The core of his argument is the idea of ‘intelligible divisibility’, that is, what we have already defned ‘divisible unity’, or ‘divisible indivisibility’. This, as we said, is different in nature from empirical divisibility, i.e. the principle which numerically distinguishes material things and which applies to the distribution of bodies – even to water, the most fuid of them: Indeed, it is not ftting that the nature of soul itself, which is an indivisible substance subsisting everlastingly in itself, should be distributed into a multiplicity of souls and at some point bringing back together the many souls into a single soul, in the way that we divide a large amount of water into portions and then bring these together again into the same amount.55 To convince the reader, Ficino claims that not even light, which is closer than water to incorporeality, escapes the principles of empirical divisibility. Hence, we should not confuse immaterial and material light and compare the unity of the soul to the light of the sun, which enters through the windows in different houses. Material light – which Ficino calls ‘visible light’ (lumen visibile) – relies on accidents and is not self-subsisting, whereas ‘intellectual light’ (lumen intellegibile) does not receive its different degrees of transparency from the outside but ‘fnds them within itself (gradus intrinsecus accipit)’.56 The intellects as conceived by the Platonists, Ficino explains, can contain different substances in one and the same nature, ‘without confusion in the selfsame genus (in eodem genere confusionis expertes)’.57 Indeed, Plotinus refers to intellects with the nominative plural νοές or νοοῖ58 and speaks even of νοοῖ πολλοὶ.59 This is enough evidence for his belief that intellects are in Intellect as individuals. Thus, Plotinus’s view of a manifold unity, as Ficino took it, explained the one–many relationship without robbing souls of their truest nature: What Platonist will surmise that the soul is unique? Indeed, if someone ever supposes in the manner of Averroes that there is a single intellect in all men, we will certainly not raise doubt against him as we have done with respect to soul. Nor will we primarily make objection against him by asking in what manner there is one intellect in the body and another outside the body, or again by asking how it is possible for there to be altogether similar intellects in bodies that are so diverse, as we have just now done in connection with soul.60 Substantial differences, as such, do not depend on matter. Hence – and this was the heart of Ficino’s concern about the one-many relationship – discarnate

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souls do not cease to exist as individuals. In fact, if souls have a personal way of existing in bodies, then this is even more so outside bodies. Having said that, we must stress the fact that souls and intellects are individual substances in a different way. For souls differ from one another both simpliciter and with respect to bodies. Intellects, by contrast, differ from one another solely simpliciter: For souls as though inclining towards bodies, in addition to their internal differences among themselves, also differ through their various actions around various bodies and through the diversity of the bodies themselves. But if ever we are intent on proving that intellects, which are more separate than are souls and perform their proper actions without corporeal instruments, differ among themselves, we will resort not to such variety of bodies and actions but rather to the different forms of intelligence and the very disparate modes of understanding, and also to the intellections and conditions simultaneously in confict with one another that are not able to be present in intellect at the same time. For just as in the case of the primal intellect, we assign the difference between its many concepts not otherwise than on the basis of the diversity of formal characteristics within it, so being intent on assigning the differences among themselves of the other intellects, we adduce these on the basis of internal characteristics.61 All passages in which Plotinus emphasises the individuality of discarnate souls are of major importance for Ficino, who comments on this issue by putting special stress on the after-death survival of the soul as ‘this particular soul’. Among these passages, he must have found Enneads IV.3.5 particularly appealing: But how will there still be one particular soul which is yours, one which is the soul of this particular man, and one which is another’s? Are they the souls of particular individuals in the lower order, but belong in the higher order to that higher unity? But this will mean that Socrates, and the soul of Socrates, will exist as long as he is in the body; but he will cease to be precisely when he attains to the very best. No real being ever ceases to be.62 Indeed, Ficino quotes Plotinus’s example of Socrates. First, he warns the reader that individual souls are not offshoots (propagines) of the Soul of the World, for in this case one soul would differ from another only as regards their material qualities. Nor should we consider the Soul of the World as the root from which individual selves sprout, for ‘thus the intellectual soul of Socrates after his death will (as it is imagined) be resolved into the worldsoul as long as it has lost its proper existence, and will cease to be altogether when it has acceded to perfect being’.63 Another important passage

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for Plotinus’s view that individuality is metaphysically prior to embodiment is Enneads VI.4.4, where he says that: Souls were both many and one before the bodies. For the many are already in the whole, not in potency, but each and every one in active actuality; for neither does the one and whole hinder the many from being in it, nor do the many hinder the one. For they stand apart without standing aloof and are present to each other without being made other than themselves.64 On this passage Ficino remarks: ‘there are minds and souls which differ from one another according to their own properties in themselves, even before bodies’.65 At the end of his commentary note on Enneads VI.4.6, to which he gives the short title ‘Questions about the Soul of the World and Our Soul (Quaestiones de anima mundana et nostra)’, he is quite direct when he alerts the reader: ‘Beware not to think that Plotinus puts one single soul in all [souls]. For this repulsed him all through his writings’.66 Clearly, Averroes was in Ficino’s mind while he read these Plotinian passages, even though he does not explicitly mention him. Likewise, his short remark at the end of his note on Enneads VI.4.9, i.e. that what Plotinus said about the Soul of the World applies to the divine intellect too,67 can be seen as another polemical reference to monopsychism. Similarly, his concluding comment on Enneads IV.3.3 is a thinly veiled attack on the Averroists: ‘Hence, let nobody be allowed to imagine that individual minds will ever be blended into one and suddenly destroyed’,68 for ‘the rational soul, to the extent that it is intellectual, is in a condition so much the more perfect as it has separated itself more from the body’.69 And he explains that by a ‘perfect life’ he means a life lived according to the soul’s true nature, that is, immateriality. This justifed the claim that ‘when it is separated from body to the greatest extent at death, then certainly it is necessary that the proper substance of this soul should be most perfect’.70 In Chapter 2, I claimed that the query ‘how are we related to Intellect?’ in Enneads I.1.8 intrigued Ficino for being key to a central issue of both Platonism and Aristotelianism.71 In answering this query Plotinus writes: We possess this too, as something that transcends us [forte et hunc super nos habemus].72 We have it either as common to all or particular to ourselves or both common and particular; common because it is without parts and one and everywhere the same, particular to ourselves because each has the whole of it in the primary part of his soul. So we also possess the forms in two ways, in our soul, in a manner of speaking unfolded and separated, in Intellect all together.73 Ficino’s commentary on this crucial passage reads as follows: The divine intellect itself is said to be both common, insofar as it is everywhere one whole individual, and specifc, insofar as it is received by

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul II individual souls in individual and specifc ways. Hence, it follows that in different souls there are different ways of reasoning and also different ways of imagining. No one, however, will say that the intellect, which is already a form which not only presides over the soul but also inheres in it, is common. Many eyes, to be sure, refer to many souls; moreover, many visual rays, which naturally inhere in the eyes, represent different intellects which naturally inhere in souls. The one and common light of the sun, which is present everywhere, displays the divine intellect, the father of all souls and intellects. The one light of the sun, fnally, which consists in the sun itself, shows us the Good itself, which is the father of the Mind. Therefore, the intellects which inhere in souls, even though they are not one Intellect, are nevertheless one, that is to say, one according to intelligible being, actualized as understanding by the one light of that Mind, in which they are one, as in a common form or object, even though they are many when considered with respect to the multiplicity of souls. Just as the number of visual rays or the gazes (visus), too, is reckoned according to the number of eyes and they are not one, but nevertheless they are one in the one light in which they all come together. They would especially appear to be one if they existed by themselves disengaged from the eyes in the same way that intellective souls remain free from their bodies.74

Even in the light of the sun, Ficino makes clear, individual intellects continue to exist in a recognisable form. Indeed, the anti-Averroistic polemic is a potent, though not always overt, motif throughout the Commentary.75 In fact, it constitutes one of the Commentary’s unifying principles. Plotinus, in Ficino’s eyes, managed to save both the unity of being and the individuality of the soul, unlike Averroes, who, for Ficino, sacrifced the latter to the former. However, individuality was not the only aspect of the soul which needed to be rescued from the clutches of the one-headed monster. Individuality, Ficino believed, meant frst and foremost personal identity. Only the survival of the persona of the discarnate soul, in the overarching coming together of the intellectual and the emotional selves, could validate personal immortality, as Ficino understood it. For him, it is not legitimate for anybody ‘to have the delusion that our souls can at some point be blended into a certain generic soul with our personal properties discarded’.76 Plotinus, however, showed little interest in the survival of the non-intellectual self and Ficino found it necessary to integrate his view of immortality with that of his successors, fully drawing on the doctrine of the vehicles of the soul.

3. Immortality and the Persona of the Soul Implicit in the idea of ‘identity without identifcation’ Ficino saw a most important truth: it is by our own nature that we are individually

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intellectual and immortal. Yet, this was not enough for him. He wanted to fnd philosophical evidence for the endurance of the person as a whole, not only of his or her intellectual self. Plotinus’s real stance on the afterdeath survival of the soul (as different from intellect) is not clear. In Enneads IV.3 he unambiguously claims that in the intelligible world, souls, like intellects ‘are not dissolved into a unity’, because they ‘depend in order on each several intellect, and are expressions of intellects, further unfolded than they are, having passed, we may say, from brevity to multiplicity’.77 In his view, any trace of irrational life would prevent the soul’s journey back home, that is, its reunion with its undescended counterpart, in which it can enjoy its truest nature in timeless contemplation. Even memory, he believed, was a hindrance to the attainment of true identity. As Lloyd Gerson puts it: One who has constructed an ideal life which is synonymous with the true ideal can see the rejection of memorial identity as the last step of progress. One who clings to this form of identity must face reincarnation. He is unwilling to refer to an eternal intellect and say “that is me”.78 In fact, the immediate union with Intellect was only one form of immortality,79 which, as reported by Damascius, Plotinus extended as low as nature (φύσις).80 In Enneads VI.4.16, for example, Plotinus discusses in which form souls are said to go to Hades. ‘But what if the body no longer exists? If the εἴδωλον has not been torn away from it, how can it not be there where the εἴδωλον is?’, he asks.81 And he goes on: But if philosophy has freed it completely, the εἴδωλον then too goes to the worse place alone, but the soul itself is purely in the intelligible without losing anything of itself.82 Hence, it looks like neither the soul nor the εἴδωλον (which we can also call φύσις, ἴχνος, or irrational soul) perish together with the body. As we have seen, Plotinus argued that those souls who lived following sensory perception accompanied by anger will be reincarnated into wild animals, while those who were driven by a strong desire for the fesh will become lustful and gluttonous beasts.83 The εἴδωλον could also remain discarnate. In fact, he claims that it is not absurd that departed souls ‘even if they have changed the forms of their bodies and adopted spherical ones’, might still recognise each other ‘because of their characters and the individuality of their behaviour’.84 Whether the εἴδωλον enjoys immortality forever or lives on only for a certain period of time is not clear. It is clear however that once the εἴδωλον becomes separated from the soul, Plotinus loses interest in its fate. Forms of post-mortem existence which stand below the level of Intellect remain very

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much in the background in his account of the afterlife. He simply does not consider them worthy of theoretical investigation. Indeed, Ficino’s concept of personhood, which accounted for personal identity across the earthly and the heavenly life, differed from that of Plotinus in two important respects. First, the higher form of immortality, i.e. divine contemplation, as Ficino understood it, did not involve only the intellect but also the voluntas, a term which I would interpret as describing both the desire of God and the ability of the soul to recognize this desire as its innermost and truest aspiration. In the Platonic Theology, for example, he writes: ‘Our end is to perceive God through the intellect and to enjoy God as seen through the will’.85 The desire of God enraptures the soul when the soul is still in the body, urging it to begin its journey back to Him. It is an overwhelming longing to be with God, a profound inquietude which drives the soul through different levels of increasing emancipation from the body. This ascent involves both the intellectual and the emotional self, for the soul thinks of God, but it also loves God. William Ralph Inge, writing in the twentieth century, described the love of God as conceived by the late ancient Platonists in a particularly striking way. He claimed that this love was ‘more like the “desire of the moth for the star” – the attraction of the clear white light that “forever shines” – than the devotion which “draws” the disciple of Christ to a human, as well as a divine, Redeemer’.86 By contrast, for Ficino, as a Christian, the conversion to the generative principle was an inner experience of profound devotion which involved a larger part of the person than the mere intellect. The second aspect in which Ficino’s concept of post-mortem personhood differs from that of Plotinus is the concern about (1) the intermediate states in the soul’s process of emancipation from materiality and (2) the fate of the idolum – if only for his belief that the soul in its entirety is physically embodied. Plotinus might well have granted immortality to nature, as reported by Damascius, but he was certainly not interested in telling the story of εἴδωλα in Hades or how they live and feel in a tiger’s body or as oak trees. In other words, just as the ‘ideal’ self differed from the ‘actual’ self (the former being the undescended intellect and the latter the subject of all other noncontemplative psychological activities), so ‘ideal’ immortality differed from ‘actual’ immortality. It is therefore essential ‘to distinguish sharply between the notion of return in Plotinus and his doctrine of reincarnation’,87 for ‘the path of the return is, so to speak, in a different plane from the path produced by a history of repeated reincarnations’.88 For Ficino, by contrast, the redeemed soul and the expiating soul are at different stages of the same path, which leads to God. This is the reason why, unlike Plotinus, he is philosophically intrigued by the idola, in which souls are punished, purifed, and atoned. Idola, for him, play an important eschatological role, for once the fesh has perished, souls can feel and act in them, performing their roles as emotional and moral personae and continuing to choose their own way towards heaven or hell.

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To underline the fact that the soul’s survival after death involves the entire person and not merely the forms of his or her intellectual knowledge, Ficino referred to the ὄχημα as the place where both the images perceived and the memories acquired during our earthly life are imprinted and stored. The ὄχημα survives the death of the body and so too do the contents of our imagination and memories, that is, our personal life story. Before discussing the role of the ὄχημα in Ficino’s Plotinian campaign against Averroes, it will be useful to outline his own understanding of the vehicle’s nature and role. In an article I published in 2012, of which this section is a revised version, I claimed that, notwithstanding some inconsistences, Ficino mainly described three vehicles: one celestial, fery, or ethereal; one airy; and one vaporous.89 I am now convinced that these vehicles were not different entities but rather different layers of the same substance.90 The frst layer, made of pure fre, is acquired by the soul while it passes through the highest region of the heavens.91 Later in the soul’s descent towards the world of generation, the frst vehicle acquires a second layer, made of air. Once the soul becomes embodied, a third envelope, made from the vapours of the bodily humours, is added to the frst two layers. Ficino claims that the vehicle is originally shaped like a planet, but that it transforms itself into our angular human form when it enters the earthly body and takes up the round shape again once the soul departs from the body. He explains: Many Platonists think that the soul uses three vehicles: frst, the immaterial and simple, that is, the celestial vehicle; second, the material and simple, that is, the airy vehicle; and third, the material and compound, which is the vehicle formed by the four elements. To the frst the soul gives an irrational but immortal life, to the second an irrational but long-lasting life, which survives for some time in the simple body after the compound body has dissolved; to the third vehicle, fnally, the soul gives an irrational life that must dissolve together with the dissolution of the body.92 Ficino, moreover, identifes the vehicle with the spiritus,93 a ‘most ambiguous and a most fundamental notion’,94 which, as we have seen, he understood as the link between the soul and the body and to which he attributed a fundamental part in the soul’s elaboration of images and retention of memories. In the afterlife, once sensory perception has been cut off by the death of the earthly body, the soul continues to be enveloped in its vehicle, which it affects through the forms of its imagination. In fact, the infuence of the departed soul on the vehicle is such that the vehicle changes its external shape according to the soul’s innermost representations. The idea of the vehicle’s susceptibility to the content of what is imagined is especially important in Ficino’s interpretation of metensomatosis, to which he devotes an entire section in his commentary on Enneads III.4 entitled: ‘On the Transmigration of the Soul and Why It Does Not Pass into Animals (De transmigratione animae et quod non transit in bestias)’.95 He is keen

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to show that, although souls are somehow changed in themselves after the death of the body, they never go beyond the established boundaries of the human species.96 Quoting Iamblichus to the effect that ‘the soul preserves its own form through any process of transmutation’,97 he claims that this can be ensured by the long-lasting bond between the soul and its vehicles: Assuredly, the soul everywhere preserves its human character. Man is earthly, aerial, celestial, and also solar and martian. But everywhere, the rational soul itself, giving life to the body in a certain way, is man. In heaven, it is celestial only; in the air, it is aerial through the celestial; in the earth it is earthly through both the aerial and the celestial.98 In other words, an airy vehicle is a human body no less than a body made of fesh and bones and the same can be said of the celestial vehicle. Further, since the imagination is more powerful in the vehicle than in the physical body, pain will be more acute and more intensely felt by the discarnate soul than by the incarnate soul.99 Hence, when Plotinus spoke of souls informing animal bodies, Ficino explains, he was referring to those souls’ perverted imagination, which, in the vehicle, becomes unrestrainedly powerful and tricks the soul into considering ‘real’ what is actually ‘unreal’. The self-deluding effects of a soiled imagination can induce the departed soul to believe it possesses an animal body, even though the only body it possesses is the airy vehicle. This is a kind of melancholic madness which can affect disembodied and embodied souls alike, as happened to Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Babylonian empire, whose imagination was made insane during his earthly life. For Ficino the story told by the prophet Daniel, i.e. that the king was sent to live with the wild donkeys and that he ate grass like the oxen, describes Nebuchadnezzar’s self-delusions and the fact that, perverted as he was, he ended up believing himself to be an ox while he was still a man: When the prophet Daniel reports that the king of the Babylonians, on account of his most serious offences, was consigned among cattle by divine command until he was purifed and came to his senses, the Hebrews interpret this by saying that the imagination of that king was subverted by divine power to such an extent that he thought he had been turned into an ox and was most grievously afficted: an effect that a magician or black bile might achieve.100 In his Epitome for the Phaedo, Ficino uses the same arguments to explain Plato’s view of reincarnation into animals at 82a–b. After remarking that such a belief is Pythagorean (quod animarum transitus narrat in bestias Pythagoricum est),101 he explains: Understand this: it is clear that our souls do not so much animate bodies of animals but rather through a purgation by means of their own

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brutish imagination they are somehow mixed with the imagination of brutes, just as people say that impure daemons often are mingled with the imagination of the insane.102 To Ficino, Plato’s concept of the transmigration of the human soul into bestial form did not literally mean ‘to become an animal’ (feri bestiam), but ‘to clothe oneself with’ (induere), ‘to assume a form’ (subire), and ‘to cross over’ (transire), which are all actions performed by the imagination.103 Plato’s use of the verb ἐνδύω (which means ‘to go into’ but also ‘to clothe with’) at 81e5–82a1, when Socrates says that some souls ‘enter the form of donkeys and animals of that sort (εἰς τὰ τ ν ὄνων γένη καὶ τ ν τοιούτων θηρίων εἰκὸς ἐνδύεσθαι)’, must have played a key role here. For the double meaning of ἐνδύεσθαι and, in particular, its meaning as ‘clothe oneself with’ supported Ficino’s view that, for Plato, the soul does not literally enter an animal body but rather puts on an imaginary garment which resembles an animal body. Indeed, the idea that Ficino wants to convey to his readers is that reincarnation can only be understood allegorically or as an imaginary condition. Hence the idolum or ὀ χ́ ημα – as both the seat and the instrument of the imagination – takes centre stage in his interpretation of the Platonic afterlife. This is clear both in the Epitome for the Phaedo and in the commentary on Plotinus. For example, at Phaedo 81c4–d2 Socrates claims that the soul, which is ‘interpenetrated with the corporeal’, is ‘dragged back into the visible world’ after death and ‘fits about the monuments and the tombs, where shadowy shapes of souls have been seen’.104 Even though Socrates speaks only of a ‘corporeal nature’ (τὸ σωματοειδής), for Ficino it was obvious that he was referring to the ὀ χ́ ημα described by Plato’s and Plotinus’s successors: Here Plato certainly means what Proclus says, i.e. that between the ethereal body, which is immaterial, simple and eternal, and the earthly body, which is material and compound, and which lasts for a short time, there is an airy body, which is certainly material, but somehow simple and long-standing, in which souls live long even after their departure. Once this is dissolved, they will put the composed body on again; of course, if they are not purifed, for if they are purifed they travel to heaven with the ethereal body only.105 The vehicle is not only the place where we expiate our sins through imaginary tortures; it can also be an instrument of reconciliation with God, for in the airy body the soul is less susceptible to the appeal of the material world and is therefore readier to convert itself to highest realities. In the commentary on Enneads III.4, Ficino writes: Therefore, in accordance with the doctrine of Timaeus, we must say that the soul of a man which has declined into perverse reason and a more violent imagination will, shortly after his death, be tortured in the

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul II aerial body, which it also possesses now, by that very same perversity and violence of thought. It will be tortured among the lowest daemons who will prick the soul with similar goads until, in recognizing that it was its turning aside from intellect that was the cause of such great distress, it will gradually return to that which it will then perceive more clearly and with fewer vacillations than it does now.106

In Enneads IV.4, Plotinus discusses how, after death, the soul forgets the experiences of its embodied life and how, once it reaches Intellect, becomes so freed from memories that it does not even recognize itself as an individual soul or intellect – as being, for instance, Socrates’s soul.107 Ficino equates this complete absence of memories, which dissolves the past into the eternal present of divine contemplation, to the soul’s loss of all its bodies. This state, he explains, is achieved gradually, through the progressive stripping away of all layers of the vehicle: The memory of human affairs remains in both souls after death. However, in the case of the lower soul, the memory is together with perturbation, especially when it has not completely obeyed the higher, whereas in the higher soul it is without perturbation, especially when it has treated such human affairs as having little value. Moreover, in the airy body we have extensive remembrance of many mortal things, in the heavenly body of fewer things, and outside the heavenly body of even fewer. The recollection of fewer things arises there not from the weakness of the memory but from the attention to better things that neglects worse things, except to the extent that the worse things are observed through the better.108 Once the soul reaches Intellect, it lets go of the last layer of corporeality, i.e. the ethereal body, and, completely naked, ‘most attentively perceives all divine things at once and without discursive motion. Accordingly, it is said not to recall human affairs’.109 The soul, however, can be lured down to earth again and once it begins its new descent towards the body, it recovers the ethereal veil it had left behind in the region of the heavenly fre. Enwrapped again in its vehicle, it starts to recover the memories of its past: At length, it descends into a celestial body when it unfolds its own multiplicity within itself: that is, acting now through intellect, reason, and imagination. Then it remembers itself and its affairs almost (ferme) in the way it usually did when it was among men: that is to say, both through the activation of the reason – albeit there the swiftest activation – and through the formativity and representations (formationes atque simulacra) of the imagination.110 As we said, Plotinus admitted that departed souls, living in their spherical bodies, recognize one another because of the individuality of their characters.111 Ficino expands on this idea, going as far as to describe an after-death

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reunion in which old friends and acquaintances gather together and engage in conversation with each other: Therefore, souls recognize one another in the heaven, especially those of friends and of those formerly known to one another, both through the motions themselves and the lively affections of the souls and also through the bodies which are there able to possess a shape similar to that of bodies in this world, this shape residing in a fowing matter which yields much more to the soul forming it in every possible way than does earthy matter now to the affections of the soul. Moreover, if the bodies there are spherical, there will nevertheless be different signs and indications of different souls for things that are not differentiated, these signs and indications residing in shape, as we have said, or in quantity, quality, motion, gesture, nodding, or light – just as in the eyes there arise such things from the affections of the soul, and in various clouds there arise different shapes and colors. Some believe that the inhabitants of heaven emit sounds, for the heavens are able to sound. But at least, they converse among themselves with noddings to one another.112 The vehicles not only display the soul’s prevailing emotions, moods, or states of mind; they also exhibit its innermost nature, to such an extent that friends can recognize each other merely by the shape or the light of their aerial envelopes. In other words, while on earth it is often easy to keep one’s true self hidden, in the aerial body personal individuality is laid open.113 Clearly, Ficino uses the vehicles to reinforce his claim for personal immortality by showing that souls inhabit the afterlife in a very ‘personal’ way, which involves memories, desires, and the fgments of the imagination. He is, however, keen to remark that individuality does not depend entirely on the soul’s wearing its vehicle (and having access to the memories which it carries) and that intellect in Intellect is still an individual self, for different intellects have different ways of intuiting divinity. Nevertheless, the survival of the individual intellect alone represented a kind of ‘incomplete’ immortality, for individual differences between souls concern not only ‘gazing upon things eternal’, but also ‘governing things temporal’.114 The fact that the vehicle carries within itself the irrational soul implies that our inherent characteristics are not lost when our body dies, but instead remain in the vehicle, awaiting the return of our rational soul. In this way, the irrational soul is reborn, together with the rational soul and the vehicle, as each new life begins. By emphasizing that the vehicles carried the soul’s lower powers after death, Ficino was able to back up his contention that souls survive death as integral wholes: [the soul] remains wakeful above the earth and apprehends its former state, so that through all the ages, as though the stages of a single life, there is one and the same persona of the rational soul.115 Plotinus’s philosophy in itself provided enough evidence for personal immortality to Ficino, but the later Platonists had perhaps enriched this

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view by developing fully the idea of an ever- (or long-) lasting vehicle, in which non-contemplative ontological states acquired a new philosophical relevance. As Ficino’s Latin Plotinus speaks, we learn that Plato, the Greek Plotinus and the late Platonists all agree, against Averroes, on the fact that Socrates survived as Socrates – not only as a naked contemplator but also as an imaginative subject informing his vehicle.

Notes 1 Ficino, Platonic Theology, XV.1.16, V, pp. 24–5. See also ibid., XV.1.13, V, pp. 19–21: ‘This is the only communion a man has with mind, not because intellect is a part, or is the life-giving form, of this man who is composed of a body and a cogitative soul (for intellect is separate from a man both in essence and in existence), but because intellect is everywhere present to this man’s cogitation and from his particular cogitation derives the universal species. The man offers an occasion for contemplating to this [single] intellect, just as colored light offers an occasion for seeing to the eye. Nor is it that one entity is fashioned from a man and from mind, but rather a single operation occurs, one act of understanding, which nonetheless is not in a man in any way but in mind alone, in mind prompted by a man’s cogitation. But nothing from mind passes over into a man; the entire act is accomplished in mind. Through mind a man does not understand anything, but mind does understand in man’. See Allen, ‘Marsilio Ficino on Saturn’, p. 25; B. Copenhaver, ‘Ten Arguments in Search of a Philosopher’, pp. 460–1. 2 Ibid. See also Ficino’s letter to Giovanni Cavalcanti, in The Letters, I, pp. 82–3 [Epistolae, p. 628]. 3 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 333 [In Plotinum, p. 364; Opera omnia, p. 1731]: ‘Hanc equidem suspicionem in Theologia ubi contra Averroem agitur pro viribus e medio sustuli. Atque hic ad eandem similiter extirpandam imprimis una cum Plotino sic agamus’. On this passage see Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, pp. 160 and 165. 4 Florence, Biblioteca Moreniana, Palagi 199, f. 24, in Kristeller, ‘The Scholastic Background’, p. 298: ‘Nam intellectus universalitatem facit in rebus, Averrois secundo De anima et Aristoteles secundo De anima, ubi dicit intellectum esse universalium, sensum vero singularium, quod idem Plato in Phedro opinatur’. See Plato, Phaedrus, 248c; Aristotle, De anima, II.5, 417b20–4; Averroes, Commentarium magnum, p. 219: ‘Et causa in hoc est, quod sensus in actu comprehendit particularia, scientia autem universalia, quasi essent in ipsa anima’. See also Vanhaelen, ‘The Pico–Ficino Controversy’, p. 307. 5 R. Sorabji, ‘Graeco-Roman Varieties of Self’, in Ancient Philosophy of the Self, ed. by P. Remes and J. Sihvola, Dordrecht: Springer, 2008, pp. 13–34, at p. 19. See also Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 167: ‘Indeed, the Averroistic doctrine of the unicity of intellect that was attacked by Latin scholastic writers such as Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas should be seen to a large extent as a revival in a more overtly Aristotelian context of this older problem of Platonic philosophy’. 6 See Allen, ‘Marsilio Ficino on Saturn’, p. 23: ‘For Ficino, I suggest, Averroes became in several unsettling ways not so much the perverter of the central propositions in Aristotle’s De anima, III.5.340a10–25 as a subtle advocate – though perforce indirectly and inadvertently, since he would not have acknowledged or recognized this himself in the twelfth century – of some of the central propositions that Ficino had continually encountered and enthusiastically embraced in

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Plotinus’s analysis of nous… For he was the spokesman for an austere, impersonal, Idea-oriented intellectualism that closely resembled – perhaps too closely resembled – the austere intellectualism of Plotinus’s own ethics and metaphysics, keyed as they were, not to a Logos theology of the incarnate Word, but to a unitary intellect as the prime intelligible being. Indeed, Averroes’s unitary intellect as Ficino understood it – though quite distinct metaphysically and epistemologically from Plotinus’s nous since it is at the opposite end of the scale of intellects – must have appeared to Ficino – at least during the early 1470s when he was composing his Platonic Theology – as a kind of dangerous Plotinian look-alike, a noetic similar or revenant that had to be exorcised as one exorcises Saturnian poltergeists’. Since Averroes had read Aristotle through a Platonising flter (above all Plotinus and Themistius), it is not surprising that Ficino found elements of interest in his thought. On the infuence of Themistius on Averroes see, e.g. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect, pp. 258–314; C. D’Ancona, ‘Greek into Arabic: Neoplatonism in Translation’, in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, ed. by P. Adamson and R. C. Taylor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 10–31, at p. 10; D. Gutas, ‘Averroes on Theophrastus, through Themistius’, in Averroes and the Aristotelian Tradition, pp. 31–125; R. C. Taylor, ‘Themistius and the Development of Averroes’ Noetics’, in Medieval Perspectives on Aristotle’s ‘De anima’, ed. by R. L. Friedman and J.-M. Counet, Louvain: Peeters, 2013, pp. 1–38. Plotinus, Enneads, V.3.3, V, p. 79 [In Plotinum, p. 498]. Ibid. [ibid.]. Ibid., p. 81 [ibid.]. See Chapter 2, p. 53. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 498 [Opera omnia, p. 1759]. Ibid. [ibid.:] ‘Possumus etiam Platonico magis more Plotinum interpretari dicentes ideo negare intellectum esse partem animae, quia videlicet non sit pars, id est, potentia huius substantiae, qua ratione dicitur anima’. See Chapter 2, p. 54 above. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 498 [Opera omnia, p. 1759]: ‘Dicitur enim anima quatenus pertinet ad discursum, sive per universalia, sive per particularia discurratur. Sed intellectus ipsa mera substantia est, cui est subnexa potentia, quae appellatur anima. Iam vero et ipsa substantia nominatur anima secundum potentiam discurrentem, nominatur et intellectus secundum ipsam substantiae rationem. Idem enim est esse atque intelligere, non tamen idem esse atque discurrere. Ideo semper intelligit aeque, non tamen semper aeque discurrit’. Plotinus, Enneads, V, p. 81. Ibid., p. 83. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 499 [Opera omnia, p. 1759]: ‘Rationalis potentia secundum quam nos sumus dupliciter utitur intellectu: per participationem scilicet atque formam et utrobique cognoscit seipsam’. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Per participationem quidem, quatenus formas, notiones, regulas quotidie suscipit ab intellectu ubi tanquam ab effectu per actiones suas cognoscit et suas vires: per vires agnoscit essentiam, atque hanc dependere illuminarique semper a mente: per formam vero quando post frequentem huiusmodi acceptionis usum mentem penitus induit, sicut materia formam, agitque sub mentis ipsius actu, sicut materia, postquam saepius accepit ab igne calorem, subit denique fammam’. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Rationem Peripatetici intellectum possibilem, mentem vero intellectum agentem nominaverunt’. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XV.11.10, V, p. 133.

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul II Ibid. Giglioni, ‘Introduction’, p. 15. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XV.11.10, V, p. 123. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 127 [Opera omnia, p. 1630]. Ibid. [ibid.]. Ibid. [ibid.]. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Hinc effcitur ut intellectualis anima tum cogitatione, tum etiam voluntate possit, quae supra corpus, et naturam, et corpoream vitam sunt, pro arbitrio petere’. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘pro arbitrio corpus, naturam, fatum quotiens omnino decreverit superare’. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XV.11.10, V, p. 133. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 28 [Opera omnia, p. 1569]: ‘Deinde ubi [Plotinus] ait actum intelligendi tunc esse absque phantasia, de nulla inde in hac imago ft atque resultat: non intelligentiam puram a phantasia, sed phantasiam quam ab intelligentia dependere’. See Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.30, IV, p. 131: ‘Even though the soul is always moved to intelligent activity, it is when it comes to be in the image-making power (τὸ φανταστικόν) that we apprehend it. The intellectual act is one thing and the apprehension of it another, and we are always intellectually active but do not always apprehend our activity’. See Chapter 4, p. 118–21. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 28 [Opera omnia, p. 1569]: ‘Rationalis intelligentia, id est, cogitatio ratioque mobilis a phantasia saepius excitetur, praesertim activa ratio: quam solam phantasia semper egere Aristoteles ait: quemadmodum et Themistius atque Simplicius prudenter interpretantur’. See, especially, Themistius’s commentary on De anima 431a14–17, in Themistius, De anima, pp. 61–2. Here, for example, Themistius says: ‘As perception cannot be active without objects of perception, neither can the intellect that is naturally cognate to the soul be active without images from sense-perception. Indeed, whenever the intellect desires or avoids [objects], imagination is always its forerunner’. Tr. in Themistius, On Aristotle ‘On the Soul’, p. 139. See R. Sorabji, ‘The Ancient Commentators on Concept Formation’, in Interpreting Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics in Late Antiquity and Beyond, ed. by F. A. J. de Haas, M. Leunissen, and M. Martijn, Leiden: Brill, 2011, pp. 1–26, at pp. 8–9. See Simplicius, De anima, 1.35–40, ed. by M. Hayduck, Berlin: Reimer, 1882, p. 17 [Simplicius, On Aristotle On the Soul 1.1–2.4, tr. by J. O. Urmson, London: Duckworth, 1995, p. 32]. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 28 [Opera omnia, p. 1569]: ‘Denique Plotinum scito annuere, dum quaedam Aristotelis verba recenset, hanc illius de mente fuisse sententiam: ubi in tertio de anima scribit intellectum intelligere semper et intelligentiam eius esse substantiam vereque immortalem existere’. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Denique memento Averroem et si non idem, tamen simile aliquid induxisse ubi ait intellectum nostrum intelligentiam duplicem in se habere: alteram aeternam, alteram temporalem, illam quidem per suum esse, hanc vero per nostras imagines exercere’. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘ac nos illam nunquam animadvertere, quia nihil cum imaginatione nostra communicet, hanc autem agnoscere, quoniam illius formae cum imaginationis nostrae imaginibus congruant’. Ibid. [ibid.]. Gerson, Plotinus, 187. Ibid. On the unity of soul see also Plotinus, Enneads, V.1 and IV.8. For an exhaustive and clear analysis of the ‘unity of soul’ see Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul, pp. 17–38 and 70–90.

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41 Armstrong, ‘Introductory Note’ to Enneads IV.9, in Plotinus, Enneads, IV, p. 427. 42 Plotinus, Enneads, IV. 4.9, IV, p. 437. 43 Ibid., IV.9.5, IV, p. 439. See, for example, Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul, p. 19: ‘Sensible tigers do not contain any other sensible tigers. Each tiger is, in so far as its being a tiger is concerned, independent of each and every other sensible tiger. For its being a tiger, a tiger only depends on the Form Tiger. An individual soul, on the other hand, also depends, for its being a soul, on all other individual souls’. 44 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.9.2, IV, p. 433. 45 Ibid. 46 Gerson, Plotinus, p. 63. Unity, after all, holds together Plotinus’s metaphysics at all levels and I agree with Damian Caluori that ‘the unity of a thing is crucial to its ontological status’. See Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul, p. 17. 47 In ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 163, Stephen Gersh has pointed out that in different passages in his Commentary Ficino ‘explicitly treats the problem of the unity and multiplicity of soul as identical with that of the unity and multiplicity of intellectual soul’, i.e. the intellect as a faculty of the soul. See, for example, the quotation on p. 85, where Ficino explicitly defnes the intellect as the ‘higher soul’, (intellectus, id est, superior anima) and as ‘each single individual intellectual soul’ (unaquaeque intellectualis anima). See also Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 323 [In Plotinum, p. 359; Opera omnia, p. 1730]: ‘The intellect itself simpliciter is everywhere as a whole. The intellectual souls are in it not only through the Ideas but also through their proper “existences”, if one may put it thus, in accordance to the intellectual faculty proper to them, even while they are in an embodied state (Est autem ipse simpliciter intellectus ubique totus. Sunt et in eo non solum per ideas verum etiam per proprias [ut ita dixerim] existentias intellectuales animae secundum intellectualem sibi propriam facultatem etiam dum sunt in corpore)’. However, we should keep in mind Gersh’s remark that: ‘for Plotinus the multiplicity of souls depends on a multiplicity of intellects contained within the universal intellect, whereas for Ficino, the multiplicity of souls depends on a multiplicity of intellects contained within the individual souls themselves’. See ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 167. In any case, Plotinus’s fundamental assumption that the unity of souls did not imply their ontological identity became the linchpin of Ficino’s understanding of the one– many relationship. For a detailed description of the similarities and differences between Plotinus and Ficino regarding their understanding of the unity and multiplicity of souls see Ibid., pp. 166-7. 48 On the idea of individuality in Plotinus see Armstrong, ‘Form, Individual and Person in Plotinus’; H. J. Blumenthal, ‘Soul, World-Soul and Individual Soul in Plotinus’, in Le Néoplatonisme: Royaumont: 9-13 Juin 1969. Colloques Internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifque. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifque, 1971, pp. 55–66; id., Plotinus’s Psychology: His Doctrine of the Embodied Soul, The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971; id., Soul and Intellect: Studies in Plotinus and Later Neoplatonism, Aldershot: Variorum, 1993, pp. 61–80; P. Kalligas, ‘Forms of Individuals in Plotinus: A Re-Examination’, Phronesis XLII (1997), pp. 206–27; Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul, pp. 69–90; P. S. Mamo, ‘Forms of Individuals in the Enneads?’, Phronesis XVI (1971), pp. 77–96; J. M. Rist, ‘Forms of Individuals in Plotinus’, The Classical Quarterly XIII (1963), pp. 223–31; id., ‘Ideas of Individuals in Plotinus: A Reply to Dr. Blumenthal’, Revue Internationale de Philosophie XXIV (1970), pp. 298–303.

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49 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.9.1, IV, p. 429. 50 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.9.2, IV, p. 431. Nicoletto Vernia referred to this passage in his Contra perversam Averrois opinionem de unitate intellectus et de animae felicitate quaestiones divinae, Venice: n. p., 1504, f. 10vb, suggesting that, according to Plotinus, just as there is one soul which exists in different parts of the living being, so that one part experiences a sensation, while another does not, so the assumption that there is one single soul for all mankind does not imply that we all have the same sense perceptions at the same time. See E. P. Mahoney, ‘Ficino’s Infuence on Vernia, Nifo and Zimara’, in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone, II, pp. 509–31, at p. 514. Mahoney, in n. 20, rightly claims that, in his commentary on this passage from the Enneads, Ficino is very careful to stress that Plotinus does not believe that there is only one soul for all humans. 51 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.9.2, IV, pp. 430–33. 52 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.9.5, IV, p. 439. 53 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.9.5, IV, p. 441. 54 See W. Helleman-Elgersma, Soul-Sisters: A Commentary on Enneads IV.3 (27), 1–8 of Plotinus, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1980. 55 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 347 [ibid., p. 366; ibid.]: ‘Quin etiam animae ipsius naturam quae indivisibilis substantia est perpetuoque in seipsa subsistens non decet ita in plures animas distribuere iterumque plures in unam quandoque confundere, sicut aquam multam partimur in partes easque rursus confundimus in eandem’. 56 Ibid., p. 348 [ibid.; ibid.]. In his De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas, Thomas Aquinas had strongly criticized Averroes on similar grounds. In his view, monopsychism went ‘against the words of Aristotle’ and the Averroists were so attached to their arguments that they even considered God unable to have made different intellects for different human beings. For this would contradict, they believed, the principle that ‘to have a nature that can be numerically multiplied is other than the nature of separated form’. They were not able to recognise, Thomas said, that separate substances are individual not because they are individuated by matter, but ‘by the fact that it is not their nature to exist in another and consequently to be participated in by many’. Thomas Aquinas, De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas, in Aquinas against the Averroists: On There Being Only One Intellect, ed. by R. McInerny, West Lafayette [IN]: Purdue University Press, 1993, pp. 121 and 125. Thomas was extremely important for Ficino’s understanding of Averroes’s psychology. Plotinus’s arguments for the unity and multiplicity of souls might have appeared to him as a confrmation of what had been argued by Thomas: that the nature of intelligible substances, even though these are not individuated by matter, does not exclude multiplicity. See, for example, Copenhaver, ‘Ten Arguments in Search of a Philosopher’; E. P. Mahoney, ‘Aquinas’s Critique of Averroes’ Doctrine of the Unity of the Intellect’, in Thomas Aquinas and His Legacy, ed. by D. M. Gallagher, Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1994, pp. 83–106, at p. 105, n. 78. 57 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 349 [In Plotinum, p. 366; Opera omnia, p. 1733]. See also ibid., p. 367 [ibid., p. 368; ibid., p. 1735]: ‘Each single form of this kind is in itself a certain unity distinguished from others in number not accidentally but through itself, and indeed distinguished “through itself” because souls do not acquire their number from the number in bodies or in corporeal qualities – as if the single world-soul were propagated into many souls through different conditions of bodies. Moreover, each and every soul always subsists in itself as a unity in number, just as it has its being in its essence and its being is the same as its unity (formas eiusmodi unamquamque esse

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in se unum quiddam numero ab aliis non per accidens sed per se distinctum: per se inquam quoniam animae non accipiunt numerum ex numero corporum vel corporalium qualitatum – quasi una mundi anima per diversas affectiones corporum propagetur in multas. Iam vero quaelibet anima ita per se subsistit semper unum numero sicut in sua essentia suum habet esse atque esse suum idem est quod et unitas eius). My italics. As Stephen Gersh explains, for Ficino: ‘the intellectual souls are in the divine intellect in the same way that radii can be projected to the circumference of a circle without departing from its center and the rays of the sun can attain to earthly things without leaving their source’. See Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 163. See, for example, Enneads, VI.2.22, VI.5.2, and VI.7.17. I am grateful to Lloyd Gerson for pointing this out to me. See also Brisson, ‘Plotinus’s Style’, p. 131. Plotinus, Enneads, VI.4.4. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, pp. 345–47 [In Plotinum, p. 366; Opera omnia, p. 1733]: ‘Quisnam Platonicus animam poterit unicam suspicari? Enimvero si quis aliquando suspicetur more Averrois esse unicum in cunctis hominibus intellectum, nos utique non similiter adversus eum sicut de anima dubitabimus. Nec principaliter obiciemus quonam pacto alius quidem intellectus sit in corpore, alius autem extra corpus, item quomodo in corporibus tam diversis possint esse omnino consimiles intellectus ut modo de anima dicebamus’. Ibid., p. 347 [ibid.; ibid., pp. 1732–3]: ‘Animae namque tamquam declinantes ad corpora praeter intimas inter se differentias differunt quoque per actiones varias circa varia corpora perque corporum ipsorum diversitatem. At si quando intellectus qui separatiores sunt quam animae actionesque proprias absque corporeis peragunt instrumentis probaturi simus inter se differre, non ad corporum actionumque eiusmodi varietatem confugiemus sed ad diversas potius intelligentiae species modosque intelligendi admodum discrepantes intellectionesque et habitus in eodem tempore inter se repugnantes quae unico simul intellectui inesse non possint. Sicut enim in primo intellectu differentiam inter multas notiones eius non aliter assignamus quam ex formalium intus proprietatum diversitate, sic assignaturi intellectuum aliorum inter se differentias eas ex intimis proprietatibus afferemus’. Here it is worth looking at the letter to Giovanni Cavalcanti mentioned on p. 100, n. 2, in which Ficino’s refutation of Averroism is more experience-based and monopsychism is shown to contradict what we experience in our everyday lives: that each of us thinks individually and has opinions which disagree with those of other people. Ficino tells Cavalcanti that ‘there cannot be opposite opinions in one intellect at the same time’. Therefore, he concludes, ‘if the same intellect in an Averroistic philosopher and in a Platonist holds the opposite views about itself, the former saying that there is one intellect, and the latter that there are many, it is quite plain that within them there is more than one intellect’. See Ficino, The Letters, I, p. 82 [Epistolae, p. 628]. Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.5, IV, pp. 47–9. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 349 [In Plotinum, p. 366; Opera omnia, p. 1733]: ‘Sic enim intellectualis ipsa Socratis anima, post obitum in mundi animam (ut fngitur) resolvenda, dum propriam perdiderit existentiam, esse omnino desinet quando accesserit ad esse perfectum’. Plotinus, Enneads, VI.4.4, VI, p. 289. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 647 [Opera omnia, p. 1780]: ‘Sunt enim et mentes et animae suis proprietatibus in seipsis inter se differentes, etiam ante corpora’. Interestingly, in The True Intellectual System of the Universe, Ralph Cudworth claims that from this place (and from others) in Plotinus, Ficino concluded

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Rescuing Aristotle’s Soul II ‘Plotinus himself really to have asserted, above the rank of souls, a multitude of others substantial beings, called νοές or νοῖ, “minds” or “intellects”’. See The True Intellectual System of the Universe, 3 vols, London: Tegg, 1845, II, p. 362. Cudworth, however, mistakenly understands Ficino’s interpretation of νοές as postulating the existence of minds as separate entities, whereas Ficino, as we have seen, understands intellect as the innermost essence of the soul. The German scholar Johann Lorenz Mosheim, commenting on this passage, remarks on Cudworth’s misreading: ‘Mind and soul are two properties of the same thing, which can be distinguished in thought, and are distinguished by the Platonists, but in reality notwithstanding reside in one and the same nature. This, if I mistake not, is meant by Ficinus, when he says “alteritate proprietatis essentiaeque distinctae, non loco”. There are therefore as many minds as souls: nor was Ficino, I consider, when he wrote this, thinking of those νοές of Proclus and others. And this certainly was the opinion of Plotinus himself’. See ibid., n. 9. See Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 647 [Opera omnia, p. 1780]. Ibid, p. 649 [ibid.]: ‘Tu cave ut putes Plotinum ponere unam tantum in cunctis animam. Hoc enim illi repugnat ubique’. See also Ficino’s remarks in his commentary on Enneads IV.9.5, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 559 [In Plotinum, p. 480; Opera omnia, p. 1756]: ‘You should take care not to surmise that Plotinus believes that the essential beings of souls are not distinguished from one another, for this surmise would be in opposition to all his books and also to the conclusion of the present one. Indeed, he has in this Ennead made his own argument against those who think that the soul is single (Cave suspiceris suspicari Plotinum non distingui inter se essentias animarum: id enim omnibus eius libris et huius etiam fni adversaretur; quin etiam disputationem propriam fecit in hac Enneade contra eos qui animam esse unicam opinantur)’. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Quae autem de anima mundi loquimur, de intellectu divino similiter dictum intelligere’. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 351 [In Plotinum, p. 366; Opera omnia, p. 1733]: ‘unde fngere liceat nemini mentes singulas in unam quandoque confundi subitoque disperdi’. Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘rationalem animam quatenus intellectualis est tanto perfectius se habere quanto longius seipsam a corpore separaverit’. Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘Cum vero summopere a corpore separetur in obitu, tunc sane necesse est propriam huius animae substantiam esse perfectam’. See Chapter 2 above, p. 53. See Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 4. It is interesting to see that Ficino inserts a ‘forte’ that is not in the Greek text. Plotinus, Enneads, I.1.8, I, p. 111. Ficino, In Plotinum, n.p. [Opera omnia, p.1552]: ‘Proinde Intellectus ipse divinus tum communis dicitur, quantum ipse individuus totusque est ubique, tum proprius, quantum a singulis animabus singulis quoque propriisque modis accipitur. Unde et diversi apud alias animas modi ratiocinandi sequuntur; modi quoque imaginandi diversi. Intellectum vero, qui iam est forma quaedam in anima non solum praesidens, sed et insita, nemo dixerit esse communem. Oculi sane multi multas referunt animas; multi praeterea visuales radii oculis naturaliter insiti varios intellectus animabus naturaliter insitos repraesentant; unum vero commune Solis lumen ubique praesens Intellectum praefert divinum, animarum intellectuumque patrem. Lux tandem una Solis, in ipso Sole consistens, ipsum bonum mentis patrem nobis ostendit. Intellectus igitur animabus ingeniti, etsi non unus sunt Intellectus, sunt tamen unum, scilicet, unum secundum esse intellectuale, redditum actu intelligens ab uno mentis illius lumine: in quo, velut in communi forma objectoque, sunt unum, quamvis etiam sint pro

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animarum multitudine multi. Sicut etiam et visuales radii seu visus pro numero oculorum numerati sunt, neque sunt unus, sunt tamen unus in uno lumine invicem concurrentes; maxime vero viderentur unus, si in se ipsis extarent sic ab oculis expediti, sicut intellectuales animae restant a corporibus absolutae’. See Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 189. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 367 [In Plotinum, p. 368; Opera omnia, p. 1735]: ‘nemini licet somniare nostras animas personalibus quandoque dimissis proprietatibus in generalem quandam animam confundendas’. Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.5, p. 49. Gerson, Plotinus, p. 209. See R. Sorabji, Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 121: ‘It is harder to say what distinguishes us after death when some of us will rise from the sensible world, not as far as the intelligible world, but as far as the heavens, having shed our feshy bodies. Others will descend down to the heavens after visiting the intelligible world, and Plotinus speaks of arrival in the heavens from both directions’. Damascius, In Phaedonem, 177, in The Greek Commentaries on Plato’s Phaedo, II: Damascius, ed. and tr. by L. G. Westerink, Amsterdam: NorthHolland, 1977, p. 106: ‘others [extend immortality] as far as nature, e.g. Plotinus in certain passages (IV.7.14)’. See also J. Phillips, Order from Disorder: Proclus’s Doctrine of Evil and Its Roots in Ancient Platonism, Leiden: Brill, 2007, pp. 196–7. See Ficino’s note on Damascius’s In Phaedonem in G. Westerink, ‘Ficino’s Marginal Notes’, p. 356: ‘The opinions of many are of different kinds on to where immortality advances: Plotinus brings it all the way down to Nature, Numenius to the vital power innate in the body. Xenocrates, Speusippus, Iamblichus, and Plutarch to the irrational soul. Proclus, Porphyry to the rational soul (multorum opiniones diverse, quousque progrediatur immortalitas: Plotinus usque ad naturam producit immortalitatem. Numenius usque ad vitalem vim in corpore insitam. Zenocrates, Pseusippus, Iamblichus, Plutarchus usque ad animam irrationalem. Proclus, Porphyrius usque ad rationalem)’. Here it is interesting to mention that Philoponus reports a different view, suggesting that immortality in Plotinus is keyed to his doctrine of the undescended intellect. See Philoponus, De anima III.536,29-537,1, in R. Sorabji, The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200–660 AD: A Sourcebook, Ithaca [NY]: Cornell University Press, 2005, vol. I: Psychology, p. 113: ‘But those who say that the human intellect thinks sometimes, and this is the only intellect there is, and we do not have another, are able to make a defence and say this: that there are many things that go to make up a human being, and of these intellect alone is immortal and eternal. We must reason that “alone” is said relatively to the things that make up the human being. But Plotinus cannot give this defence. He supposes two intellects, that which thinks always and that which thinks sometimes. Which, then, can he call “alone immortal”? If that which thinks always, he speaks falsely. For that which thinks sometimes is immortal too. And if he says that that which thinks sometimes is immortal, so, according to him, is that which thinks always. So Plotinus is not able to say how we can call intellect “alone immortal” and he [Aristotle] does well to add that intellect is “immortal and eternal”. For the non-rational soul also and the vegetable soul are immortal, but they are not eternal’. Plotinus, Enneads, VI.4.16, p. 325. I have replaced Armstrong’s ‘image’ with the original Greek εἴδωλον. Ibid. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.2, III, p. 147. See Chapter 1, p. 29. Plotinus, Enneads, IV.4.5, IV, p. 149. See Sorabji, Self, p. 121.

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85 Ibid., XIV.2.2, p. 229. See Kristeller, ‘The Theory of Immortality’. 86 W. R. Inge, ‘The Permanent Infuence of Neoplatonism upon Christianity’, The American Journal of Theology IV (1900), pp. 328–44, at p. 332. 87 Gerson, Plotinus, pp. 204–5. 88 Ibid. 89 Corrias, ‘The Imagination and Memory’, p. 86. 90 See Allen, Icastes, p. 179. 91 Ficino, Platonic Theology, XVIII.4.3, VI, p. 104: ‘The Magi call this body the vehicle of the soul, that is, the little aetherial body received from the aether, the soul’s immortal garment; it is round in its natural shape because of the [rotundity of] the aether’s region, but it transform itself into our [anglar] human shape when it enters the human body, and restores itself to its formal shape when it departs from it’. 92 Ficino, Platonic Theology, XVIII.4.7, VI, p. 111. 93 For a description of the vehicle as ‘spiritus’ see Corrias, Imagination and Memory, pp. 89–99; Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. lxiii; Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, p. 373–4; Ogren, ‘Circularity, the Soul-Vehicle’, p. 76; Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, p. 123. 94 Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 286. 95 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 298 [In Plotinum, p. 279; Opera omnia, p. 1709]: ‘De transmigratione animae et quod non transit in bestias’. See also M. Guyot, ‘Marsile Ficin, Commentaire du traité de Plotin sur le “demon qui nous a reçu en partage”’, in Les dieux de Platon, ed. by J. Laurent, Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen, 2003, pp. 263–86. 96 Stephen Gersh analyses this topic in detail, identifying four main arguments in Ficino’s criticism of Plotinus’s belief in the soul’s transmigration into animal bodies. First, the human soul cannot be transformed beyond the limit of the human species, as in the passage quoted in the next note. Second, ‘the generative nature of man, which is a certain form, cannot at some point produce an ox or the generative nature of an ox without itself changing into the generative nature of an ox’. The third argument, which resembles very much the frst, is that man’s choices and moral behaviors cannot have consequences which involve powers or species which are not human. Fourth, in order to suffer and expiate their sins, souls must retain the psychic powers which belong to the human species. See Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. xxx–xxi. 97 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 298 [In Plotinum, p. 279; Opera omnia, p. 1709]: ‘Iamblicho placuisse videtur dicenti animam in qualibet transmutatione suam speciem conservare’. See Nemesius of Emesa, De natura hominis 51.11: ‘Cronius, in his work On Reincarnation (for that is the term he uses for transmigration), wants all souls to be rational; and a similar view is advanced by Theodorus the Platonist in his essay entitled “That the Soul Is All the Forms”, and Porphyry likewise. Iamblichus, however, taking the opposite tack to these, declares that the species of soul corresponds to the species of animal concerned, that is to say, the species of soul are different. At any rate, he composed a monograph entitled “That transmigrations do not take place from men into irrational animals, nor from irrational animals into men, but from animals into animals, and from men into men”’, in Iamblichus, De anima: Text, Translation and Commentary, ed. and tr. by J. F. Finamore and J. M. Dillon, Leiden: Brill, 2002, pp. 141–2. I thank John Finamore for drawing my attention to this passage. See Corrias, ‘The Imagination and Memory’, p. 100. See also Ficino, Platonic Theology, XVII.3.10, VI, p. 41: ‘Finally, having laid

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aside its human shape, the soul submits to the body of the beast which it has made itself most resemble by its behavior, whether it inserts itself into the fetus of the beast and becomes the soul belonging to the beast’s body, as Plotinus, Numenius, Harpocratius, and Boethius suppose’. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 306 [In Plotinum, p. 280 Opera omnia, p. 1710]: ‘ubique vero [anima] proprietatem conservat humanam. Est enim homo terrenus, est aerius, est et caelestis, est insuper Solaris et Martius: ubique autem homo est ipsa rationalis anima corpus certo modo vivifcans – in caelo quidem caeleste tantum, in aere aerium per caeleste, in terra per utrumque terrenum’. See also Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s ‘Phaedrus’, in Allen, Marsilio Ficino and the Phaedran Charioteer, pp. 102–4: ‘Moreover, it acquires under heaven a more contracted body, that is, an airy body. The soul continues contracting until it descends into the most contracted body of all, the earthy. But its prime name everywhere is man: in heaven, celestial man; in the air, airy man; and on earth, earthy man’. As a consequence, the ‘imaginary’ pain felt in the vehicle will be more excruciating than any pain the soul might have felt in the body. In Ficino’s view, this is how the imaginary torments torture the soul: ‘In the impious man there remains, so the Platonists believe, the overlordship either of the raging phantasy alone, or of the phantastical reason. Moved by hate, as I have said, and by fear, this phantasy or phantastical reason busies itself with a long succession of gloomy images. The impious man now sees the heavens crashing on his head or himself being swallowed up in the deep fssures of the earth, next being taken up by the force of fames, and then submerged in a vast whirlpool of waters or encircled by the shades of daemons. Thus, he drives his body on everywhere through the depths wherever the impulse of the raging phantasy and the bad daemon will have swept it away, as Mercurius says (and Plato too)’. See Ficino, Platonic Theology, XVIII.10.14, VI, p. 197. See Hermes Trismegistus, Asclepius 28; Plato, Phaedo 107d–108c, 112a–114b. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. 309–11 [In Plotinum, p. 280; Opera omnia, p. 1711]: ‘ubi Daniel propheta tradit Babyloniae regem ob gravissima scelera inter boves divinitus fuisse translatum donec purgatus resipisceret, interpretantur Hebraei imaginationem regis illius divinitus fuisse perversam usque adeo ut bovem se factum opinaretur graviterque doleret, quemadmodum solet magus vel atra bilis effcere’. See Daniel 5:21. Ficino, In Phaedonem, p. 1392. Ibid.: ‘Idque intellige, videlicet animas nostras non tam vivifcare corpora bestiarum, quam purgatorii gratia per brutam imaginationem suam quodammodo brutorum imaginationi misceri, quemadmodum impuros aiunt daemones insanorum imaginationi saepe permixtos’. See Celenza, ‘Pythagoras in the Renaissance’, pp. 689–90. Ficino, In Phaedonem, p. 1392: ‘Quod quidem patet ex eo, quod non dicit animam feri bestiam, sed induere, subire, transire’. I thank Stephen Gersh for the insightful comments on Ficino’s use of these verbs here. Tr. by H. N. Fowler, in Plato, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Cambridge [MA] and London: Harvard University Press, 1914, p. 283. Ficino, In Phaedonem, p. 1392: ‘Certe hic Plato signifcat quod vult Proclus, scilicet inter corpus aethereum, quod et immateriale est et simplex et sempiternum, atque corpus terrenum, quod est materiale compositumque, et ad breve perdurans, esse corpus aereum, materiale quidem, sed quodammodo simplex et longioris aevi, in quo animae diutius habitent etiam post discessum, quod hoc dissoluto, corpus iterum compositum induantur, videlicet si purgatae non sint: si vero purgatae, cum solo aethereo caelum petant’.

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106 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. 305–7 [In Plotinum, p. 280; Opera omnia, p. 1710]: ‘Oportet igitur ex Timaei sententia dicere hominis animam quae peccando in rationem perversam imaginationemque vehementiorem prolapsa est post obitum mox in aerio corpore quod nunc etiam possidet eadem ipsa cogitationis perversitate vehementiaque torqueri inter infmos daemones similibus animam stimulis subpungentes quousque, tantae angustiae causam recognoscens fuisse aversionem ipsam ab intellectu, paulatim revertetur ad ipsum quod tunc per pauciora distracta planius quam nunc animadvertere potest’. See Timaeus of Locri, On the Nature of the World and the Soul, pp. 84–6, tr. by T. H. Tobin, Chico [CA]: Scholars Press, 1985, pp. 71–3. 107 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.4.1. 108 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 409 [In Plotinum, p. 395; Opera omnia, p. 1740]: ‘In utraque anima post obitum humanorum memoria remanet, sed in inferiore cum perturbatione – praesertim quando superiori non prorsus obtemperaverit – in superiore vero sine perturbatione – praesertim quando talia parvi penderit. Item in corpore aerio reminiscimur mortalium quamplurimum, in caelesti pauciorum, extra caelum paucissimorum. Recordari vero illic pauciorum non provenit ex debilitate memoriae sed ex attentione circa meliora negligente deteriora, nisi quatenus haec per illa conspiciuntur’. 109 Ibid., p. 411 [ibid., p. 396; ibid.]: ‘Anima corpus omne vel caeleste quandoque exuta et mente divina tunc formata attentissime divina conspicit simul cuncta sine discursu: ideo dicitur non recordari rerum humanarum’. On memory being associated with the spiritual body see the myth of Hercules and his idolum, in Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.27. See also ibid., IV.3.32 and VI.4.16. See Allen, ‘Life as a Dead Platonist’, in Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy, ed. by M. J. B. Allen, V. Rees, and M. Davies, Leiden: Brill, 2001, pp. 159–78, at pp. 170–1. 110 Ibid., p. 415 [ibid., p. 398–9; ibid.]: ‘Descendit tandem in corpus caeleste quando suam ipsam in se explicat multitudinem, agens iam videlicet per intellectum rationem imaginationem. Tunc et sui rerumque suarum ita ferme iam reminiscitur quemadmodum apud homines consueverat, scilicet cum per rationis agitationem – quamvis ibi celerrimam – tum per imaginationis formationes atque simulacra’. 111 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.4.5, IV, p. 149. See above, p. 112 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, pp. 417–19 [In Plotinum, p. 400; Opera omnia, p. 1741]: ‘Agnoscunt igitur in caelo se invicem animi, amici praesertim atque quondam noti, cum per ipsos motus affectusque vividos animorum tum per corpora quae ibi habere possunt fguram huiusmodi similem in materia liquida cedente multo magis animo quomodocumque formatori quam terrena materia nunc affectibus animae. Tum vero si corpora illic orbicularia sint, differentia tamen erunt indifferentibus signa indiciaque differentium animorum sive in fgura (ut diximus) sive magnitudine, qualitate, motu, gestu, nutu, luce – quemadmodum ft in oculis ex affectibus animorum et in variis nubibus fgurae differentes atque colores. Sunt qui velint caelicolas inter se voces edere, nam et caelos posse sonare. Saltem vero mutuis inter se nutibus colloquentur’. 113 See Corrias ‘The Imagination and Memory’, p. 108. 114 Ibid., XV.13.4, V, p. 153. 115 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 309 [In Plotinum, p. 280; Opera omnia, p. 1711]: ‘[animam] supra terram evigilare, pristinumque sui statum animadvertere, ut per omnia saecula quasi vitae unius aetates rationalis animi persona sit eadem’.

4

The Imagination at Work Perceiving, Remembering, and Giving Birth

1. The Two Souls and Their Faculties It would be hard, if not impossible, to decide which are the most philosophically poignant passages in the Enneads, for each sentence evokes a keen sense of philosophical depth. The following passage, of which I have already quoted a part in Chapter 1, however, describes the core of Plotinus’s metaphysical anthropology with a particularly graceful force and clarity: The soul is many things, and all things, both the things above and the things below down to the limits of all life, and we are each one of us an intelligible universe, making contact with this lower world by the powers of soul below, but with the intelligible world by its powers above and the powers of the universe; and we remain with all the rest of our intelligible part above, but by the lowest vestiges of the soul we are tied to the world below, giving a kind of outfow from it to what is below, or rather an activity, by which that intelligible part is not itself lessened.1 The view of human nature encapsulated in this passage is the linchpin of Ficino’s philosophy and permeates and shapes not only the Commentary on Plotinus but also the Platonic Theology. One has to think only of the wellknown passage from Book 3, Chapter 2, where the rational soul is described as the centre of nature, ‘which possesses within itself images of things divine on which it depends, and these images are the reasons and paradigms of the lower entities which in some sense it produces’.2 This claim (which culminates in the oft-quoted defnition of the soul as ‘the knot and bond of the world’)3 reveals that Ficino’s Platonism was quintessentially Plotinian from the time of the Platonic Theology. Even though Plotinus identifes the essence of man unambiguously with the intellect, the locus of Forms,4 the soul, for him, is a very complex unity which exists and acts on different levels.5 We have noted that while he did not settle on a defnite hierarchy of faculties, Ficino took a real interest in this and re-organized them according to a specifc scheme across two souls: the anima prima – intellect, reason, and discerning imagination– and the anima

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secunda – confused imagination, the fve external senses, and the power of generation, or nature.6 Despite Ficino’s stress on the divide between the two souls and despite the well-ordained structure of psychic powers he provides, we should keep in mind that, as remarked by Stephen Gersh: Given the principle of soul’s omniformity, one should not think of the highest power as corresponding strictly to the soul’s transcendence, and the subsequent powers as corresponding strictly to its immanence, but rather like an unfolding of the sequence of these powers in accordance with the shift in the predominant modality from transcendence to immanence.7 In fact, Ficino points out that the faculties of the secondary soul derive from and depend on the primary soul8 and that their separation by no means implies the existence of two different living beings (animalia duo), ‘for the higher soul is, as it were, the form of the lower soul, and the latter, under the form and act of the former, operates naturally in the body’.9 Knowledge occurs, Ficino says, when, frst, the imagination (both as imaginatio confusa and as imaginatio discreta), and then, reason, work on the data provided by the fve external senses through a process of progressive abstraction. ‘Above the senses, which only observe (spectat) things’, Ficino writes, ‘there is an outward imagination which attentively looks at (respiciens) inner things; above this faculty, which considers only things coming from the outside, stands reason, which, in addition, examines (conspicit) internal things’.10 In representing these relationships, Ficino employs different verbs to indicate the increasing sophistication of the soul’s knowledge as it becomes increasingly detached from the external world. While the senses perceive without paying attention to things, the imagination takes a longer and more intense look at them and prepares the way for the inquiring activity of reason. For example, the verb Ficino applies to the imagination is respicere, which means ‘to look attentively’, but also ‘to look back’ and ‘to care for’.11 In Ficino’s account, therefore, the imagination is a faculty which lingers on the object of knowledge, goes back a second time to the perceived images and, as it were, ‘cares for’ them. At a later stage, the inquiring gaze of reason examines the object in all its different parts and then subsumes these parts under a unitary representation. In other words, reason sees the object as a whole and is able to elaborate concepts of things. The verb conspicere derives from con-specere, that is, ‘to see together’ and evokes the idea of conceptus (i.e. from con-capere, i.e. ‘to hold together’), denoting the unifcation of a plurality of data into a single representation.12 Ficino uses conspicere to refer to the ability of reason to go beyond the knowledge of particular things and understand general ideas.13 The intellect, fnally, ‘looks upon itself (inspicit) while seeing all things – I do not mean the appearances (fgurae) of things, but the things themselves – so that its knowledge is the most true’.14 It contains all reality within itself; and ‘if by touching itself it reaches all things (si se ipsum tangens contigit omnia), without doubt it is

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also all things (ipse nimirum est et omnia)’.15 When it looks within itself (inspicere derives from in-specere, ‘to look inward’), it sees itself and the world at the same time.16 As Ficino has it: When we say that the intellect knows itself, we do not divide it into two things, one of which knows the other, while the other is only known; otherwise, something would not be able to know itself as the same thing, but instead one thing would know another thing. We, however, mean that, by knowing itself, the intellect also comprehends itself together with the known object. The senses know things which are outside the soul; the imagination, in addition, knows things which are in the soul, that is, the actions of the senses; reason, furthermore, investigates itself. Finally, the intellect understands itself. And, by means of a kind of complete participation, reason, too, from time to time, knows itself.17 The soul’s ascent towards the intellect culminates in the recognition of knowledge as a pre-existing reality, actualised, but not produced, by recent events: Sense perception, in itself, only senses (sentit); in the imagination, by contrast, it thoroughly senses (persentit), in addition that it is sensing. In the same way, the imagination in itself imagines (imaginatur); in reason, it perceives (percipit) that it is imagining. Reason in itself thinks by means of arguments (argumentatur); in the intellect, it observes (animadvertit) that it is thinking by means of arguments. Our intellect in itself understands (intelligit); in the divine [Intellect], it observes (animadvertit) its own understanding: the divine [Intellect] in its own living essence possesses and discovers everything (possidet et invenit omnia)’.18 The concept of a dual personhood becomes even more complicated if one takes into account that in Ficino’s interpretation, even within the same soul – prima or secunda – each faculty is divided into a higher and a lower level of operation. In Enneads IV.3.31, when speaking of the relationship between imagination and memory, Plotinus says that it is only when the higher and lower souls are separated that ‘we can grant that each of them will have an imagining power’,19 on which Ficino comments: ‘If our two souls were separated from one another by place, they will obviously have two imaginations and two memories’.20 Ficino expands upon this notion in Plotinus. For the imagination is not the only faculty he divides into two different levels of actualisation – imaginatio confusa and imaginatio discreta. He also postulates the existence of two kinds of reason and two kinds of senses. Indeed, the idea that as an integral unity of body and soul we are ‘the things above and the things below’, and that each single aspect of our psychic life is amphibian in its own right, suited Ficino’s philosophical anthropology exceptionally well. For the idea that each of our faculties can actualise its function to a greater or lesser degree seemed to validate his

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cherished belief that the many-sidedness and dynamism of man were not acquired characteristics, but aspects of the makeup of the soul, inherent to its original nature.21 He tells the reader: You will note in the meantime that there is, in a general way, a twofold power in the soul. One power is as though private: that is proper to one of the parts of the soul. It is this in order rightly to perform any of its tasks as its own function. The other power is as though public: that is, in order that all the parts might rightly harmonize with one another, the reason being ruled by the mind, the irrational powers subsequently obeying the reason, and among the latter concupiscence being subordinated to audacity.22 The perfect harmony between metaphysics and anthropology described by Plotinus provided the ideal armature on which Ficino built his philosophy of man.23 In another famous passage from the Platonic Theology, he claims that the rational soul ‘circles perpetually back to itself, by unfolding its powers from the highest powers, through the middle and down to the lowest, and likewise by enfolding them again commencing from the lowest, through the middle and up to the highest’.24 The Plotinian voice speaking here is unequivocal. In the commentary on the Enneads, however, the soul acquires an additional ability, i.e. that of using all its powers on two different levels, i.e. more or less closely to Intellect or matter. Of all the soul’s faculties, as we noted, the most prominent one, for Ficino, was reason.25 For reason refected, on an epistemological level, the unique metaphysical status of man, located midway between the divine and the world of generation. Moreover, by seeing together (conspicere) and by producing concepti, reason ensured the soul’s unitary life, a function which could not be performed by any other faculty, for while the act of the intellect remains absolutely ‘unchanged around unchangeable things (circa immobilia prorsus immobilis)’ and the chameleon-like imagination is changeable around changeable things (mobilis circa mobilia)’, reason is ‘changeable around unchangeable things (circa immobilia mobilis)’.26 Reason proceeds in a circle from the outer reaches of sensory perception to the threshold of intellectual life and back again.27 In other words, while the intellect is completely detached from bodily life, reason remains connected to it, almost always keeping some images of sensible things before its eyes. At the same time, though, reason has the inherent ability to convert its life into intellect (thus, Intellect), leaving behind all images of particular things.28 The most important point here is that what in the Enneads is a bi-directional movement, in Ficino’s interpretation becomes a clearly defned bidimensionality. Ficino explains that Plotinus assumes the existence of a ‘twin reason’ (gemina species rationis): one ‘speculative’ (ratio speculativa), which ascends towards the intellect, and the other ‘active’ (ratio activa),

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which descends towards the imagination.29 The well-being of the individual, Ficino explains, results from the interplay of these two reasons with the intellect: Since it is impossible that one person is happier than another solely as a result of the same intellect, given that we all always act similarly according to the same [intellect], this one will not be happier than that one if in this one the speculative reason, which is naturally close to the intellect, converts itself completely to the mind. This, however, cannot likewise be said of the active reason, because it is more distant from the mind, it is occupied with work and, in some way, serves external things. It is clear that these reasons are different in kind, not only because speculative reason thinks about the works of nature, while active reason thinks about the works of human beings, but also because the natural ability of each very rarely and perhaps never come together in the same mind.30 The Plotinian reason, however, is a ‘twin reason’ not so much by nature as by the different use which the soul makes of each type. To complicate things further, Ficino suggests that both ratio speculativa and ratio activa are in turn divided into different levels of operation: ratio speculativa according to how it is employed by the intellect,31 ratio activa by working farther or closer to the imagination.32 However, if one considers reason as a whole and as opposed to the intellect, its functions as both ratio speculativa and ratio activa appear to follow the imagination very closely. Ficino suggests that in light of Plotinus’s belief that true life and being are only the life and being of intellect, it follows that not only the images produced by the imagination, but also the results of reason’s discursive activity (both on a speculative and a practical level) can be fanciful and deceptive. Hence, he calls reason an ‘imaginary soul’ (anima imaginaria), because, unlike the intellect, it relies on the use of images.33 Nonetheless, because of its epistemological potential and the different levels on which it operates, reason, for Ficino, is an extraordinarily elastic faculty. Oscillating between our practical and theoretical lives, reason engages with the stormy dimension of human affairs, while at the same time reaching up to the doorsteps of noetic life, from where it can catch a glimpse of Intellect’s static and ecstatic contemplation. There, it can aim to become ‘unchanging around unchangeable things’. Less elastic and much less independent, yet likewise twofold, is senseperception, which is in turn divided into an internal (higher) sensus and an external (lower) sensus. The external sensus belongs to the συναμφότερον and is a kind of blind perception, almost completely engrossed in the lowest activities of the body, while the internal sensus is free from passions, acts with a certain degree of awareness and belongs to the soul.34 Ficino says:

116 The Imagination at Work We reckon sense perception to be twofold, a lower one in which neither the nature or quality of a thing is discerned, but only a kind of affection deriving from it is felt; this is a dull sense, as in people who are asleep, and is consistent with the life of plants. The higher one, by contrast, which fully perceives the nature and quality [of things], is characteristic solely of living beings.35 Finally, the higher sensus is identifed with the imagination: The faculty of sense, that is, the imagination of the higher soul, is not concerned with sense impressions, but instead directs itself towards the senses of the living subject; it does not feel the passions of the body directly, but immediately perceives the senses suffering with the body. The imagination of the higher soul is entirely involved with images, actions, passions, and the lower senses; and it does not receive any destructive passion from them, but very often is touched by a certain fatherly affection towards the living body.36 If reason held a special place in Ficino’s theory of knowledge in that it represented the cognitive counterpart of the soul’s privileged ontological status, the imagination played a no less important role. Considered as a faculty which moves between conditions of heightened perception, on the one hand, and the vital dispositions which rule the lower parts of the soul and govern the body, on the other, the imagination was essential to inspire and excite reason. With its wide cognitive spectrum, this faculty expanded the range of human consciousness. As a mirror refecting sense perceptions and thoughts it allowed the soul to access both the subterranean activities of the body and the lofty regions of the intellect.37

2. The Soul’s Two Imaginations In the Platonic Theology, Ficino turns to a powerful example to explain the difference between sensory experience and the imagination: the reaction of the soul to an incision by a surgeon in the body of a patient. When the skin is cut, he explains, the sense of touch, which is present throughout the limbs, feels that the fesh has been broken and, so, the spiritus becomes contracted. He says ‘pain occurs in the fesh, suffering in the spirit, sensation in the touch, and sharing the experience of pain, or condolence I might call it, in the imagination’.38 The imagination, therefore, does not feel the pain – for sensation pertains only to the fve senses – but notices this feeling and, by taking it into account, makes the soul aware that the fesh has been cut. By taking notice of sensations, this faculty informs the soul about physical changes and, in this way, keeps the soul and the body together.39 Hence the imagination ‘rises above matter higher than sensation, both because in order to think about bodies it does not need their presence, and also because as one faculty it can do whatever all the fve senses do’.40 The infuence of Plotinus on the

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account of the imagination which Ficino gives in the Platonic Theology is palpable, further confrming the fact that the Florentine was heavily relying on the Enneads long before the 1480s. Here the imagination is subdivided into the higher phantasia and the lower imaginatio. While imaginatio puts the fragments of sensation together (colligit) and, from them, assembles the image of an object, phantasia discerns (discernit) the substantial qualities of the object. Like Aristotle’s sensus communis, imaginatio joins the data individually received by the fve external senses into a single representation but is not able to identify its object as a particular substance. What the imaginatio produces are simulacra: confused images of things. Phantasia, by contrast, works on the images put together by imaginatio and translates them into mental entities. In doing so, it already operates on a pre-intellectual level, in the sense that it is able to produce particular concepts, which ‘are called, as it were, the incorporeal intentions of bodies (incorporales quodammodo corporum intentiones vocantur)’.41 Phantasia, for Ficino, is a kind of imaginative judgement, a primordial form of conceptualisation, which can identify individual substances as such, as well as their qualities. Nonetheless, it is still attached to corporeality inasmuch as it is not able to free its judgement from the image of a particular substance seen at a particular time and place; hence, it cannot produce a general idea of substance, i.e. a conceptus. Ficino gives the following example: when Plato is absent, Socrates thinks about him through his inner imagination (per internam imaginationem): the colour and shape which he had seen, the gentle voice he had heard, and everything else he had perceived through the fve senses. Imaginatio, therefore, recreates the visual and auditory representation of Plato when he is not there, but knows nothing about the person to whom the colour, shape, and voice belong. When phantasia comes into play, Socrates realises that the colours, shape, and voice belong to Plato, ‘a fne-looking, good man, and a most cherished disciple’.42 Imaginatio, Ficino explains, ‘has no idea at all of the substance of a thing: it sees only its surface and external representation’. Phantasia, by contrast: [h]as at least an inkling of substance when it declares: ‘That is a man over there and it is Plato’. And it even seems to be dreaming of the incorporeal when it judges Plato to be beautiful, good, a friend, and a disciple. For beauty, goodness, friendship, and the discipline of discipleship are all incorporeal, not evident to the senses or the imagination (imaginatio).43 In his commentary on the Enneads, as we mentioned, Ficino confrms the difference between phantasia and imaginatio by referring to Plotinus’s distinction between an imaginative power which pertains to the higher soul and another which belongs to the lower soul: You should observe that there is a twofold imagination in us: the frst being in the rational soul, sharing in discursiveness and judgement, and being in a certain manner similar to the reason; the second being

118 The Imagination at Work impressed by the former in our soul or in our irrational life. This latter imagination does not so much employ discursive reason as it is driven by an impulse that is, although internal, in relation to the body’s passions. Moreover, this imagination is the causal principle with respect to the other senses, as though being a common sense.44 Commenting on Enneads IV.3.28, Ficino reiterates the distinction between a higher and a lower imagination: ‘There are two imaginations in us: one in the irrational life and the other in the rational soul, the former being the highest of the sensitive and the latter the lowest of the cogitative functions’.45 Here, however, he adds an important qualifcation: ‘Noticing (animadversio)’, he says, ‘pertains to both’.46 This statement introduces one of the most important functions performed by the imagination (for both Plotinus and Ficino): providing the soul with awareness.

3. The Imagination and Conscious Apprehension The link between imagination and awareness is of decisive importance in Plotinus’s psychology, for the soul needs immaterial images of material impressions to become aware of both the external world and the body. Likewise, without images of thoughts, the thinking process would remain unconscious. As Edward W. Warren has pointed out, ‘thinking is one thing, knowing that we think is another’.47 The soul, for Plotinus, acquires consciousness only of those thoughts which are visualised by the imagination. All other thoughts remain unknown. The imagination, therefore, by transforming both sensations and thoughts into images, performs a twofold epistemological task: alerting the mind to the silent life of the body and giving it access to the remote regions of Intellect.48 In both cases, the imagination plays a key role in conscious experience. Following Plotinus, Ficino considers the transformation of the bodily and intellectual life into images to be the prerequisite for embodied conscious apprehension (animadversio, which translates the Greek ἀντίληψις). In Enneads I.1.11, Plotinus affrms that ἀντίληψις takes place in the middle part of the soul, which he calls τὸ μέσον. Unless either the life of the intellect or that of the body reach this part, he says, we do not become aware of our thoughts and sensations: We do not always use all that we have, but only when we direct our middle part towards the higher principles or their opposites, or to whatever we are engaged in bringing from potency or state to act.49 What this middle part corresponds to, Plotinus does not say.50 However, its existence between the intellect and the body is crucial, for it allows conscious apprehension to happen without making our ‘true self’ the subject of such apprehension. For this would downgrade the self from the infrangible unity of active contemplation to the dichotomous dimension of selfknowledge.51 Under the strong infuence of Plotinus, Ficino develops this

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idea in the Platonic Theology, where he presents awareness as taking place in an intermediate region between the intellect and the body, identifying this region ‘in between’ with the imagination: ‘Although our power of desiring may feel hunger or thirst, we do not therefore notice it until the “intention” of such a passion crosses over into the imagination’.52 In the Commentary on Plotinus, however, he is less positive about the possibility of assigning the source of the soul’s awareness to a single faculty and wonders whether τὸ μέσον is reason or the imagination. Convinced that the distinctive characteristic of man is his ability to use discursive thought, but aware that the content of the soul must be visually represented for the mind to perceive it, he examines the extent to which the imagination participates, along with reason, in producing awareness. Plotinus had explained that, when our intellect is constantly occupied in the contemplation of divine things, there is no awareness of the body. Likewise, when the lower faculties of the soul are completely absorbed in the life of the body, there is no noticing of the intellect. This, Plotinus said, is what happens to children, whose imagination is constantly preoccupied with the necessary production of bodily growth and does not refect the contents of reason. As a result, reason turns itself completely to the intellect, far beyond the outer reaches of ἀντίληψις. This explains why, in childhood, we are not aware of our intellectual life and, as suggested by Plotinus, ‘only a few gleams come to the compound from the higher principles’.53 Ficino takes up this point, stating that, when we are little, we are not conscious of the fact that we have an intellect, or a reason: since the imagination which belongs to the higher soul – the function of which is to enable conscious apprehension in us – is completely converted to the opposite, it does not take those images of understandings which it refects to the eyes of reason as if in a mirror.54 Once the imagination refects images of the incorporeal, Ficino goes on, ‘reason is accustomed and hence we are accustomed too [as, for Ficino, we are our rational soul] to noticing the acts of both the intellect and reason’.55 Now, at this point, Ficino identifes τὸ μέσον with the imagination: They call, then, this imagination the middle part in us. It is the middle part between our rational and irrational powers and, as the middle part, receives images from both.56 Nonetheless, Ficino did not want to assign sole responsibility for the soul’s conscious apprehension to the imagination, for there is no consciousness unless reason recognises the images refected by the imagination as its own images. Thus, he says that Plotinus sometimes also calls reason the ‘middle part’.57 In fact, on this point Ficino is very punctilious and keen to clarify the exact roles of reason and imagination in enabling animadversio. He says that if we consider τὸ μέσον with regards to the soul alone, τὸ μέσον

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corresponds to reason; if we speak of the συναμφότερον, by contrast, τὸ μέσον is the imagination. Conscious apprehension usually takes place through the joint action of these two intermediate powers: ‘for the imagination almost refects images, as it were, but then reason wisely understands this refection (imaginatio enim, quasi refectit imagines: ratio vero refexionem sagaciter apprehendit)’.58 Hence, in Ficino’s interpretation of Plotinus’s ἀντίληψις, reason plays an essential role, for it is the sole faculty which performs ἀντίληψις. The imagination, however, makes available to reason the objects of ἀντίληψις. We would never know what we looked like if there were no mirrors in which we could see our refected image; and, similarly, there would be no rational apprehension of our sensory perceptions and thoughts, if these were not visualised by the imagination: Just as the eye is enclosed by the face, so, too, reason is enclosed by the mind. And just as the eye does not see the face, nor does it perceive the motions of the face unless the rays of the face are directed to a mirror positioned at a certain angle in front of us, and from there the mirror displays an image (if the mirror can be said to have an image), so, too, reason, like the eye, does not see the mind, nor does it perceive that the mind is acting (although the mind is always in action), unless its activity causes some changes in the imagination, which, although different with respect to its origins, has turned towards that act.59 ‘Recognition (agnitio) follows cognition (cognitio)’, Ficino explains, ‘as something which comes afterwards and perhaps attending on and accompanying cognition’, so that it often ‘happens that, because of a certain distraction of the mind, the previous action becomes somewhat weaker’.60 Agnitio, moreover, relies on a form (species), which comes after reason. In other words, recognition and conscious apprehension take place when a form in the imagination refers to a form in reason: I have no doubt that this faculty which accompanies what comes afterwards is the imagination itself. Similarly, we call ‘image’ a form which follows the frst form.61 The imagination, Ficino makes clear, deals with external forms (adventitiae) and creates images which are always different (semper varias fngit), causing the soul to learn new things.62 It also deals with ‘images of natural things’ (imagines naturalium), by means of which ‘the soul, as if astonished, directs its attention to, and becomes aware of, what is happening in the reason and the intellect’.63 It is through images that the soul is able to take notice of the outside world, including its own body. As we shall see, images refected in matter force the soul out of the intelligible world − where all things are

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intuited in ecstatic contemplation, and there is no need to learn what is always known – and plunge it into the fow of time, where learning and discovering new things marks the inexorable difference between the moment before and the moment after that learning act or discovery. Phantasia and imaginatio, however, relate to the passing of time in different ways: Through the intellect, [the soul] is always wide awake in eternity; through the life-giving power, it always acts in a temporal way; through the imagination which is near to the living nature, it for the most part lives in time; through reason, as being close to the mind, it lives for the most part in eternity; through the other imagination, which is immediately subject to reason, it alternates equally between the two and presents us sometimes with images of eternal things and at other times of temporal ones.64 Perception of time relies on the soul’s imaginative power, which not only presents the succession of events to the soul; it also preserves images of these events. For there would be no past without images. And there would be no memory. As Ficino has it: ‘the imagination is naturally recollective in both cases (imaginatio memor naturaliter sit in utraque)’.65 In fact, Plotinus connects very closely the imagination and memory which, he says, arises only when the soul has abandoned the life beyond-time of Intellect. As Ficino explains: ‘nothing new can occur there [i.e. in Intellect] either externally or internally that should be preserved and revisited. Moreover, there is no change from potency to act there, the function of recollection pertaining to soul’.66 Memory comes into play only when the soul leaves intuitive understanding behind and starts acting according to reason and the imagination.

4. The Imagination and Memory In a well-known passage from Enneads IV, Plotinus claims that memory ‘is either thinking or imagining’,67 which implies the distinction between intellectual memory, or ἀνάμνησις (translated by Ficino as reminiscentia), and sensible memory, or μνήμη (translated as memoria). Ἀνάμνησις is the memory of intelligible realities, μνήμη the memory of sensible impressions.68 It is important to note that ἀνάμνησις is not a form of recollection, but an inner conversion through which the soul recovers its ‘noetic self’:69 The soul must not be said to remember, either, in the sense in which we are speaking of remembering, the things which it possesses as a part of its nature, but when it is here below it possesses them and does not act by them, particularly when it has just arrived here. But as for its activity, the ancients seem to apply the terms ‘memory’ and ‘recollection’ to the souls which bring into act what they possessed. So this is another kind

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Ἀνάμνησις is not the recovery of what is lost, as in Plato, but instead, the turning of the soul’s attention to what has always been there but has been – for some time − obscured.71 In Plotinus’s epistemological framework the stage at which the imagination visualises thoughts (and the soul apprehends them in an act of selfconsciousness) is of course less perfect than the intellect’s contemplation of Forms. Let me borrow Danny Muñoz-Hutchinson’s particularly apt defnitions and say that the subject of the frst action (visualisation and recognition) is the ‘dianoetic self’, while the subject of the second action (imageless contemplation) is the ‘noetic self’.72 The noetic self cannot be said to remember in a strict sense, for it cannot ‘re-collect’ thoughts which it has never lost. As a result, the main issue, in the Enneads, is not how the soul can recover the ideas, but how it can take notice of them. Mνήμη, too, is an active power which struggles to re-activate what has been temporarily obscured, in this case, sense-perceptions. In this re-activation process, the imagination has a double role: preserving the images of sense objects even when the soul does not ‘see’ them, and refecting those images when the soul, fnally, turns its attention to them: Nothing will prevent a perception from being a mental image (φάντασμα) for that which is going to remember it, and the memory (μνήμη) and the retention (κατοχή) of the object from belonging to the image-making power, which is something different: for it is in this that the perception arrives at its conclusion, and what was seen is present in this when the perception is no longer there.73 The imagination is therefore the conditio sine qua non for the recognition of our embodied past as well as of the eternal present of our noetic life. Ficino adopts Plotinus’s distinction between a memory which belongs to the senses (memoria in sensu) and a memory of the mind (memoria mentis). He, too, believes that the frst kind of memory corresponds to the imagination: When we place memory in sense, we situate it in the inner sense: that is, the imagination, for the latter revisits and preserves absent things. Where imagination is more powerful, memory is stronger, especially if quality of body and meditation contribute to the same effect.74 As regards memoria mentis, in the Platonic Theology Ficino describes the intellectual struggle with which we retrace the different epistemological steps of a previous reasoning in search of an idea we have forgotten:

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Our mind once it has formed certain defnitions within, whether of shapes, or numbers, or powers [virtutes] or angels, following one upon another in order, thereafter it can scarcely recall the frst defnition without taking up the second and the third [...] with diffculty unravels what it had woven together beforehand.75 In other words, memoria mentis is midway between the labours of reason and the effortless intuitions of the intellect.76 In his commentary on the Phaedrus, for example, the highest type of memory is described as the stable in which the charioteer-intellect stops his horses and nourishes them with ambrosia and nectar.77 This is to say that it is by remembering divine things that the intellect strengthens its lower powers and makes the whole life of the soul more complete. The semantic range of Ficino’s memoria mentis includes both the intellect’s discernment of intelligible realities and the process of recovering information through the mental effort of reason. Both types of memoria mentis are superior to memoria in sensu, which is still too closely connected to images coming from the external world. Species, he says, do not need images in order to be preserved, ‘since even the champions themselves of images acknowledge this’.78 Indeed, memoria mentis ‘hurries from species to sundry species with much greater ease and speed than the interior sense [i.e. the imagination] is wont to do, when, in remembering, it is gradually brought back to earlier images’.79 Hence, he remarks: Though we need the appropriate images to understand the common natures of bodies, yet to intuit the divine forms we never customarily use their appropriate images but rather the very natures that the images accompany.80 Ficino, like Plotinus, foregrounds the independence of the mind from the imagination in the intuition of Forms, but his understanding of sensible memory is more fully developed than we fnd in Plotinus. Memoria in sensu, he believes, can stretch from the conscious remembering of sense objects to the pre-conscious mechanisms of organic life. For even animals and plants follow a sort of vegetative imagination in achieving pleasure and nourishment. Afterwards they ‘remember’ the path followed by their imaginations. In his Philebus commentary, Ficino says that more perfect animals such as dogs, horses, and elephants: receive things from the consideration of the inner imagination over and beyond the external senses. For they seek something from both: to enjoy the delight of the sense and to be delighted by the inner phantasy and memory. This is obvious with monkeys and playful dogs, musical birds and ants. It even appears with plants. Their nature – eager as it were

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The Imagination at Work for the pleasure of the external senses – paints and forms the body with artful shapes and with the countless species and variety of colour as if by some conscious art of the inner phantasy.81

The vegetative dimension of the imagination plays an important part in Ficino’s general account of this faculty, which, for him, is the instrument of conscious experience and the locus of our memories. But it is also a prolifc force which continuously shapes and modifes immaterial life (knowledge) and material life (the body), transforming the one into the other. In his article ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons: Marsilio Ficino’s Theory of the Imagination’, Guido Giglioni describes Ficino’s understanding of the imagination’s role in the soul–body relationship in a particularly cogent way: the human body is a creation of the imagination, both as an obiectum (an object of representation) and a subiectum (a subject of material transformations), in that the imagination does not limit itself to representing the life of the body to the rational and intellective faculties of the soul, but it fashions the very anatomical structures, the physiological processes, and the experience of falling ill and recovering.82 Indeed, as we have seen in Chapter 2, from a Platonic point of view, the life of the body can be regarded as an image of the rational soul, a position deeply rooted in Platonic metaphysics.83 We shall also see that, as Giglioni argues, the soul shapes and reshapes the body according to the forms of its imagination. Beforehand, however, it is worthwhile to say a few things about Ficino’s lucid exposition of the metaphysical relationship between immaterial and material forms in his commentary on Enneads III.6, ‘On the Impassibility of Incorporeals’. This brief excursus will be helpful to contextualise Ficino’s ‘physiology of the imagination’, to borrow another felicitous expression from Giglioni.84

5. The Metaphysics of the Imagination and the Life of the Body Ficino claims that the ontological priority of the incorporeal over the corporeal – the fact that ‘natural things are not true beings’ and that matter ‘is nonbeing and seems to have forms which it does not truly have, in the manner of a mirror’85 – is refected in the sublunary world by the vulnerability of material bodies to injury. For despite appearing more resistant than immaterial bodies to external action, they are, in fact, much more fragile. When material bodies are struck, Ficino explains, after being shattered into pieces, they are unable to recover their original shape, ‘due to their unsuitability to motion and the powerlessness of their nature (propter ad motum ineptitudinem ineffcacemque naturam)’.86 By contrast, more subtle bodies, although they apparently yield more easily to blows, due to an extraordinary ability

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very swiftly evade external action by subterfuge and, with the same ability, immediately return to their original shape.87 That incorporeal forms are superior to bodies is evident to everyone, says Ficino, for example, very unskilled horsemen tire the horses they ride with their weight. Likewise, listless bodies tend to be very burdensome to pregnant women.88 The opposite disposition of corporeal and incorporeal bodies towards movement, which can be observed in the phenomenal world, is a refection of the ontological difference between the material and the immaterial. As Ficino sums up: Finally, since motion among things is a certain action and very much an indication of inner life and everywhere a trace of life, and since even those things that are least bodily are very liable to move, it follows that, to the extent that things come near to the incorporeal nature, to the same extent do they approach a life that possesses motion and power and therefore approximate to true being, whereas bodily things fall away from being.89 While immaterial forms are based on real being, material forms rely on the appearance of being (esse videri).90 Matter in itself is therefore nothing more than an ‘empty shadow of the frst being (inanis essentiae primae umbra)’,91 ‘clothed in some imaginary garment (quadam imaginaria vestis induat)’.92 This metaphysical premise is essential to understand how, for Ficino, the living being grows, falls ill, and recovers in line with the powerful actions of the immaterial soul on the material body. All anatomical structures, being of a more or less solid and resistant nature, must necessarily respond to the action of the soul, which is far superior in nature to blood, fesh, bones, and nerves. In the Platonic Theology, Ficino argues that ‘the human body yields to its soul with the utmost ease (corpus humanum animae suae cedit facillime)’, much more than the bodies of animals do.93 This explains why ‘men of great intelligence often have soft fesh and are slender and frequently sick’.94 And he continues: From the least of their motions their bodies are subject to the greatest change, witness what we have read about Aristotle, Pyrrho, Speusippus, Carneades, Chrysippus, and Plotinus. Plato perceived this in the Timaeus when he said that God could have made man’s body so strong that it would not be injured by external things, but that He wished to make it softer so that it would be better prepared for contemplation.95 Ficino goes on to say that Plato adds to this that ‘the motions of an extremely powerful rational soul both resolve and dissolve its body (corpus et resolvere et dissolvere)’.96 In our everyday life, he believes, the infuence of the soul on the physiological processes of the body is represented by the action of the imagination. For the frst sign of the extent to which the soul dominates the body comes

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from the emotions that go with the imagination, which Ficino, following the Stoic classifcation, divides into desire (appetitus), pleasure (voluptas), fear (metus), and pain (dolor).97 ‘According to the diversity of its emotions’, he explains, the imagination ‘produces different qualities in the body’s parts’:98 from wrath comes heat, redness, a bitter taste, and fux of the bowels; from fear comes cold and pallor; from sadness, sweating and a dark, ashen color; from anxiety, dryness and blackness. The emotions of the rational soul are the sources of these qualities because they often impel us towards some such qualities that are contrary to our prior complexion. And, as Hippocrates and Galen teach us, an emotion of long standing changes the body’s frst complexion and drags it towards its own nature. This is what the imagination does.99 When the soul’s emotions ‘are at their most intense’, he says, ‘they immediately and totally affect their own body and even sometimes another’s’.100 Ficino subscribes − though not explicitly − to Avicenna’s belief in the transitive action of the rational soul, which had been widely discussed during the Middle Ages.101 In his De anima Avicenna had claimed that the soul can work sine medio et in distans on matter, as in the case of the evil eye,102 which can affect other people’s bodies, or in the case of prophets, who have particularly pure souls which enable them to subject the entire world to themselves.103 On the same lines, Ficino claims that: ‘the rational soul itself forms its own likenesses within itself and immediately after fashions such bodies of animals and plants to itself’.104 The most common and famous example of the ability of the imagination to infuence and modify external bodies, including the bodies of other people, for Ficino, was the evil eye. In the Platonic Theology, he claims that when it is in the service of the desire to infict harm, the imagination becomes a pernicious instrument, especially if used against small children and others of an impressionable age.105 In a well-known example, he refers to the imagination of a sorcerer, which can cause a fever in the tender body of a child.106 ‘His imagining the fever’, Ficino explains, ‘arouses his febrile, that is, his choleric spirits, just as imagining intercourse arouses our seminal spirits and genitalia’.107 In De vita coelitus comparanda, he devotes a page to the infuence – often malefc – which the eye can have on the bodies of other people: I pass over fascinations achieved by a sudden glance and very passionate loves instantly kindled by rays from the eyes, which also are fascinations of a sort, as I prove in the book De amore. Nor will I mention how quickly an infamed eye afficts whoever looks at it and how a menstruating woman affects a mirror by looking in it. Isn’t it said that certain families among the Illyrians and Triballi, when they were angry,

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killed people by looking at them and that certain women in Scythia did this habitually?108 The same story about people capable of killing others by means of their eyes is also in the Platonic Theology, where, to explain this incredible ability, Ficino mentions the great power of the imagination (tanta imaginationis potentia), which is increased when ‘the vapours of the eyes are subject to the emotions of the soul’.109 Another example to which Ficino returns on different occasions in order to do justice to the power of images is the action of a pregnant mother’s emotions on the body of her unborn child: ‘How obviously does the greed of a pregnant woman affect the tender fetus with the stamp of what is on her mind!’.110 And in the Commentary on Plotinus he writes: If a pregnant woman, on account of an amazing force of imagination and feeling affects her fetus with a certain natural quality because of the fetus’ connection with the mother, and if again a similar motion of the soul immediately expresses qualities in the body proper to it, how is it surprising that something substantial could be born in the soul itself through a similar force. This is especially the case with the intellectual soul itself where activity, force, and affection are not adventitious and changeable but absolutely natural and frm. And one who sees and rejoices and desires is the most effective, his object is the most important and emanates powerfully.111 It should be noted that during the Renaissance, concerns about the infuence of a mother’s imagination on the fetus – often represented as pernicious – were widespread across medicine and natural philosophy and almost unanimously considered a physiological aspect of pregnancy.112 Hence, Ficino’s concerns were frmly grounded in medical theory, besides Platonic metaphysics. Nevertheless, he shows an interesting element of originality when he extends responsibility for the health of the infant’s body to the imagination of the infant’s father. In the Commentary on Plotinus, quoting Iamblichus, he claims that the very frst moment of each new life − i.e. ‘when the rational soul frst starts longing for a body (anima cum primum appetit corpus)’ – ‘can be understood only by divine inspiration (sola inspiratione divina [Iamblichus] putat posse comprehendi)’.113 The imagination of both parents, he claims, affects the new living being even before conception has occurred: from the moment when ‘the sperm is ejaculated into the womb (semen iacitur in matricem)’ and before it is ‘accumulated’ (collectum) there and becomes ‘solid’ (frmum). The imagination, in other words, affects the fetus long before the sperm ‘starts to be transformed and, perhaps, to congeal (permutari et forsan primo conglutinari)’. Immediately after the sperm has entered the womb, Ficino says, the process is carried on by ‘a voluntary motion of the parents (voluntarius parentum motus)’, ‘by the nature itself

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that is present to both of them (ipsa praesens utriusque natura)’ and by the ‘accompanying imagination (imaginatio comitans)’.114 Nor should this surprise us, because ‘the extent of the imagination’s power’, he points out, ‘is clearly attested by the pregnant women’s lust and in those animals which are born white from parents who imagine white things, as people say about peacocks’.115 Likewise, in the Platonic Theology, Ficino claims that ‘long after the semen has been ejaculated by a man into a fertile womb and he has departed (viro absente), the formative power remaining in the seed thrives there; it takes the place of the paternal soul and fashions the human body in the seed’.116 Just as a stone which has been forcefully thrown a long way preserves the expulsive power imparted to it by the thrower, so the father’s soul keeps its formative power in the seed even after the seed has been ejaculated. Hence, through its life-giving power but even more so through its sensitive power (vis sensitiva), ‘which is more eminent – through the emotions, that is, of the imagination’,117 the soul of the father acts on the fetus’s body along with that of the mother. The tremendous power of immaterial images on material forms can be better explained by keeping in mind Ficino’s notion of spiritus as a mediator between the soul and the body’s temperamentum and, most importantly, as the physical organ of the imagination.118 Hence, a brief digression on the role of the spiritus in enabling communications between the soul and the body is worthwhile. This semi-material substance which, as we said, Ficino often identifed with the ὄχημα,119 provided a physiological solution to the problem of the συναμφότερον, composed of two natures, the soul and the body, metaphysically incommensurable, yet apparently interconnected.120 The nexus between the spiritus and the idea of ‘commensurability’ or ‘proportion’ becomes evident in Ficino’s commentary on Enneads IV.5.1, where he claims that sense-perception would not be possible if the soul did not have a certain proportion (proportio quaedam) to the things it perceives.121 However, soul and body are naturally ‘unproportional’ and in order for the soul to perceive through the body, it has to fashion for itself, through its vegetative power, a visible body (manifestum corpus) and, especially, a spiritus.122 Hence the spiritus, having its origin in the vegetative power of the soul, is the end product of the continuous process of vital ‘concoction/ digestion’, i.e. metabolism, in one’s body, from ingested food and air to the extremely thin substance running through the nerves. Once this pneumatic substance has been, so to speak, manufactured, the soul: conforms this body and spirit to itself in order that the latter’s power and act may, through the instrumentality of the soul’s own body, stretch itself out sometimes to external things, and that the motions of external things may seem to have somehow reached the soul in coming to this spirit or body.123 The presence of the spiritus is essential to explain the physiology of perception, broadly understood as the meaningful processing of sensory

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information, from the reception of sensory data to the conscious apprehension of the imagination (ἀντίληψις or animadversio). In Enneads IV.4.23 Plotinus claims that in order for the soul to perceive the external world, there must be an intermediate nature between the subject and the object of knowledge, which is not identical to either but akin to both.124 Unlike Ficino, he identifes this middle element with the bodily organs: ‘If, certainly, what we are going to say now is sound, sense perception must take place through bodily organs’, and specifes that ‘the organ [of perception] must be either the body as a whole or some member of it set apart for a particular work’.125 In his commentary, as one would expect, Ficino associates this intermediate nature with the spiritus: When it [i.e. the soul] is joined to the body, it uses spirit as a kind of instrument that is mediate between itself and external things and makes a proportion between the two in which qualities or passions coming from outside turn into a spiritual and pure form that is close to soul to such an extent that the soul through this form stirs up the forms of sensible things that are hidden within it.126 Being the source of all corporeal motions, the soul could move external bodies, but could not, in turn, be moved by them.127 Through the imagination, it acted on the images of sensible objects imprinted on the spiritus, either by conceiving in itself new images or by recovering old ones and combining them together. The close relation between the imagination and the spiritus, however, goes beyond perception, for the spiritus, in Ficino’s view, accounts not only for sensory cognition, but for all material changes to the body in which the imagination is – to a lesser or greater extent – involved. The spiritus, therefore, is the locus of semi-immaterial forms (sense-perceptions, emotions, memories), but also the place where the materiality of the humours, blood, air, and digested food is, so to speak, ‘pneumatised’.128 A convincing example of the seminal role of the spiritus in transforming images into material forms is given in the Commentary on Plato’s ‘Symposium’, published in Latin in 1484 with the title De amore and in vernacular Italian in 1490 as Sopra lo amore. Here Ficino explains that the image of the beloved becomes impressed on the spiritus in the body of the lover, in this way absorbing the vapor of the lover’s blood. This provokes what Ficino calls the ‘souring of the blood’ (in Latin sanguinis perturbatio; in Italian rincerconimento del sangue), arousing the fever in the body of the lovesick.129 Intriguingly – and this is where we can really see the power of the imagination in action – Ficino claims that the sour blood, impressed with the image of the beloved, by fowing throughout the body reshapes the bodily features and makes them alike to those of the image which it carries. Consequently, the lover comes to resemble the beloved. A vivid and forceful description of this phenomenon is described in Chapter 8 of Speech 7, entitled ‘How Can the Lover Become Similar to the Beloved (Come può lo amante diventare simile allo amato)’:

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The Imagination at Work And so, none of you should be surprised to hear that a lover has assumed in his own body some likeness (similitudine) of his beloved. When pregnant women long for wine, they frequently think passionately about the wine they long for. This powerful act of the imagination stirs their inner spirits and, in doing so, paints (dipinge) upon them the image of the wine they long for. These spirits likewise move the blood and sculpt (scolpisce) the image of the wine in the tender substance of the embryo. But who is so unrealistic as not to know that a lover longs for his beloved more ardently than pregnant women long for wine? And he therefore thinks of his beloved more fervently and more steadfastly. Thus, it is no wonder that the beloved’s face, being sculpted (scolpito) in the lover’s heart, is painted (si dipinga) in his spirit and imprinted (si imprima) in his blood by his spirit. Will you therefore be surprised if blood which has been imprinted with a particular likeness sketches (disegni) that likeness on the parts of the body, so that eventually Lysias comes to resemble Phaedrus in certain colouring, features, feelings, or gestures?130

Here the plastic power of the imagination is described through specifc verbs, such as ‘to paint’, ‘to sculpt’, ‘to sketch’, and ‘to impress’. It is clear, for Ficino, that in episodes of lovesickness this faculty physically manipulates and transforms the spiritus like a sculptor’s chisel does with marble, or a painter’s brush on a canvas.131 The enormous infuence of the imagination on the psycho-somatic compound is, for Ficino, beyond doubt. This faculty works on various levels, from the conscious apprehension performed by the ‘dianoetic self’ to bodily processes such as sanguifcation and digestion. However, if the imagination can shape even the potentiality of material forms, reason, which is a far nobler faculty, can produce many great effects. Referring again to the power of the evil eye, for instance, in the Platonic Theology Ficino says: If the malefc imagination has such immense power, how much more immense do you suppose will be the power of the benefc reason? It will be at least double, because the reason rules the imagination and good triumphs over evil.132 This means that the real cause of all physical changes happening in the body is the rational soul, which works on and modifes matter by making use of the imagination and with the essential assistance of God, who, in Ficino’s system, remains the ultimate effcient cause. When reason performs its action under the guidance of God, it can free itself from the web of images and become emancipated from both the imagination and the body. For when the reason is dedicated totally to God and directed to the one work of bestowing a beneft, then the earlier natural desire of the soul

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joining it to its own body is fully remitted: released from its own body, the reason acts upon another.133 Miracles, for Ficino, can be explained by the action of the soul − turned completely upwards − on the external world. Men who possess a rational soul of this kind or have been purifed by eating appropriate food in moderation and by a pious education ‘are often the doctors of mankind and they instantly bestow benefts on the body to which they wish well, if, directed entirely towards God, they ardently long for [the benefts] with pious prayers’.134 The system of infuences proceeding from above can be explained with the following scheme: (1) God uses (i) the rational soul as the body’s lifegiving principle and (ii) reason as an instrument of his providence; (2) the rational soul, in turn, uses the imagination to act on the body. Thus, to a certain extent, the imagination too, albeit vicariously, gives life and form to the body. As Ficino says in the Platonic Theology: ‘the imagination, like the life-giving power, also forms its own body whenever it is troubled by the more painful emotions’.135 This faculty is, therefore, a potent force, and the action that it exercises on its own body and that of others can be tremendously effective, although it is clearly less forceful than the extraordinary power of the imagination of the Soul of the World, which operates on a cosmic level.

6. The Mirror of Dionysus: The Imagination and the Origin of Life Ficino refers to the idea of a cosmic imagination in his commentary on Enneads III.5.2 when he touches upon Plotinus’s view that love has two antithetical natures, better known as the doctrine of the two Aphrodites.136 Following Plato (Symposium 180c–185c), Plotinus distinguishes between a heavenly Aphrodite, who corresponds to the higher soul in her desire for eternal ideas, and an earthly Aphrodite, who represents the lower soul and is directed towards bodily love.137 In his commentary, Ficino explains that these goddesses are accompanied by twin loves138 and claims that the love in the lower soul is a powerfully generative substance which, in order to produce material beauty, makes use not only of its reproductive power (vis genitalis), but also of its imagination. This love, through the effective power of imagining, sometimes looks up to the divine form, and sometimes rouses, as far as it is able, both the world and things which are in the world towards the same divine form.139 The imagination, therefore, not only prompts the emergence of reality from the infrangible nature of Intellect to the multiplicity of the material world, but, by showing images of Forms, it also inspires things in this world to look up to the divine source of those images. The imagination, bound as it is to the body (if compared to reason or the intellect), is closely connected to birth and rebirth: as soon as a disembodied

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soul starts to imagine, it becomes infamed with desire for the body and is therefore dragged down towards the world of generation. This process is understood by Ficino as a loss of identity or as a ‘contraction’: once it starts using images, the soul replaces the all-embracing perspective of intellection with a fragmentary knowledge based on particular images. In his Commentary on the Phaedrus he writes: whenever its wings (the powers recalling it to its sublime activities) become less free, whenever, so to speak, it has neglected the world’s universal form and gazes more diligently on some particular province of the world and loves its life more ardently – being attracted to it by the imagination and vital power simultaneously – then the soul, in a way, contracts (quodammodo ft angustior).140 Interestingly, in his Argumentum to Book X of Plato’s Republic, Ficino calls upon the imagination to explain how, in the famous myth of Er, disembodied souls choose their next incarnations among the different ‘models of life’ (βίων παραδείγματα, exempla vitarum in Ficino’s translation), which a prophet ‘places in front of them (τίθησιν εἰς τὸ πρόσθεν σφ ν, coram ipsis disponit)’.141 These models, Ficino says, ‘belong to the imaginations (exempla vero ad imaginationes [pertinent])’.142 What he means is that the different lives on display upset or excite the imagination with images of what it will be if one is reborn, for example, as a nightingale, as a famous athlete, or as a swan. More specifcally, images of future possibilities provoke emotions connected to one’s disposition towards one life or another (fear, impatience, disgust, relief, etc.), which in turn awake the imagination and cause it to forge evocative representations of those possibilities: images and contrivances of a correlative life food into the imagination, and the emotions begin to boil up – just as with us a joyous imagination accompanies a corporal state that is sanguine, whereas an angry imagination accompanies a choleric state, a sad imagination a melancholic state, and a libidinous imagination accompanies a phlegmatic one.143 Reason acts upon these representations, judging which of the possibilities enacted by the imagination will constitute the optimal life for that particular soul before selecting it from among all the others. The role of the imagination, however, does not stop there. For when the soul is embodied, this faculty prompts a movement which is opposite to the one which attracted it down to earth: through images of the intelligibles, the imagination incites a desire for heavenly beauty, urging the soul to return from where it had come. A similar process, Ficino says, takes place in the Soul of World, where the imagination incites an outward movement, causing life to reach out and

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reproduce itself. In the commentary on Enneads II.2.3 he explains that at a cosmic level: the function of reproduction agrees with the imagination to such an extent that they move each other mutually. When it [i.e. life] is ready for reproduction, it imagines in this way. Similarly, but the other way around, when it imagines, it is readier to procreate.144 Whereas knowledge arises in the intellect through divine intuition and does not require images, in the world of generation, life and nature go together with the imagination, which is connected to them (vita et natura comitatur imaginationem sibi coniunctam).145 The imagination of the Soul of the World not only creates life but arranges it into the admirably teleological order which characterises the universe. For just as in our individual soul phantasia organizes the work of imaginatio into an orderly unit, in the Soul of the World the higher imagination, ‘thinking individual things in a rational way, seeing that it is closely connected to reason (rationaliter singula cogitans utpote quae proxime sit rationi coniuncta)’,146 governs the powerful, yet disorganised, explosion of life prompted by the lower imagination. More precisely, the ‘reproductive life’ (genitalis vita), by making use of the lower imagination (which is guided, in turn, by the higher imagination), ‘takes delight’ (fruens) in the Good, ‘desires it passionately’ (gestiens) and ‘exults in it’ (exultans). In this way, ‘it stirs up its own body [i.e. the material world] and leads it in a dance (corpus suum concitat, ducitque tripudio)’.147 However, this dance is still out of tune, so to speak, and not properly adjusted to the rhythm which governs the universe. It is only when the higher imagination ‘desires to turn itself towards the Good, and the Good itself is everywhere (circa bonum se versare desideret, ipsumque bonum sit ubique)’,148 that this choreography is re-arranged according to the beat of the divine pattern. Imagination and procreation are closely connected. In the Enneads, after having seen images of themselves refected into matter, ‘as in the mirror of Dionysus’, souls ‘come to be on that level with a leap from above (ἐκεῖ ἐγένοντο ἄνωθεν ὁρμηθεῖσαι, illic extiterunt desuper properantes)’.149 Plotinus here refers to the ancient, allegedly Orphic, myth of the ‘dismemberment’ (σπαραγμός) of the child Dionysus at the hands of the Titans, who had lured him into death by using different toys, including a mirror. With this myth, Plotinus intended to explain the apparently nonsensical phenomenon of embodiment. For why do souls change a life of pure delight outside the body for a life of captivity in the phenomenal world?150 His view is that through images in the mirror of matter, souls become attracted to the material realm into which they dive without a second thought (with the exception, of course, of that ‘something’ which remains ‘up there’).151 In Ficino’s interpretation, Plotinus calls ‘nature’ or the ‘vegetative power’ (vegetalis

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potentia) of the Soul of the World ‘Dionysius’, whose limbs are ‘the seminal reason-principles of things in that nature’.152 When the process of generation begins, these limbs become ‘here now divided more in themselves by the Titans’ who, he says, are the daemons in charge of generation.153 Now, for Plotinus, it is the soul’s middle part (τὸ μέσον) which succumbs to the enticement of the mirror.154 For Ficino, by contrast, it is unequivocally the imagination, which not only capitulates to the apparent delights of incarnated life but drags along into embodiment the other psychic powers, especially reason. Disembodied souls, he explains, notice the refections of the intelligibles in matter, ‘perhaps by looking at them with a certain direct gaze into nature and then by defecting that gaze into matter’.155 Consequently, the imagination ‘turns itself thus toward that place, and reason, immediately turns itself thither and away from intellect’.156 Both the imagination and reason do so not only by contemplating, but also by loving. In fact, love is the cause of the descent and, after the fall, also of remaining below.157 As in his interpretation of Plotinus’s view of the earthly Aphrodite, here Ficino appeals to the imagination as the force which is associated with love in the generation of new life. If love is the principle of life, the imagination is the faculty which arouses love in the soul, frstly, when it sees images of the intelligibles and infames the soul with the desire for matter; secondly, when it is lifted up by its higher part and communicates its passion for the Good and Beauty to the body. Whereas the intellect is impervious to the shimmering of refections, and reason, in discarnate souls, is mostly directed towards the intellect, the imagination looks in the opposite direction and fnds the hard-to-resist lures of the phenomenal world calling the soul from below. As a faculty of the Soul of the World at a universal level, and as a faculty of the human soul at an individual level, the imagination enables the connection between different and even opposite realities, facilitating the migration from one ontological status to another. What is more, for Ficino, the imagination is at the centre of an intricate web of connections which brings together the heavens and the earth, the stars and the spiritus, daemons and human souls. As in the myth of Dionysius-Zagreus, this faculty, like a mirror, is deemed to refect and retain images of other levels of life; it acts as the surface on which external daemons incessantly project the forms of their own imagining. In fact, Ficino gives a complex account of the relationships between the soul and the various levels of daemonic intervention, through the imagination. In doing so, he merges Plotinus’s view of personal daemons with the daemonology of Plotinus’s successors. His commentaries on Enneads II.3, ‘On Whether the Stars are Causes’ and Enneads III.4 ‘On our Allotted Guardian Daemon’, which deal very closely with questions surrounding astrological and daemonic infuences, are where Ficino’s Plotinus fully reveals his post-Plotinian soul, weaving the storyline of that ‘spineless syncretism’ which repulsed Dodds.

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Notes 1 2 3 4 5

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Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.3, III, pp. 149–51. See Chapter 1, p. 19. Ficino, Platonic Theology, III.2.6, I, p. 243. See Introduction, p. 10. Gerson, ‘Plotinus and Platonism’, p. 333. See P. Remes, ‘Self-Knowledge in Plotinus: Becoming Who You Are’, in Self Knowledge: A History, ed. by U. Renz, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 78–95. For Ficino, Plotinus’s idea that the soul contains all possible lives within itself is especially evident in the way it gains knowledge of things. In Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 417 [In Plotinum, p. 399; Opera omnia, p. 1741], he writes: ‘Therefore, the soul always is these things, albeit in some cases more in a certain potency and in others more in act. However, the soul is the divine things themselves, more if it acts among them through its intellect alone than if it observes the same thing in the meantime also through the discursiveness of reason or the fgments of the imagination. For the latter distract it (Anima igitur semper est haec omnia sed alias quidem potius in potentia quadam alias vero magis in actu. Est autem anima magis res ipsae divinae si per solum intellectum agit in ipsis quam si interim per rationis quoque discursum vel imaginationis fgmenta id ipsum animadvertat: haec enim distrahunt)’. See Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 194. See Chapter 2, p. 60–1. Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 204. See, for example, Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 407 [In Plotinum, p. 395; Opera omnia, p. 1740]: ‘But to the extent that the souls are together, the lower yields to the higher in the forming of body just as lower light yields to higher light (Quatenus vero sunt simul, inferior praestantiori cedit in corpore formando sicut lumini maiori minus lumen)’. Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘because the higher soul is as though the form of the lower soul and the lower soul acts in the body naturally in subordination to the form and act of the higher one (quia superior anima est quasi inferioris forma atque haec sub illius forma actuque naturaliter agit in corpore)’. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 500 [Opera omnia, pp. 1759–60]: ‘Supra sensum qui tantum spectat, externa est imaginatio interna respiciens, super hanc quae adventitia solum prospicit extat ratio quae praetera domestica conspicit’. See Chapter 1, p. 16. Corrias, ‘Ficino interprete di Plotino’, p. 113. On Ficino’s theory of knowledge see M. Heitzman, ‘L’agostinismo avicennizante e il punto di partenza della flosofa di Marsilio Ficino’, Giornale Critico della Filosofa Italiana XVI (1935), pp. 295–322 [ibid., XVII (1936), pp. 1–11]. See also Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, pp. 203–51 and 351–401; F. Mariani Zini, La pensée de Ficin. Itinéraires néoplatoniciens, Paris: Vrin, 2014, pp. 128–60 and 226–38. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 500 [Opera omnia, p. 1760]: ‘ac dum [intellectus] se inspicit omnia contuens, non dico rerum fguras sed res ipsas ut verissima cognitio sit’. Ibid. [ibid.]. See Corrias, ‘Ficino interprete di Plotino’, pp. 112–14 and ead., ‘Plotinus’s Language of Seeing’, p. 259. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 496 [Opera omnia, p. 1759]: ‘Quando intellectum dicimus nosse seipsum non dividimus in duo, quorum alterum tantum cognoscat, alterum solummodo cognoscatur, alioquin non aliquid idem seipsum, sed aliud cognosceret aliud, sed volumus ipsum cognoscens una cum cognito se quoque complecti. Ad sensum quidem pertinet solum quae extra animam sunt

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The Imagination at Work cognoscere, ad imaginationem vero etiam quae sunt in anima, id est sensuum actiones; ad rationem praeterea seipsam investigare; ad intellectum denique se cognoscere. Atque huius perfecta quadam participatione etiam ad rationem quandoque se nosse’. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 614 [Opera omnia, p. 1776]: ‘Sensus in se quidem sentit tantum, in imaginatione vero persentit insuper se sentire. Similiter imaginatio imaginatur in se, in ratione imaginari se percipit. Ratio in se argumentatur, in intellectu animadvertit argumentari. Intellectus noster in se intelligit, in divino intelligentiam suam animadvertit; divinus in sua essentia viva possidet et invenit omnia’. Interestengly, this passage is quoted (with some modifcations) by Giordano Bruno in his Sigillus sigillorum, in Opere mnemotecniche, ed. by R. Sturlese, M. Matteoli, and N. Tirinnanzi, 2 vols, Milan: Adelphi, 2004– 2009, II, pp.187–304, at p. 218: ‘sensus in se sentit tantum, in imaginatione persentit etiam se sentire; sensus quoque, qui iam quaedam imaginatio est, imaginatur in se, in ratione imaginari se percipit; sensus, qui iam ratio est, in se argumentatur, in intellectu animadvertit se argumentari; sensus, qui e[s]t iam intellectus, in se intelligit, in divina autem mente intelligentiam suam tuetur’. For Bruno, it seems that there is one single faculty, i.e. sensus, which becomes progressively more accurate and sophisticated as knowledge proceeds from the external world to the ideas. Plotinus’s division of each of our soul faculties into a higher and a lower dimension – accepted by Ficino – apparently contradicted the epistemological monism of Bruno, who strongly criticises Plotinus for having split up our psychological powers into different parts. See F. Tocco, Le opere latine di Giordano Bruno esposte e confrontate con le italiane, Florence: Le Monnier, 1889, pp. 76 and 365. I have quoted this passage in Corrias, ‘Ficino interprete di Plotino’, p. 17, n. 49. Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.31, IV, p. 131. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 407 [In Plotinum, p. 395; Opera omnia, p. 1740]: ‘Si animae nostrae duae locis inter se separentur, duas habebunt imaginationes manifestas atque memorias’. See, for example, Ficino, Platonic Theology, V.5.5, II, p. 31: ‘If this essence [i.e. the soul] were buried in matter, it would not tie the lowest things to the highest’. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 47 [In Plotinum, p. 300; Opera omnia, p. 1717]: ‘Notabis interea virtutem communiter in anima duplicem: alteram quidem velut privatam: scilicet alicui partium animae proprium – haec autem est ut quaelibet rite suum offcium peragat – alteram vero quasi publicam: scilicet, ut cunctae partes invicem rite concinant’. On the harmony between metaphysics and anthropology in Plotinus see Gerson, From Plato to Platonism, pp. 283–304. On this point see Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 203: ‘Elaborating an obvious analogy between the internal structure of soul itself and soul’s position in the structure of being as a whole, the fvefold articulation of the human soul into the faculties of (1) intelligence, (2) reason, (3) imagination, (4) sense, and (5) nature furnishes the basic pattern for the psychological analysis’. See Ficino, Platonic Theology, III.2.8, I, p. 245. See Chapter 2, p. 68. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 27 [Opera omnia, p. 1568]: ‘Sic igitur super imaginationis actum, qui est mobilis circa mobilia, extat rationis actus, qui est circa immobilia mobilis, super hunc actus intelligentiae circa immobilia prorsus immobilis’. This is another passage which Bruno quotes in his Sigillus sigillorum, in Opere mnemotecniche, II, pp. 218–20: ‘Supra imaginationis actum, qui est circa mobilia mobilis, esse rationis actum circa inmobilia mobilem et

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supra hunc circa inmobilia prorsus inmobilem intelligentiae actum considere, cantant Platonici’. Given that the passage is the same, the term ‘Platonici’ here, no doubt, refers to Ficino as well as to Plotinus. Ficino, In Plotinum, n.p. [Opera omnia, p. 1553]: ‘Dixit [Plotinus] rationis discursiones nobis, id est, animae esse maxime proprias, quoniam cum media sit inter divina, quae semper manent, atque naturalia, quae lapsu quodam motuque recto a se ipsis quasi digrediuntur merito motum discursionemque circularem habet inter motum rectum statumque proprie medium’. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Intelligentia etiam animae propria dicitur, non tam quod ex natura sua sit quam quod intelligat absque corporis instrumento. Sic anima etiam sine illo ratione discurrit. Sed hoc saltem interest quod discursio argumentatioque etsi non ft per corporis instrumentum, imagines tamen sensibilium aliquas fere semper ante oculos habet. Motus enim naturaliter ad talia labitur, intelligentia vero neque corporis utitur instrumentis, neque tales spectat imagines’. See also ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Sed nos, id est, per rationalem vim actionemque defniti aliquando pervenimus ad intelligibiles idealesque rationes, speciesque rerum, quae prius in mente divina sunt, deinde sunt et in nostra, plurimum vero ad eas minime surgimus’. Ibid., p. 27 [ibid., p. 1568]: ‘Sed memento ex Plotini mente ponendam esse inter intellectum imaginationemque geminam speciem rationis: alteram quidem speculativam surgentem ad intellectum, alteram vero activam ad imaginationem potius declinantem’. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘cum non possit per ipsum intellectum duntaxat esse alter beatior altero, omnibus per ipsum similiter semper agentibus, non erit hic felicior illo, nisi quia in hoc speculativa ratio naturaliter intellectui proxima in mentem penitus est conversa. Quod tamen de activa similiter non licet dicere, quia et remotior est a mente et in labore posita et quodammodo servit externis. Differre vero rationes eiusmodi specie, patet non solum quia speculativa naturae opera propriae, activa hominum opera cogitat, sed etiam quia raro admodum et forte nunquam concurrit in eodem ingenio naturalis utriusque dexteritas’. Bruno attacked the idea of a twofold reason as paradoxical, since it seemed to contradict Plotinus’s own metaphysics, which was based on the notion of the unity of being that emanated from the One. See his Sigillus sigillorum, in Opere mnemotecniche, II, p. 220: ‘cur non rationem ipsum esse intellectum nunc et hic subito contuentem, tunc et ibi discursiones progressionesque argumentando fundentem dixerim? Differt nimirum servus a principe, practicus a theorico; sed quid impedit, quominus unus idemque hic serviat, ibi praecipiat, nunc speculetur, tunc operetur? Et sicut eamdem dicis essentiam, cur non eamdem dixeris essentiae vim, quae pro materiae, organorum actuumque varietate, ad diversos promoveatur actus? Nonne unum idemque lumen contrariarum diversarumque qualitatum se prodit expressivum?’. Interestingly, Bruno focuses on the fact that, for Plotinus, each psychological power has two levels of operation, arguing extensively against this position. Since Plotinus, apart from when he is discussing the nature of the imagination, never gives a clear account of the other faculties as divided into two, it seems likely that he was drawing on Ficino’s commentary (where the twofold nature of reason and the senses is highlighted more than once). See Corrias, ‘Ficino interprete di Plotino’, p. 21, n. 59. See Chapter 3, p. 84. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 28 [Opera omnia, p. 1569]: ‘rationalis intelligentia, id est, cogitatio, ratioque mobilis a phantasia saepius excitetur, praesertim activa ratio quam solam phantasia semper egere Aristoteles ait’; see also ibid., n.p. [Opera omnia, p. 1553]: ‘At in ratione species quidem universales, sed quodammodo mobiles’.

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33 Ibid, p. 10 [ibid., p. 1558]: ‘In natura enim rationali, quae proprie anima nuncupatur imaginaria, magis possessio est, intellectu autem (ut ita loquar) substantialis: sed haec possessio primo quidem est in mente divina, deinde traducitur et in nostram’. 34 Ibid., n.p. [ibid., p. 1551]: ‘[Plotinus] sensum quidem cum passione tribuit animali. Sensum vero animae accommodat passionis expertem, rursus eidem animae rationis discursiones assignat sive declinent ad sensum sive surgant ad intellectum’. 35 Ibid., p. 23 [ibid., p. 1563]: ‘Sensum vero duplicem esse putamus: inferiorem quidem quo non natura rei vel qualitas ulla discernitur, sed affectio quaedam tantum inde illata sentitur, qui et stupidus sensus est, velut in dormientibus, plantisque conveniens. Superiorem vero qui et naturam qualitatemque persentit animalium solummodo proprius’. 36 Ibid., n.p. [ibid., p. 1549]: ‘Sensus autem, id est, imaginatio superioris animae non ad sensibilia, sed ad subiecti animalis sensus sese dirigit, non passiones corporis proxime sentit, sed compassiones sensuum statim animadvertit et omnino circa imagines, actiones, passiones sensus inferioris versari solet, neque perniciosam inde suscipit passionem, sed affectu quodam erga illum paterno saepissime tangitur’. 37 See Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, p. 22. 38 Ficino, Platonic Theology, VII.6.1, II, p. 237. 39 On Ficino’s doctrine of the imagination, see M. J. B. Allen, ‘Phantastic Art, Magic, and the Idola’, in Icastes: Marsilio Ficino’s Interpretation of Plato’s ‘Sophist’, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989, pp. 168–204; S. Benassi, ‘Marsilio Ficino e il potere dell’immaginazione’, I castelli di Yale: Quaderni di Filosofa II (1997), pp. 1–18; J. M. Cocking, Imagination: A Study in the History of Ideas, London: Routledge, 1991, pp. 168–94; Corrias, ‘The Imagination and Memory’; E. Garin, ‘Phantasia e imaginatio fra Marsilio Ficino e Pietro Pomponazzi’, in Phantasia-imaginatio: Colloquio internazionale del lessico intellettuale europeo, ed. by M. Fattori and M. Bianchi, Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1988, pp. 3–20; G. Giglioni, ‘The Matter of the Imagination: The Renaissance Debate over Icastic and Fantastic Imitation’, Camenae VIII (2010), pp. 1–21; id. ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’; Heitzman, ‘L’agostinismo avicennizzante’; Klein, ‘L’imagination comme vêtement de l’âme’; Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, pp. 234–37, 360–4, and 367–9; Mariani Zini, La pensée de Ficin, pp. 226–30; P. Terracciano, ‘Tra Atene e Alessandria. Origene nella Theologia Platonica di Marsilio Ficino’, Viator XLII (2011), pp. 265–94. 40 Ficino, Platonic Theology, VIII.1.2, II, p. 263. 41 Ibid., p. 265. 42 Ibid. See also Heitzman, ‘L’agostinismo avicennizzante’, p. 310. 43 Ficino, Platonic Theology, VIII.1.3, II, pp. 264–5. 44 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 49 [In Plotinum, pp. 300–1; Opera omnia, p. 1718]: ‘Animadvertes iterum duplicem in nobis imaginationem: primam quidem in anima rationali discursionis et iudicii compotem, similem quodammodo rationi, secundam vero ab hac impressam in anima seu vita in nobis ratione carente, quae sane imaginatio non tam discursione utitur quam fertur instinctu – quamvis intimo sed circa corporis passiones – quae [et] tamquam communis sensus principium est sensuum reliquorum’. 45 Ibid., p. 405 [ibid., p. 394; ibid., p. 1739]: ‘Sunt in nobis imaginationes geminae: una in vita irrationali, altera in anima rationali, atque illa est summum sensuum, haec infmum cogitationum’. 46 Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘ad utramque pertinet animadversio’.

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47 E. W. Warren, ‘Imagination in Plotinus’, The Classical Quarterly XVI (1966), pp. 277–85, at p. 282. 48 See Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, p. 36. 49 Plotinus, Enneads, I.1.11, I, p. 117. 50 Scholars have different opinions on what this middle part corresponds to. Hermann S. Schibli, for example, believes that τὸ μέσον is a middle soul between the higher and the lower souls, while Damian Caluori thinks that it corresponds to the lower soul. See H. S. Schibli, ‘Apprehending Our Happiness: Antilepsis and the Middle Soul in Plotinus, “Ennead” I.4.10’, Phronesis XXXIV (1989), pp. 205–19 and Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul, p. 162, n. 24. On Plotinus’s notion of τὸ μέσον see also Hutchinson, Plotinus on Consciousness, pp. 66 and 111. 51 See Schibli, ‘Apprehending our Happiness’, p. 213. 52 Ficino, Platonic Theology, XII.4.6, IV, pp. 53. 53 Plotinus, Enneads I.1.11, I, p. 117. See G. Stamatellos, ‘Virtue and Hexis in Plotinus’, The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition IX (2015), pp. 129–45, at p. 136. 54 Ficino, In Plotinum, n.p. [Opera omnia, p. 1553]: ‘quoniam imaginatio superioris animae propria, cuius ministerio ft in nobis animadversio, cum sit controversa penitus ad oppositum, non suscipit intelligentiarum ullas imagines quas ad rationis oculos speculi more refectat’. Ficino suggests that this reference to animadversio in children can be seen as evidence of Plotinus’s reading of the Gospels: ‘Angels of little children always see the face of the heavenly Father’ (Matthew 18:10). For ‘Ammonius and Origen’, Plotinus’s master and his fellow student, ‘used to interpret the Holy Scriptures in a Platonic way’. See Ficino, In Plotinum, n.p. [Opera omnia, p. 1553: ‘Arbitror vero Plotinum illud sic accepisse: parvulorum angeli semper vident caelestis patris faciem. Nam et Ammonius atque Origenes more [Platonico] sacras literas interpretari solebant’. 55 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘ratio solet, ideoque et nos solemus actiones intelligentiae atque rationis animadvertere’. 56 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Appellant autem imaginationem hanc in nobis medium. Est enim inter rationalia nostra et irrationalia medium et quasi medium utrinque imagines accipit’. 57 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Quandoque etiam rationem nuncupat medium: est enim animae medium’. 58 Ibid. [ibid.]. 59 Ibid., p. 28 [ibid., p. 1569]: ‘sicut oculus facie continetur, sic ratio mente atque sicut oculus nec videt faciem neque motum eius advertit, nisi quando in speculum certo modo nobis oppositum lineares faciei radii diriguntur atque inde per similes angulos refectuntur ad oculum, et speculum ita ostentat imaginem, si quam modo habet imaginem. Simili quodam pacto ratio velut oculus neque videt mentem neque agere illam animadvertit, quamvis semper agat, nisi actus eius agat nonnihil in imaginationem aliunde diversam, illuc vero conversam’. 60 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘agnitio hic cognitionem sequatur tamquam posterius aliquid et sorte quadam consequens atque comitans faciatque saepe ut distractione quadam animi prior actio sit aliquanto remissior’. 61 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Facultatem vero posterius comitantem imaginationem ipsam esse non dubitamus. Formam similiter quae priorem comitetur formam imaginem appellamus’. 62 Ibid., p. 27 [ibid.]: ‘ad imaginationem denique attinere quodammodo discere nova’. See Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, p. 38. 63 Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 28 [Opera omnia, p. 1569]: ‘animus, velut admirabundus attendat, animadvertatque quid in ratione agatur et mente’.

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64 Ibid., p. 40 [Opera omnia, p. 1570]: ‘Per intellectum in aeternitate vigilat semper; per vim vivifcam quoquo modo semper agit in tempore; per imaginationem naturae vivifcae proximam plurimum versatur in tempore; per rationem tanquam menti propinquam vivit in aeternitate quam plurimum; per imaginationem alteram mox subditam rationi, pares inter utrunque vices alternat, et modo aeternorum, modo temporalium nobis imagines offert’. 65 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 407 [In Plotinum, p. 395; Opera omnia, p. 1740]. 66 Ibid., p. 401 [ibid., p. 390; ibid., p. 1739]: ‘nihil novi illic accidit vel extrinsecus vel intrinsecus quod conservandum sit atque recolendum; nec ulla de potentia in actum ibi ft commutatio. Sed recordationis offcium ad animam pertinet’. See Hankins, ‘Marsilio Ficino on Reminiscentia and the Transmigration of Souls’, p. 16. 67 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.4.3, IV, p. 145. Plotinus’s view of memory is complex and diffcult to defne. See R. Chiaradonna, ‘Plotin, la mémoire et la connaissance des intelligibles’, Philosophie antique IX (2009), pp. 5–33; id., ‘Plotinus on Memory, Recollection and Discursive Thought’, in Greek Memories:Theories and Practices, ed. by L. Castagnoli and P. Ceccarelli, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 310–24; S. R. L. Clark, ‘Plotinus: Remembering and Forgetting’, in Greek Memories: Theories and Practices, pp. 325–40; G. M. Hutchinson, ‘Apprehension of Thought in Ennead IV.3.30’, International Journal of the Platonic Tradition V (2011), pp. 262–82; C. D’Ancona, ‘Plotino: memoria di eventi e anamnesi di intelligibili’, in Tracce della mente. Teorie della memoria da Platone ai Moderni, ed. by M. M. Sassi, Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2007, pp. 67–98; R. A. H. King, Aristotle and Plotinus on Memory, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2009; D. Nikulin, ‘Memory and Recollection in Plotinus’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie XCVI (2014), pp. 183–201; Remes, Plotinus on the Self, pp. 111–19; E. W. Warren, ‘Memory in Plotinus’, Classical Quarterly XV (1965), pp. 252–60. 68 For a crystal-clear account of the difference between ἀνάμνησις and μνήμη see King, Aristotle and Plotinus on Memory, pp. 139–46. See also Warren ‘Memory in Plotinus’, p. 257: ‘the memory that is thinking is ἀνάμνησις; the memory that is imagining is μνήμη’. 69 Hutchinson, ‘Apprehension of Thought in Enneads IV.3.30’, p. 278. See Chiaradonna, ‘Plotinus on Memory, Recollection and Discursive Thought’, p. 323. 70 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.25, IV, pp. 113–15. 71 On the difference between ἀνάμνησις in Plotinus and ἀνάμνησις in Plato see Chiaradonna, ‘Plotin, la mémoire et la connaissance des intelligibles’. 72 See Hutchinson, Plotinus on Consciousness, p. 9. For the dianoetic and noetic selves’ relation with the imagination and memory, see pp. 109-10. 73 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.29, IV, pp. 127–9. 74 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 405 [In Plotinum, p. 393; Opera omnia, p. 1739]: ‘Quando in sensu memoriam ponimus, hanc in sensu interiore: id est, imaginatione, locamus. Haec enim absentia repetit et conservat; et ubi haec potentior est, memoria est etiam validior, praesertim si corporis qualitas et meditatio conducat ad idem’. On Ficino’s reception of Plotinus’s view that there are two different kinds of memory, see L. Catana, The Concept of Contraction in Giordano Bruno’s Philosophy, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005, pp. 76–7. In the Platonic Theology this distinction is made even clearer and is keyed to the superiority of memoria mentis in order to deny the view, which Ficino attributed to Averroes, that preserving images pertains to the imagination alone: ‘Just as the imagination knows by itself whatever the fve senses

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perceive, being superior to them, so the intellect by itself will both judge and preserve the species (though peradventure judging and preserving images is not the offce of the imagination alone, as Averroes thinks, rather judging is the offce of the imagination, preserving, of the memory)’. See Ficino, Platonic Theology, XV.16.6, V, p. 175. See also ibid. XV.16.9, p. 179: ‘According to the Platonists, the imagination possesses its own memory too. Bearing testimony to this is both the inner stability of our habit and the free discursive movement from images to images that often stems from our yearning to remember’. Ibid., p. 177. This is true also for Plotinus’s ἀνάμνησις, as Riccardo Chiaradonna has pointed out in his ‘Plotinus on Memory, Recollection, and Discursive Thought’, p. 323: ‘Indeed, M2 [i.e. ἀνάμνησις] does not concern thoughts that have been acquired at a previous time; in this sense, M2 does nor involve time. One may object, however, that M2 entails discursive logos and phantasia, which are, in turn, connected to time: so how can it be that time is not involved in M2 (25.33–4)? In my view the answer to this question lies in the fact that, through M2, representation and discursive thought attempt to transcend, so to speak, their constitutive boundaries and come to mirror temporally an eternal mode of knowledge’. Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s ‘Phaedrus’, in Allen, Marsilio Ficino and the Phaedran Charioteer, p. 158: ‘The charioteer, the intellect, stops his horses at the stable, that is, flls the lower powers (through which providence is enacted) with the goods derived from contemplation. At the stable, that is, at the memory and preservation of divine things, he nourishes them with ambrosia, with solid sustenance, insofar as he stops them in their causes and goods, and likewise with nectar, with liquid, insofar as he strengthens and calls upon them to come forth providing in abundance’. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XV.16.9, V, p. 179. Ibid., p. 177. Ibid., p. 179. My italics. Ficino, The ‘Philebus’ Commentary, ed. and tr. by M. J. B. Allen, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1975 (repr. Tempe [AZ]: Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2000), pp. 328–31. Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, p. 28. See p. 64–5 above. Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, p. 27. See Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 55 [In Plotinum, p. 301; Opera omnia, p. 1718]: ‘Quod naturalia non sint entia vera; et quod materia dicatur non ens, et instar speculi videatur habere formas quas non habet veras’. Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]. Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘when more subtle bodies seem to yield to the thing that strikes them, they very quickly evade passivity to the striking on account of their marvelous powerfulness, and likewise because of that same powerfulness immediately return to themselves (corpora vero subtiliora, ubi cedere percutienti videntur, propter mirabilem effcaciam subterfugiunt celerrime passionem, atque ob eandem similiter effcaciam subito redeunt in se ipsa)’. Ibid., p. 56 [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘Nam et qui ad equitatum ineptissimi sunt, hi equos premunt potissimum atque defatigant, et languentia corpora gestantibus onerosissima esse solent’. Ibid., p. 55 [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘Denique cum motus in rebus sit actio quaedam vitaeque plurimum interioris indicium et ubique sit vitae vestigium, et quae minime corpulenta sunt promptissima sint ad motum, consequens est quatenus ad incorpoream naturam res accedunt eatenus ad vitam motionis et effcaciae

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The Imagination at Work compotem ideoque ad essentiam accedere veram, corpulenta vero ab essentia cadere’. Ibid., p. 54 [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘Inter haec ubi [Plotinus] ait naturalia non tam esse re vera quam esse videri, introducit Epicuream quandam obiectionem, qua contenditur res quae corpulenter sunt solas veram essentiam possidere’. Ibid., p. 57, [ibid.; ibid.]. Ibid., p. 59 [ibid.; ibid.]. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XIII.1.4, IV, p. 115. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 115-17. See Plato, Timaeus 41b–47e. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XIII.1.4, IV, p. 117. See also Ibid. XIII.4.6, p. 191: ‘Unless it is the soul, what gives this body a particular complexion of the four humors and our face its tones and lineaments? Also, the soul raises a heavy body upwards, contrary to its nature, and prevails in turn over the four opposing elements; and no one is amazed at this miracle’. Ibid., XIII.1.1, p. 111. Ibid., XIII.IV.6, p. 191. Ibid. For the loci in Hippocrates and Galen see ibid., n. 117, p. 356. On the infuence of Galen on Ficino see J. Hankins, ‘Monstrous Melancholy: Ficino and the Physiological Causes of Atheism’, in Laus Platonici Philosophi, pp. 25–43, at pp. 31–2; V. Nutton, ‘De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis in the Renaissance’, in Le opere psicologiche di Galeno. Atti del Terzo Colloquio Galenico Internazionale, Pavia, 10–12 settembre 1986, ed. by P. Manuli and M. Vegetti, Naples: Bibliopolis, 1988, pp. 281–309, at pp. 284–5. Ibid. See, primarily, Avicenna, De anima, IV.4. On the medieval reception of Avicenna’s view on the transitive action of the imagination, see V. Perrone Compagni, ‘Artifciose operari. L’immaginazione di Avicenna nel dibattito medievale sulla magia’, in Immaginario e immaginazione nel medioevo, ed. by M. Bettetini and F. Papparella, with R. Furlan, Louvain-la-Neuve: Fédération internationale des instituts d’ études médiévales, 2009, pp. 271–96; Hasse, Avicenna’s ‘De anima’ in the Latin West; P. Zambelli, ‘L’immaginazione e il suo potere: da al-Kindi, al-Farabi e Avicenna al Medioevo latino e al Rinascimento’, in Orientalische Kultur und Europäische Mittelalter, ed. by A. Zimmermann and I. Craemer-Ruegenberg, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1985, pp. 188–206. On Ficino and Avicenna see Hankins, ‘Ficino, Avicenna, and the Occult Powers’. See Hasse, Avicenna’s ‘De anima’, pp. 161–3. Ibid., p. 159–60. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 283 [In Plotinum, p. 277; Opera omnia, p. 1707]: ‘[the soul] can indeed within itself form itself into the proper images of things and thereafter conform to itself such bodily aspects of animals and plants ([anima] intra se in proprias omnium similitudines formare seipsam atque subinde talia sibi animalium et plantarum corpora conformare)’. See also id., Platonic Theology, XIII.4.7, IV, p. 193: ‘it [the imagination or, better said, the soul through the imagination] forms a foreign body too by way of charms and wicked spells’. Ibid., XIII.1.1, IV, p. 111: ‘How perniciously does the desire of inficting harm by constant gazing bewitch boys and others of an impressionable age!’. Ibid., XIII.4.8, p. 193. Ibid. Ficino, Three Books on Life, III.16, p. 325. See Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s ‘Symposium’, VII.4, in Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon, ed. and tr.

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by R. Marcel, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1956, pp. 248–49. See also Ficino, Platonic Theology, XIII.4.9, IV, pp. 194–6. For the reference to the menstruating woman, see Aristotle, De insomniis 459b23–460a32. This topic must have attracted Ficino’s attention since the times of his Aristotelian studies, as we can tell from a marginal note on the manuscript Riccardiano 524, at the Biblioteca Riccardiana in Florence, a codex which belonged to Ficino and which contains Latin medieval translations of some works by Aristotle, including the De anima and the Parva naturalia. Commenting on the passage on menstruating women and mirrors from the De insomniis, Ficino writes on the margin: ‘nota quod speculus infcitur’. See Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Riccardiano 524, f. 75r. See also Pliny the Elder, Natural History XXVIII.82 and Ficino, Three Books on Life, p. 443, n. 3. For menstruating women and mirrors see Allen, Icastes, pp. 89–90. For the reference to people who kill with their eyes, see Pliny the Elder, Natural History III.149, IV.3 and IV.33. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XIII.4.9, IV, p. 195. Ibid., XIII.4.1, p. 111. See also Ficino, Three Books on Life, III.16, p. 325: ‘But now a pregnant woman instantly by touch stamps a bodily part of the person who is about to be born with a mark of something she desires’; and M. D. Reeve, ‘Conceptions’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society CCXV (1989), pp. 81–112. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 19 [In Plotinum, p. 288; Opera omnia, p. 1714]: ‘Si gravida mulier saepe ob miram imaginationis affectusque vehementiam naturali quadam foetum affcit qualitate ob hoc ipsum quia sit matri connexus, si rursum motio similis animi in proprio corpore subitas exprimit qualitates, quid mirum ex vehementia simili substantiale aliquid in ipsamet anima nasci, praesertim in ipsa intellectuali anima, ubi actio vehementiaque et affectio non adventitia est, non mobilis, sed naturalis penitus atque frma. Et ipse qui videt gaudetque et appetit effcacissimus est et obiectum eius est potentissimum infuitque potenter’. In fact, this belief was so enduring that in the second half of the seventeenth century even a champion of new experimental philosophy and pioneer of modern science such as Sir Kenelm Digby, devoted a long section of his A Late Discourse… Touching the Cure of Wounds by the Power of Sympathy (frst published in 1658) to the mighty power of the maternal imagination, trying to prove that its undeniable effects could be put down to natural explanations. See K. Digby, A Late Discourse… Touching the Cure of Wounds by the Power of Sympathy, London: Printed by J.G, 1664, pp. 95–110. Unbelievable as it may seem, the imagination of pregnant women was still a topic of concern in the following century, as testifed by the most bizarre story of Mary Toft. Toft was a young woman from Surrey who tricked illustruous physicians, including Nathaniel St. André, the doctor of King George I, into believing that she had given birth to a litter of rabbits after seeing a rabbit in a feld where she was working while pregnant. This story had an incredible resonance across England and became a national case. See J. Bondeson, A Cabinet of Medical Curiosity, London: I. B. Tauris, 1996, pp. 122–43; K. Harvey, ‘What Mary Toft Felt: Women’s Voices, Pain, Power, and the Body’, History Workshop Journal LXXX (2015), pp. 33–51; S. A. Seligman, ‘Mary Toft – The Rabbit Breeder’, Medical History V (1961), pp. 349–60. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 123 [Opera omnia, p. 1625]. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Iamblichus ex mente Platonis probat fortem ducemque vitae daemonem animae tribui etiam ante conceptionem ab universali totius mundi dispositione, prout anima cum primum appetit corpus se habet ad universum atque e converso. Id ergo tempus primo scire oporteret atque perpendere, quod sola

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119 120 121

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The Imagination at Work inspiratione divina putat posse comprehendi. Praeter haec insuper in iudicandis hominum effectibus si quae tempora observanda sunt, quinque observanda videntur. Primo quidem serendi tempus, quando semen iacitur in matricem, huius iactus conditio sequitur voluntarium parentum motum et ipsam praesentem utriusque naturam imaginationemque comitantem potius quam praesentem constitutionem caeli’. For Ficino’s view of conception time and embryology see M. J. B. Allen, Nuptial Arithmetic: Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on the Fatal Number in Book VIII of Plato’s ‘Republic’, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1994, pp. 81–105. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 123 [Opera omnia, p. 1625]: ‘Quantum imaginatio possit apparet ex aviditate praegnantium et in animalibus quae alba nascuntur ex genitoribus imaginantibus alba, sicut de pavonibus fertur’. See Reeve, ‘Conceptions’, p. 92, for the view that birds can change colour according to the content of their imagination. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XIII.4.7, IV, pp.191–3. I would like to thank Murray Kane for calling my attention to this passage. Ibid., p. 193. On the spiritus as a mediator see Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, V, p. 207: ‘[the spiritus] is above all a “principle of mediation” (medium) with respect to the macrocosm, where it communicates life from the world’s soul to its body, to the microcosm, where it facilitates the individual soul’s perception of external objects, and between the macrocosm and the microcosm, where it permits celestial gifts to overfow from the sun into our soul and body. Spirit can therefore be described in terms of all the other notions associated with mediation in Ficinian thought’. See Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, p. 29 and Robichaud, ‘Ficino on Force, Magic, and Prayer’. See Chapter 3, p. 95. See Chapter 2, p. 63. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 494 [In Plotinum, p. 441; Opera omnia, p. 1750]. See Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, V, p. 208: ‘Spirit is associated with proportion especially in the context of the human soul’s sensitive powers, for example where Ficino argues that in order to discern the acts and qualities of external bodies the soul must have a certain “proportion” (proportio) to the latter that can be achieved only by its formation of a spirit’. Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘It [i.e. the soul] does not have this proportion if it does not itself through its vegetative power in a certain manner of its own form a palpable body and especially a spirit (hanc vero non habet nisi ipsa per vim vegetalem suo quodam pacto formet manifestum corpus et praecipue spiritum)’. We should take the vegetative power to mean what Ficino elsewhere calls potentia genitalis (φύσις in Plotinus). See Chapter 2, p. 63. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 495 [In Plotinum, p. 441; Opera omnia, p. 1750]: ‘atque ita sibi conformet ut vis eius actusque per hoc suum corpus quasi instrumentum ad externa quandoque se porrigat et externorum motus ad hoc veniendo quodammodo videantur ad animam pervenisse’. Plotinus, Enneads, IV.4.23, IV, p. 199: ‘There cannot, then, be nothing but these two things, the external object and the soul: since then the soul would not be affected; but there must be a third thing which will be affected, and this is that which will receive the form. This must be jointly subject to like affections and of one matter with the sense-object, and it must be this which is affected and the other principle [the soul] knows; and its affection must be of such a kind that it retains something of that which produced it, but is not the same as it, but as it is between the producer of the affection and the soul, it must have an affection which lies between the sensible and the intelligible, a proportional mean somehow linking the extremes to each other, with the capacity both of

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127 128 129

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receiving and of transmitting information, suitable to be assimilated to each of the extremes’. See Caluori, Plotinus on the Soul, pp. 162–3; R. Chiaradonna, ‘Plotinus’s Account of the Cognitive Powers of the Soul: Sense Perception and Discursive Thought’, Topoi XXXI (2012), pp. 191–207; Clark, ‘Plotinus’s Theory of Sensation’; K. Corrigan, Reading Plotinus: A Practical Introduction to Neoplatonism, West Lafayette, IN.: Purdue University Press, 2005, pp. 701– 71; Gerson, Plotinus, pp. 162–84. Plotinus, Enneads, IV.4.23, IV, p. 201. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 443 [In Plotinum, p. 415; Opera omnia, p. 1744]: ‘quando [anima] corpori coniuncta est, spiritu utitur ut instrumento quodam medio inter eam atque externa proportionem inter utraque faciente in quo qualitates vel passiones extrinsecus venientes in speciem spiritalem puramque evadunt animaeque propinquam adeo ut per hanc anima formas excitet sensibilium in se latentes: quae quidem excitatio est sentire’. See id., Platonic Theology, IX.5.2, III, pp. 56–9: ‘But with their particular qualities or powers or images, they [i.e. bodies] strike that warm living vapour, which is, in a sense, the knot of the soul and body and which is called spiritus by the natural philosophers’ and ibid., pp. 58–9: ‘the soul comes into contact with colours through the spirit in the eye, and with sounds through the spirit in the ears, and with other sensations through the other senses, and does so with the particular power which gives it control over bodies and possession of their seeds in its cognitive, no less than in its nutritive, capacity’. While, moreover, Plotinus believed that ‘the soul when it is altogether outside the body does not apprehend anything perceived by the senses’, (Enneads, IV.4.23, IV, p. 201), Ficino’s view was, as we have seen, that departed souls were still able to experience sensation, as long as they retained their spiritual body. See Heitzman, ‘L’agostinismo avicennizante’, p. 307. For the relation between the imagination and the lowest activities of the soul, see Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, pp. 33–5. Here Giglioni speaks of a vegetalis imaginatio in Ficino. Ficino, Sopra lo amore o’ ver Convito di Platone, Florence: Neri Dortelata, 1544, pp. 228 and 234–7 [Ficino, Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon, p. 252]. I am grateful to Guido Giglioni for calling my attention to the importance of this phenomenon in the context of the discussion on the infuence of the imagination on the body. In fact, Giglioni discusses this topic himself in his ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, p. 46. Ficino, Sopra lo amore, pp. 229–30 [Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon, pp. 252–3]. Translation (with substantial modifcations) by A. Farndell in Marsilio Ficino, On the Nature of Love, London: Stepheard-Walwyn, 2016, p. 146. See Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Demons’, pp. 45–6. Here Giglioni rightly claims that: ‘No other syndrome demonstrates in a more graphic way how the imagination is constantly in the process of moulding the body, altering its anatomy and physiology so that it can adjust to new perceptions of reality’. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XIII.4.10, IV, p. 197. Ibid., XIII.4.11, p. 199. Ibid., XIII.4.10, p. 197. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XIII.4.7, IV, p. 193. Plotinus, Enneads III.5.2-9. See Plotinus, Plotin: Traité 50 (III.5). Introduction, traduction, commentaire et notes, tr. by P. Hadot, Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1990. For a detailed analysis of Ficino’s commentary on Plotinus’s view of two Aphrodites see Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. cxxxiv–cxxxviii.

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138 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, pp. 20–3 [In Plotinum, pp. 288–9; Opera omnia, p. 1715]: ‘Has utique geminas in mundo animas, iterum geminas, Veneres esse memento, quas Gemini similes comitentur amores’. 139 Ibid., p. 21 [ibid., p. 288; ibid., p. 1715]: ‘Indeed, you should also remember that the love in this second world-soul not only generates the entire beauty in the matter of the world through its reproductive power but also through its active power of imagining both looks up to the divine Form and calls forth toward that same Form, to the extent of its powers, the world and the things in the world (Memento quin etiam amorem in secunda hac mundi anima non tantum per vim genitalem generare totam in mundi materia pulchritudinem, sed etiam per effcacem imaginandi potentiam tum divinam suspicere formam tum ad eandem et mundum et quae sunt in mundo pro viribus provocare)’. In his De amore, Ficino stresses the difference between the Aphrodite who represents the love for contemplating divine beauty and the Aphrodite who represents the love for reproducing beauty in matter. See De amore, VI.7, p. 146: ‘Siano adunche due Venere nella anima: la prima celeste, la seconda vulgare. Amendune abbiano lo Amore, la celeste abbia lo Amore a cogitare la divina belleza, la vulgare abbia lo Amore a generare la belleza medesima nella materia del mondo’ [Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon, p. 210: ‘Sint igitur duae in anima Veneres: prima celestis, seconda vero vulgaris. Amorem habent ambae, celestis ad divinam pulchritudinem cogitandam. Vulgaris ad eamdem in mundi materia generandam’]. Here he also says that these twin goddesses were present in the Soul of the World as well as in the souls of the spheres, of the stars, of daemons and of human beings. See De amore, VI.8, p. 147: ‘Queste due Veneri et questi duoi Amori non solo sono nella Anima del mondo, ma nelle anime delle spere, stelle, demonii, et uomini’ [Commentaire sur le Banquet de Platon, p. 211: ‘Geminae autem Veneres iste geminique amores non solum in anima mundi, verum etiam in sperarum, siderum, demonum hominumque animis insunt’]. 140 Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s ‘Phaedrus’, in Allen, Marsilio Ficino and the Phaedran Charioteer, p. 102. 141 Plato, Republic, X. 618a. For Ficino’s translation see Plato, Opera Omnia Marsilio Ficino interprete, Lugduni: apud Antonium Vincentium, 1548, p. 455. 142 Ficino, Argumentum in Platonis Respublicam, p. 1436. See Chapter 5, pp. 156–7. 143 Ibid.: ‘in imaginationem vitae similis fgurae et machinamenta consurgunt, affectusque fervescunt, perinde ut apud nos sanguineam corporis affectionem hilaris imaginatio sequitur, cholericam iracunda, melancholicam vero tristis, foecundam luxuriosa’. 144 Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 106 [Opera omnia, p. 1608]: ‘offcium geniturae ita cum imaginatione concurrit, ut sese mutuo moveant. Sicut ad genituram parata est, sic prorsus imaginatur; sicut vicissim imaginatur, ita ft promptior ad gignendum’. 145 Ibid. [ibid.]. 146 Ibid. [ibid.]. 147 Ibid. [ibid.]. 148 Ibid. [ibid.]. 149 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.12, IV, p. 73. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 381. See also Enneads, III.6.7. 150 ‘Embodiment’, as Christian Wildberg has it, ‘is an event both innocent and irresistible, yet one with enormous consequences – so enormous, irresistible and innocent as looking at oneself in a mirror’. See Wildberg, ‘Dionysus in the Mirror of Philosophy: Heraclitus, Plato, and Plotinus’, in A Different God?: Dionysos and Ancient Polytheism, ed. by R. Schlesier, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011, pp. 205–32, at p. 228.

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151 See Plotinus, Enneads, IV.8.8, IV, p. 421. See Chapter 1, p. 31. 152 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 381 [In Plotinum, p. 370; Opera Omnia, p. 1737]: ‘Hic naturam ipsam: id est, vegetalem animae mundanae potentiam appellat Dionysium cuius membra sunt rationes rerum seminales in ipsa natura’. 153 Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘Quae quidem membra quando per generationem quasi procedunt in materiam, hic magis inter se divisa iam a Titanibus: id est, daemonibus geniturae praefectis’. 154 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.12, IV, p. 75: ‘But they [i.e. souls] experienced a deeper descent because their middle part was compelled to care for that to which they had gone on, which needed their care’. 155 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 381 [In Plotinum, p. 370; Opera omnia, p. 1737]: ‘forsan intuendo recto quodam aspectu in naturam atque inde aspectum in materiam defectendo’. 156 Ibid. pp. 381–3 [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘Quorsum vero se ita convertit imaginatio, illuc statim ratio se divertit ab intellectu’. 157 Ibid., p. 383: ‘utraque non aspiciendo solum sed amando. Amor eiusmodi exstitit descendendi principium atque post casum etiam permanendi’.

5

Daemons and Stars

1. Plotinus and His Daemons A Platonic universe is a daemonic universe. For Ficino, no one could doubt this. In fact, the idea that discarnate forms of life and intelligence – I prefer not to say ‘disembodied’, as daemons have their own spiritual bodies – shared the cosmos with human beings had a seminal place in ancient cosmology. This idea was already fully developed in Pythagorean works, as well as in Plato, but it turned into a sort of philosophical subfeld with the Platonists of the generation before Plotinus, such as Plutarch, Apuleius, Maximus of Tyre, and Numenius of Apamea. Daemons ensured the continuity of being between different metaphysical levels; they were the intermediate nature, μεταξύ in Greek, between opposite ends of a universe which unfolded effortlessly from the fullness of being of the divine to the nothingness of matter. In other words, they were the link by which Nature kept herself connected.1 The timeless appeal of Platonic philosophy relies precisely on the conficted nature of its metaphysics, which assumes the existence of two irreconcilable – yet connected by a continuity of life and being – levels of reality. Daemons embody this continuity. They join the absolute transcendence of the frst principle to the world of generation, the loftiness of the gods’ celestial habitations to human bodies, heavenly fre to air and to the earth, permanence to change. These ‘intermediate, godlike powers’, Apuleius writes, ‘carry both our desires and our good deeds to the gods’.2 They go back and forth between earth and heaven, ‘conveying prayers from here and gifts from there’ and ‘carrying requests from here and help from there, as it were ambassadors and goodwill messengers for both’.3 With the philosophers of the generation after Plotinus, daemons acquired a great philosophical, cosmological, and anthropological relevance. For Iamblichus, as Gregory Shaw has it, ‘they completed the circuit of divine life that descends continually into sensible expression while remaining rooted in the Forms’.4 Daemonic action, Shaw goes on, was both ‘centrifugal’, i.e. they brought the divine gifts down to men, and ‘convertive’, for they aided the soul to escape the body and rejoin with the divine.5 Over a century after Iamblichus, Proclus organised the province of discarnate being into an

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extensively articulated hierarchical taxonomy: gods, angels, daemons (of a higher and of a lower rank), and heroes.6 I agree with Michael Allen that, for the most part, Ficino ‘followed Proclus in his daemonological speculations’,7 inheriting ‘the most systematic version of Platonic daemonology with its host of intricate scholastic distinctions’.8 Indeed, with the theurgic turn in late ancient philosophy, daemons became important players in the grand enterprise of reuniting the soul and the divine on earth. The densest and most detailed chapters in the history of daemonology were written in this period. Intriguingly, Plotinus’s place in this history is contested. Unlike his predecessors and successors, Plotinus’s main, and perhaps only, demonological interest is in daemons understood as partes animae, as in Timaeus 90a–c, Phaedo 107d, and Republic X.617e and 620d.9 He did admit the existence of discarnate beings who interact with humans, but these remain in the background of his philosophical discussion. In the Enneads, it is the daemon as a psychic power which takes centre stage.10 In fact, Plotinian daemonology is both interlaced with and subordinate to psychology, and daemons are introduced only to explain some aspects of the soul’s life, especially metensomatosis.11 For in addition to becoming humans, animals, or plants, Plotinus believed that departed souls could also become daemons. But who becomes a daemon? In Enneads III.4.3, a surprisingly long-neglected treatise which is just now receiving increasing attention,12 Plotinus replies: ‘He who was one here (ἐνταῦθα) too’. And who, then, becomes a god? ‘Certainly he who was one here (ἐνταῦθα)’.13 This apparently obscure passage introduces the view that whether we shall become daemons or gods depends on which psychic faculty has dominated during our earthly life. This faculty, which Plotinus calls τὸ ἐνεργοῦν, not only establishes the degree of divinity of our afterlife identity, but also appoints the daemon which will watch over us as a tutelary spirit in our next incarnation. He writes: For what worked in a man (τὸ ἐνεργῆσαν) leads him [after death], since it was his ruler and guide here too. Is this, then, ‘the daemon to whom he was allotted while he lived’?14 No, but that which is before the working principle; for this presides inactive over the man, but that which comes after it acts.15 The way we conduct our embodied existence relies on the interplay of τὸ ἐνεργοῦν, which, as John Dillon has it, represents ‘the centre of gravity of our consciousness and personality’, and the daemon itself, which watches over τὸ ἐνεργοῦν without taking action.16 Therefore, if we live according to the senses, ‘the daemon is the rational principle; but if we live by the rational principle, the daemon is what is above this [i.e. the intellect], presiding inactive and giving its consent (συγχωρ ν) to the principle which works’.17 Aware of the obscurity of Plotinus’s doctrine and language in this passage, Ficino carefully discusses the role played by τὸ ἐνεργοῦν (which he translates

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as qui operatur),18 explaining that it can be regarded as: (1) a ‘powerful faculty’ (potentia) of the soul, (2) the soul’s ‘moral disposition’ (affectio), and (3) ‘a productive and industrious force’ (effectrix et negotiosa potentia).19 He also specifes that in this present life, τὸ ἐνεργοῦν is the ‘the proper agent’ (proprius effector) of our actions.20 The defnition of affectio recalls a passage in Enneads III.4.5 where the use of the word αἵρεσις (choice/choosing) to describe the activity of the soul in the other world (ἐκεῖ) before it enters the world of generation, is explained by Plotinus as an enigmatic way of referring (αἰνίττεται) to the soul’s universal and ubiquitous deliberative power (προαίρεσις – Ficino translates this by propositum) and moral disposition (διάθεσις, affectio).21 Plotinus thus makes it clear that it is τὸ ἐνεργοῦν which makes the decision regarding our daemon, for ‘it is rightly said that “we shall choose”’.22 It must be remarked that the daemon and τὸ ἐνεργοῦν are in a relationship of mutual dependence. For on the one hand the daemon cannot be outclassed by τὸ ἐνεργοῦν, but on the other hand, τὸ ἐνεργοῦν is responsible for choosing its daemon and appointing it to its role of guiding principle. This reciprocal control is the pivotal point of our embodied life, both in a theoretical and in a practical sense. After death, this psychological balance is temporarily altered, for the daemon leaves the separate soul, which becomes identifed with τὸ ἐνεργοῦν. Those souls in which the daemon and τὸ ἐνεργοῦν had coincided become themselves daemons or, in case of divinely inspired people, such as Plotinus, even gods.23 Let us see how Ficino explains this: If [the soul] has lived in the manner of a plant, it forms after this life the body of a plant in which the vegetal power alone is active. Sense presides over such a life in the manner of a daemon, not as an observer that acts but as one that is attendant. Similarly if the soul living as an animal fnally becomes an animal, exercising only sense together with the vegetal power, an inactive rational power in the manner of a certain observing daemon hangs over it. A person who has lived according to reason together with sense has a mind standing by him in the manner of a daemon. Finally, a person who has lived according to mind seems to have a god as his overseer in place of a daemon.24 The interactions – if I may use this term, despite the fact that, as I have said, the daemon itself does not really act – between the daemon and τὸ ἐνεργοῦν are important for an understanding of the complex dynamics which inform the actual self that exists in the here and now of the ἐνταῦθα. If we agree with Lloyd Gerson that the self ‘represents the “link” between incarnate and discarnate activities’,25 we must admit that the self is also the link between τὸ ἐνεργοῦν and the daemon. In fact, the relationship between these two psychic entities forms the underlying cause of each individual’s personality.

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To understand the ‘daemonic’ nature of incarnate life in Plotinus, however, it will be useful to make a distinction between personality and individuality. Personality can be understood as the ‘persona’ of the incarnated self, the mask which is crafted out of discarnate activities (intellection) and incarnate activities (discursive reasoning, memories, and desires). Individuality, by contrast, is the self laid open, in the nakedness of disembodiment.26 This important distinction, however, raises even more questions. For example: does the Plotinian daemon embody our individuality, even though it shapes – through interactions with the incarnate self – our personality? Can the daemon be said to inform the individual psychological traits of animals as it does with humans? In the peacefulness of its contemplation, the daemon has a close resemblance to the undescended part of the soul – a bastion of individuality. However, from a Plotinian point of view, it cannot be identifed with it, because its contemplation is directed downwards: it watches over the active principle of incarnate activities. Moreover, Plotinus claims that a soul which is transmigrating into an animal body can have a wicked (πονηρός) and stupid (εὐήθης) guardian daemon, in which case it is obvious that the daemon is not the intellect.27 Admittedly, Plotinus’s account of the daemon’s position with regards to the hierarchy of knowledge and being is not clear. At least not immediately. Unlike other Platonic daemons, the Plotinian spirit does not seem to be halfway between the intelligible and the material worlds, for it is much closer to the former than to the latter. This brings about another important question: how is the daemon related to the idea of μεταξύ, which distinctively characterised the philosophical and religious understanding of the ‘daemonic’ at the time? Was Plotinus an exception to this general understanding? I do not think so. Plotinus’s metaphysics do not need intermediaries to physically fll the gap between the soul and Intellect, to which the soul remains always connected. The ‘daemonic’, for him, is rather the trail of Intellect/intellect within the descending/descended soul. But he also makes clear that we cannot call by the term ‘daemon’ any of the beings which inhabit the intelligible world, for they are gods (θεοί).28 ‘Even if there is an Idea of daemon (αὐτοδαίμων), he says, ‘[it is better] to call this a god’.29 Hence, the intellect itself, which belongs to Intellect, is a god, not a daemon. A daemon is rather the ‘trace’ (ἴχνος) left by each soul ‘when it enters the universe’.30 In this sense, a daemon is a vestige of divine life. The famous story of Plotinus’s own tutelary spirit which, summoned by an Egyptian priest in the temple of Isis in Rome, revealed itself to be a god and not an ordinary daemon, confrms this view.31 Plotinus lived according to his undescended part which, dwelling in Intellect together with the Forms, could only be a god. In fact, in the biography of his master, Porphyry remarks that it was this face-to-face encounter with his own tutelary spirit that prompted Plotinus to write Enneads III.4.3.32 Since the daemon has a liminal nature, ‘exteriority’ and ‘interiority’ become rather fexible notions. I agree with Andrei Timotin that the Plotinian

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daemon is ‘at the same time inside and outside the soul’.33 ‘Outside’ as it is not physically within the soul but watches over it without acting and its tutelage often remains unperceived; ‘inside’, in a twofold way: (1) as the trail left by Intellect in the soul, and (2) as the soul’s connatural yearning for Intellect. After all, Plotinus himself argued that the daemon ‘is not entirely outside but only in the sense that he is not bound to us, and is not active in us but is ours’.34 This brings us back to Shaw’s understanding of the daemons’ action as both ‘centrifugal’ and ‘convertive’. Accordingly, Shaw defnes daemons as the agents of πρόοδος, (‘procession’), and ἐπιστροφή, (‘return’).35 But these were Iamblichus’s daemons, external to a soul which was fully embodied. What about Plotinus’s daemons? Can we interpret them according to the same categories? At frst sight the answer would seem no. For in Plotinus both the source of πρόοδος (Intellect) and the subject of ἐπιστροφή (the embodied self) are ‘ours’. They are parts of the same nature, i.e. ‘we’. Hence, ‘we’ do not need the ‘daemonic’ to perform a ‘centrifugal’ and a ‘convertive’ action. Ἐπιστροφή is the return of the self to the self, rather than to a different reality. Why would we have to rely on a medium to reconnect ourselves to ourselves? The answer is that the soul’s enslavement to the body has produced a hiatus between what we are as ‘we’ and what we are as ‘self’, i.e. between what we are as personae and what we are as individuals. This hiatus is not metaphysical, for ‘we’ still are our ‘self’, but psychological, for we have lost awareness of being such. The Plotinian soul does not need an ὄχημα as a physical means of its descent and alienation, for it does not physically descend or become alienated. However, it does need a daemon to fll the psychological gap between awareness (of being incarnated selves) and unawareness (of being discarnate selves). The ‘daemonic’ is necessary to keep our two different dimensions harmoniously together and, eventually, to reconnect them. In this sense, Plotinus’s daemon is not so different from Iamblichus’s daemons: it is released by the soul’s highest part, almost as a comet tail, when the soul enters the world of generation. It is a sort of divine gift which proceeds from Intellect/intellect and which the soul, being itself intellect, bestows upon itself when it abandons Intellect. In fact, Plotinus remarks that a daemon proceeds only from a soul ‘in the universe’ (ἐν κόσμῳ), for, as we mentioned, ‘the pure soul produces a god’.36 Thus, even if the daemon is not the agent of πρόοδος, it certainly appears to be a consequence of it. On the other hand, as a trace of the divine, the daemonic can be accessed by the soul during embodied life, in this way facilitating the soul’s recognition of its heavenly lineage and prompting its ἐπιστροφή. The daemonic, for Plotinus, is a sort of image of the quintessential self, whose semi-divine tutelage helps the soul to transcend the material world. Intriguingly, Ficino has a different, if not opposite, view of what accounts for the daemonic within our soul. For him, it is the imagination (refecting the μεταξύ on a cognitive level) the faculty which acts ‘daemonically’.37

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2. Ficino and His Daemons In his Icastes, devoted to the study of Ficino’s interpretation of Plato’s Sophist and to the delicate relation between Being and Not-Being – in which daemons as the makers of Not-Being have a prominent place – Michael Allen argued that Ficino regarded the imagination as daemonic in a twofold way: in itself, and as an instrument for the operations of external daemons.38 In the frst case, images are the source of the soul’s illusions and delusions; by their own nature, they cause the soul to mistake unreality for reality.39 In his paraphrased translation of Iamblichus’s De mysteriis, for example, Ficino describes a φάντασμα as an image (simulacrum) which, like a shape in a mirror, has only the appearance, but not the essence of what it reproduces.40 This is perhaps the reason why ‘makers of images are often possessed by evil daemons and deceived (fctores a daemonibus malis occupari saepius atque falli)’.41 The view of images as products of daemonic craftsmanship goes back, as is known, to Plato’s idea of the sophist as an image-maker (εἰδωλοποιός) whο fabricates simulacra out of Being and Not-Being mixed together. For this reason, it is in Ficino’s Commentary on Plato’s ‘Sophist’, as Allen’s Icastes shows, that the connection between imagination and daemonic nature is most in evidence. Here Ficino argues that daemons and images are complementary, ‘since the daemons are followers of the gods, the likenesses of things, which are the followers of the prime divine works, must needs appear to be daemonic contrivances as it were’.42 Therefore, he says, ‘what imagines in us is in some respect a daemon (quod in nobis imaginatur est quodammodo daemon)’.43 Being essentially daemonic, the imagination was also particularly exposed to the lure of external daemons, which, Ficino believed, were natural-born tricksters and used images as a gateway to access the human soul. He writes: Also, the very powerful imagination immediately affects the body with various qualities and motions only by means of a certain activity of its own. Indeed (as the Theologians report) the daemons everywhere accomplish wonderful things, immediately and as they wish, by means of their imaginations without any other instrument or action. They emit very powerful rays from their imaginations, and often with the motions of their imagination reveal wonderful forms externally to those who are able to investigate such things.44 Daemonological speculations deeply intrigued Ficino, who believed in the combined effect of stars and daemons on human life, and in the close connection between the daemonic aspects of our soul with separate ontological forces at a cosmological level, describing the internalisation of these forces as ‘daemonic’.45 Each rank of daemons, he explains, acts on one of our soul’s faculties with such an infuence as to make possible strong connections and bonds between the soul and the universe. Different daemons

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inhabit different regions of the air – misty, pure air, and fery. In turn, each region corresponds to different psychic levels: the misty and watery air to the imagination, pure air to discursive reason, and fery air to intellection. Daemons are the channels for this correspondence: When our life is conducted according to imagination our external daemon is aerial – that is, in the lowest air – and agitates (agitans) us with its imagination through our imagination. When we live according to reason, the external daemon of the middle air turns around (versat) the human reason with its reason. Finally, when our life is intellectual, the daemon of the highest air breathes upon (aspirat) our intellect through its intellect. The daemons do this not so much by choice as by the habit of their nature, for in us also the thinking of the intelligible light naturally moves the imagination to the imagining of sensible light, and imagination in the manner of its nature moves the senses in sleep and the affections often while we are awake. Conversely, bodily passion moves the sense, sense the imagination, and imagination naturally the reason.46 Lexical choices, as habitually in Ficino, are means to express a sophisticated philosophical narrative. Daemons agitate the imagination and turn around reason but can only breathe upon the intellect.47 Daemons of the higher rank, act secretly and quietly, constantly reviving the activity of the intellect.48 Ficino’s concern was certainly to prove that, even though daemons act upon the soul on different levels, the intellect is impervious to their infuence and can only be inspired or assisted. As a Christian, he believed that good daemons mediated between God and men and, as shown by Michael Allen, he connected these daemons with the angelic messengers of Christianity.49 However, in his mind, daemons ‘were never fully Christianized’ and, as Allen has observed, the Christian Platonism of which he was the spokesman, ‘remained as committed to preserving the daemons and a daemonology as any pagan cult’.50 In this context, we cannot but mention that Ficino was ordained a priest in 1473 and later became the canon of Florence’s cathedral; apart from philological and philosophical hermeneutics, his duties included preaching and celebrating the Mass. Most likely, as part of his pastoral care, he had to advise the faithful on how to keep away from the devil and even help those who had fallen under the devil’s spell. Even though exorcism was not part of a priest’s daily routine, in 1493 and 1494 Ficino happened to perform two, as he tells in two late inserts in his commentary on the Timaeus. Here, after describing the daemons inhabiting the sphere of misty air, which are feral (bruti) or semi-feral (quasi bruti) and endowed with a sharp and powerful imagination (imaginatione acerrimi), and which live for the most part in dark places (in obscuris habitant plurimum) and among flth (inter sordes),51 he admitted having dealt with two of them in person.52 Daemons, he believed, not only lived in a specifc natural environment, but had also a

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specifc bodily constitution and physiology. As Stephen Gersh has observed: ‘Among the main points at which Ficino expands on or departs from Plotinus are his discussions of the nature of the external daemons in general and more specifcally of their classifcation according to types of bodies’.53 Indeed, Ficino’s description of the physicality of daemons is almost empirical. See, for example, what he writes in his ‘Summary’ of Enneads III.4.3: The great and rational animate beings live in the air and also have a round shape, the shape of the air itself requiring it. Their sense as a whole is in the body as a whole and is most acute in accordance with the nature of the air. By the same criteria, their motion is the swiftest and the ordering of their motion almost like that among the stars. Therefore the daemons are the ‘stars’ of the aerial heaven. They imitate the circuits of the heavenly stars from east to west to the extent of their powers. By turns, they everywhere progress and recede at defnite times, sometimes veering to the north and sometimes to the south, at one time ascending as though toward the sun’s rays and at another time descending again in a defnite order.54 I agree with Gersh that preoccupation with the bodily dimension of daemonic nature is one of those aspects which make Ficino’s Plotinus essentially post-Plotinian,55 and even his interpretation of the daemonic séance in the temple of Isis is very much focused on the physicality of Plotinus’s tutelary spirit. Ficino wondered – probably like most readers of Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus – as to the precise manner in which this divine assistant took physical shape and indeed about what precise shape he took. This shape must have been one which made it instantly clear, in the eyes of the onlookers, that it was a god and not an ordinary daemon. The explanation he gives is impressively detailed and reveals his familiarity not only with the complex daemonology of late antiquity, but also with al-Kindi’s speculations on visual perspective, refraction, and refection, based as they are on the idea that vision involves powerful rays emitted from the eyes. The Egyptian priest, Ficino argues, was able to collect the rays transmitted by the divine spirit either because the daemons allowed him to do so, as their gift to him, or because he poured into the air a certain vapour, whose chemical composition was akin to the nature of daemons.56 ‘But on the basis of what form did the magician guess that the daemon of Plotinus was the highest? (Sed quanam forma coniecit magus Plotini daemonem esse supremum?)’.57 Ficino supposes that it was because the daemon ‘did not come in a multicoloured gleam, in the manner of a rainbow, as the lowest daemons in the mixed air are wont to do (non difformi quodam instar iridis fulgore venit, sicut infmi solent daemones in aere mixto)’.58 And he goes on: ‘Nor again did he come in paleness or redness as the middle daemons are sometimes wont to appear (non pallore iterum vel rubore sicut medii nonnunquam consueverunt). But he came in the absolutely pure and brightest light

156 Daemons and Stars that is the property of the ethereal and heavenly daemons alone (sed lumine puro penitus atque clarissimo quod aetheriorum caelestiumque daemonum dumtaxat est proprium)’.59 We should never forget that Ficino was interpreting Plotinus for frst-time readers and felt the responsibility to clarify Plotinus’s most obscure passages as much as he could. How the divine daemon could have changed location, leaving for a moment Plotinus’s soul, and ontological status – transiting from immateriality to materiality – was, no doubt, one of these passages. Besides the technicalities of daemonic embodiment and materialisation, however, the tale of this magic séance encapsulated Plotinus’s belief that in the case of a life lived according to the intellect our personal daemon can be as pure as to be a god. The most exciting possibility of ascending the metaphysical hierarchy following the daemon, however, is not without problems. The frst question which comes to mind is to what extent it is possible for the soul dominated by the imagination or the vegetative faculty to re-join with its daemon (i.e. reason and the imagination respectively). In other words: could a simple-minded person mostly interested in eating, drinking, and other physiological activities ever become a philosopher?60 At the other end, would the daemon ever allow the soul of a philosopher to descend lower than the level of reason? This second point can be easily solved by inferring that, for Plotinus, freedom ‘is not simply equivalent to the power of choice’, but ‘rather it is freedom from that necessity of choice which the passions impose’.61 Hence, a learned man, and a divinely inspired man even more so, would never want to downgrade to an ‘imaginative’ or ‘vegetative’ life. However, the question of whether freedom from passion is achieved and kept by τὸ ἐνεργοῦν alone or by τὸ ἐνεργοῦν in partnership with the daemon is not immediately clear. The issue becomes even more complicated if we examine it with respect to the soul’s afterlife: what degree of responsibility does τὸ ἐνεργοῦν have in establishing the next form of incarnation? What does the daemon? Do we choose our daemon in this life or only in the interval between lives? In other words: to what extent is the soul able to change its calling, in its embodied, as well as in its disembodied, lives? This problem, prominent in the Enneads, originated in the myth of Er and haunted many Platonists long before Ficino.

3. The Legacy of the Myth of Er Plato’s so-called myth of Er, in Book X of the Republic, is a place to which his readers have returned constantly through the centuries. The idea that disembodied souls, already formed as moral personae by their past existences, come to choose their next incarnation from among different models of life placed in front of them by a prophet raised the question of to what extent souls choose freely and to what extent they are determined by their past actions.62 Moreover, the central role of Necessity and the Fates

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in weaving the web of the soul’s destiny seemed to seriously threaten individual freedom, even though the prophet famously claimed that ‘no daemon will select you by lot, but you will be the one to choose’ and ‘the responsibility is the chooser’s; god is not to be blamed’.63 The daemon in question is the guardian spirit which will watch over the soul in the next life and Plato describes it as the ‘fulfller of things chosen’ (ἀποπληρωτής τ ν αἱρεθέντων).64 This defnition seemed to suggest that the daemon’s tutelage was in fact a kind of coercive control. Indeed, Plato’s splendid narrative at the very end of the Republic is in itself ambiguous, simultaneously defending and threatening as it does the soul’s capability for self-determination.65 The myth of Er left behind a diffcult legacy: for while the daemon, as a token of the divine, could be immensely attractive, the possibility of an externally guided existence seemed to call into question the very concept of free agency, which was both the cause and the consequence of the soul’s divinity. As part of this legacy, the question of how personal daemons were assigned to souls became a hot topic in late antiquity, and one which sees astrology and philosophy in close conjunction. It gave rise to intense discussion about the soul’s embodiment and powers, and about the limits of free will and self-determination. In his account of the daemon as pars animae, Plotinus tried to rewrite Er’s story in philosophical terms, offering a critical approach to the idea of daemonic guardianship. The daemon, he explained, does not partner up with us but observes what we do from above. However, the fact that its tutelage is not a kind of disinterested contemplation, but a duty imposed on it to make sure we fulfl the life we have chosen, still seemed to involve a deterministic position. Plotinus was aware that his solution did not dispel completely the patronage of Necessity and her daughters; hence, he never fails to point out that on no occasion does the daemon deprive the soul of its moral responsibility. Souls alone, he makes clear, select their own lots, tutelary spirits, and new bodies: But when it is said that frst come the ‘lots’, then ‘the examples of lives’, then what lies in the fortunes of the lives, then that they choose their lives from those presented to them according to their characters, Plato gives the power of decision rather to the souls, which adapt what is given to them to their own character.66 The threats to individual freedom implicit in Er’s tale preoccupied Porphyry too. A sharply attentive reader of Republic X, he wrote a commentary on the Platonic myth, entitled On What Is in Our Power, where he developed an analytical account of the relation between the life enforced by the daemon and the life chosen by the soul.67 It all depends, he says, on what we mean by ‘life’. For we choose our next ‘life-form’ (be that lion, eagle, or human, and whether that be the male or female form of these) as discarnate beings standing in front of Lachesis. But once we have become embodied we

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have the power to decide how to ‘personify’ this form by choosing different moral conduct and career paths.68 He says: The acquisition of skills and professions and knowledge, as well as the acquisition of political lives and the pursuit of positions of power and all such things – these things happen to depend on what is in our power, even if some [of these things] are diffcult to achieve because they depend on our receiving a certain contribution from the outside world, for which reason they are [in some cases] diffcult to attain and [in other cases] not easy to turn one’s back on, e.g., positions of power and leadership and tyrannies.69 To this Porphyry adds that we can further choose to live the life we chose as more or less ‘good’ or ‘bad’ persons, ‘for even some human beings who were induced to choose tyrannies, turned out to be kind and gentle while others used their kingships wickedly’.70 From this perspective, the daemon appears to be the fulfller of our ‘life-form’ only, and remains totally unconcerned about how we execute this form. In other words, the daemon binds us to our species and gender (being a male or a female human being) but lets us free to choose how to live as part of that species and gender (being an actor or a lawyer, a liar or an honest person).71 As far as we know, Ficino did not read On What Is in Our Power but was familiar with Porphyry’s account of the personal daemon and its relation to the stars as found in his Letter to Anebo. Moreover, as we mentioned in the previous chapter, Ficino wrote his own short commentary on Republic X, in which he dealt directly with Plato, Necessity, and the Fates.72 Here he claimed that souls are not entirely caught into the web woven by the Fates. Instead, it is only their ‘irrational’ part, i.e. those activities attributed to the vegetative powers (nutrition, growth, generation, sleep, and metabolism) and to the imagination, which become enmeshed in the threads of fate. Reason, by which we perform judgement (consilium) and rational choice (electio), remains free: For even if the choice of a new life, both now and in the past, occurs by fate (whether by communal or personal fate), the choice of this or that particular life in the proper sense, arises from conscious deliberation.73 In a more Plotinian context, Ficino discusses the challenges posed by the myth of Er in his commentary on Enneads II.3 and III.4. Plotinus had acknowledged that the belief that free will is independent from a deterministic fate inscribed in the heavens seemed to contradict Plato’s view that ‘what is born comes to birth through Necessity’.74 He inquired: ‘So what is left which is “we”?’,75 to which he answered: ‘what we really are (ὅπερ ἐσμὲν κατ’ ἀλήθειαν ἡμεῖς)’, i.e. our ability to become emancipated from the passions. He also added that ‘God gave to us, in the midst of all

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these evils which we receive through the body, “virtue which is no man’s slave”’.76 Wanting to clarify this passage for his readers, Ficino explains that souls choose their ‘life and way of living’ (vita et haec vivendi forma) ‘by their own will’ (sponte), ‘before they enter their bodies through the revolution of fate (priusquam in corpus venirent sub revolutione fatali)’.77 After embodiment, they temporarily lose sight of their ability for self-mastery, not because they choose to dismiss it, but because they temporally fail to notice it. This condition lasts until souls recover awareness of their moral freedom, partly by their own decision, partly encouraged by divine inspiration, and partly prompted by the laws.78 The unsolved ambiguities of the myth of Er take centre stage also in the fourth paragraph of Ficino’s commentary on Enneads III.4 (which is actually an interpretation of Enneads III.4.5), entitled ‘How various souls are allotted various daemons; how they change their daemons; and how they come with them into the realm of generation (Quomodo animae variae varios daemones sortiantur; quomodo eos mutent, quomodo cum eis in generationem veniant)’,79 which is entirely devoted to the problem of how personal daemons change according to the soul’s disposition.80 The soul’s choice, he explains, is prior to the state of uncertainty which characterises incarnate life and it is impossible for us to change daemon until we have radically changed our way of life: In the chapter that follows you should recall that the soul is allotted this or that kind of daemon on account of a certain choice and motion of its own. I do not say on account of individual choices but a kind of choice directing us toward a certain kind of life. Moreover, the soul does not change its daemon as long as it makes absolutely no change in its own kind of life.81 To make these ideas more concrete, Ficino shifts the focus of inquiry from the inner daemon to its external counterpart, i.e. to the ‘planetary’ daemon, closely associated with the stars and with one’s profession.82 After all, souls and stars, in Ficino’s view, were connected by the same fow of daemonic forces which charted the universe according to different regions of planetary infuence informing different personality types, some people being Jovian or Martian, others Venerean or Saturnian: You should remember that chains extend everywhere from the highest to the lowest, and therefore that defnite orders of daemons as attendants of the stars are affected in defnite ways by their individual stars, souls being everywhere similarly affected by their own daemons. There are many daemons in each and every sphere, and as many below the moon as above it; there are daemons of Saturn below Saturn, and daemons of Jupiter below Jupiter, and similarly with the rest; among the Saturnian daemons some are superior to others in the same sphere,

160 Daemons and Stars and similarly with the Jovian daemons – just as is usually the case among human beings. Therefore the highest daemon among the aerial daemons guides Plotinus and Socrates: that is, having been led by a certain most lofty among the aetherial daemons which has itself similarly been led by one of the best among the celestial daemons. Therefore Socrates and Plotinus are moved in a continuous series from the highest point.83 If we live according to the pleasures of Venus, Ficino says, we will have a daemon of Venus as our guiding principle. This daemon will be of a lower rank if we do not abstain from lascivious relationships, of a higher rank if we devote ourselves to virtuous love. Similarly, if we change from trade to literature, we will acquire a new daemon, which will be of the same genus, but of a higher order. By contrast, if someone abandons the religious life to learn the art of war, his attendant spirit will be of a new genus and rank – he will dismiss his daemon of Jupiter and will acquire a daemon of Mars.84 In this example, Ficino seems to consider only transitions that do not imply a radical change of ontological level (e.g. promiscuous love/virtuous love and vocation for business/vocation for literature). The most extreme case he mentions is the substitution of a religious daemon with a daemon of war, in which both the genus and rank of the guardian spirit are shifted. Yet, the metaphysical difference between these daemons is not such as to suggest a radical change in the overall life of their protégé, as it would be if one would downgrade from practising intellectual contemplation to following the vegetative power only. Perhaps this is because, if we take the myth of Er as a starting point, an upgrade (or downgrade) to an opposite ontological and cognitive level will not happen within the course of one single life but will take different incarnations.85 Earlier we wondered whether a simple-minded person, preoccupied only with fulflling their most instinctive needs could ever become a philosopher. The answer is probably yes, he could. But only after having purifed his or her soul through different lives. What is relevant here, however, is that for Ficino in the upgrading and downgrading of our daemonic status we remain the sole agents of change: There is a supreme authority vested in the quality of the soul, given that in accordance with difference in the quality of the soul we take on or divest ourselves of such and such a daemon.86 Daemons, he specifes, can only exercise their infuence on fortuitous circumstances which do not affect the overall nature of our life.87 He agrees with Iamblichus that ‘[t]he foresight of the gods is universal, that of daemons particular’.88 Moreover, daemons cannot act beyond the province of contingency and their power is restrained by material conditions, such as, for example, earthly distances:

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But is each daemon moved only by one mover in the same sphere? Perhaps it is not moved by one for, although some given daemon flls the highest region and therefore, even if it does not change its position, observes a man wandering around and can touch him everywhere with its rays in the manner of a star, it is however not probable that, whenever somebody journeys from the east as far as the western region, a daemon of a far superior nature will follow the steps of this itinerant man in the manner of a tutor assigned to someone.89 Since the power of the daemon is in proportion to the scope of its infuence, and the daemon is unable to move from one place to another, there must be other daemons – of the same genus – that take care of a soul which moves away from its guardian’s tutelage.90 Hence, Ficino explains: Solar daemons manage a solar man, and wherever the man goes, he comes properly into the realm of the solar daemons: this man indeed and every solar man. In a similar manner venereal men everywhere fall in among venereal daemons.91 The daemon’s power depends on the spatial and temporal dimension of the sublunary world and on the laws of fate, which are subsequent to the emergence of the soul’s moral disposition, which exists already in the intelligible world. As a result, daemonic guardianship cannot be considered as a limit to the soul’s freedom of choice, which is the cause, rather than the consequence, of the genus and rank of our tutelary spirit. However, to know the nature of one’s personal daemon and the cosmic region to which we were originally designated can certainly help to live a better life. Not knowing one’s daemon is to leave one’s vocation unfulflled, a most dreadful misfortune which sentences the soul to a diminished and luckless existence. For ‘there are two kinds of people who are unfortunate beyond the rest: those who, having professed nothing, do nothing at all; others who subject themselves to a profession unsuited to their natural bent, contrary to their genius’.92 Ficino expands on the close connection between the world of generation, fate and daemonic tutelage. He explains that the rational faculty, after living in Intellect for some time, inclines downward towards the imagination and the vegetative faculty until the time when, driven by its compelling desire for corporeal life, it becomes trapped in fate. This happens long before the earthly body is conceived in the maternal womb, and even before the soul takes on its aerial vehicle. More precisely, Ficino distinguishes two stages in the soul’s pre-embodiment existence: the frst one is the surfacing of an inherent disposition towards materiality beseeching the body, of which we shall talk more later.93 The second one is when the rational soul, already fully disposed to becoming incarnated, ‘strives after its earthly body and chooses it (animus terrenum corpus affectat et eligit)’.94 The tutelary daemon is allotted to the soul in the frst stage,

162 Daemons and Stars while the second stage is when the soul’s ‘life pattern’ (vitae forma) becomes actualised, according ‘partly to the soul’s own choice and partly to the disposition of the heavens (partim pro electione, partim pro harmonia caeli)’.95 In late antiquity the role of planetary infuences in establishing daemonic guardianships was contested. Ficino’s sources, especially Porphyry and Iamblichus, spawned a formidable treasure trove of material on the interactions between astrology and daemonology, with detailed references to astrological techniques, such as the one of fnding the ‘house-master of the nativity’ (οἰκοδεσπότης γενέσεως), which was said to impart the spirit of the personal daemon.96 To ascertain the nature of the οἰκοδεσπότης, i.e. the planet ruling the birth chart, Porphyry believed, would help the soul to recognize its life-path and live according to it. As we shall see, Ficino discusses these matters in his commentary on Enneads II.3, a late treatise which Plotinus devoted to discussing whether the stars can be said to be causes of what happens to us. Here Ficino remarks that Porphyry’s view that we are allotted our guardian daemon according to the star that is dominant in the constellation under which we were born fails to account for the daemon’s involvement in fate. The daemon’s nature, for him, does not depend on one single star, but, as the Egyptians believed, ‘is bestowed on us by God himself, who is the guardian of all daemons, according both to the pattern of life we have chosen and to the harmonious concord of the universe (consonantia universi) at the time of the soul’s choice’.97 In fact, the notions of harmony and concord are fundamental to an understanding of the place of daemons in Ficino’s world, for one of their metaphysical functions was precisely to preserve the consonantia universi. Daemons were not only the agents of mediation, but also of attunement. Plotinus famously compared the universe to a dance, where all parts perform their role in a rhythmical way and change position according to their reciprocal movements.98 The material world mirrors the immaterial world according to a relationship of perfect correspondence. In fact, the Soul of the World, ‘as though a worldly Apollo sings in nature and plucks his lyre in the heaven (quasi mundanus Apollo canit quidem in natura, pulsat autem in caelo lyram)’.99 All the changes which take place in this world refect the overall disposition of the stars. Likewise, astral confgurations refect earthly movements. At the moment of our birth, the position of the stars mirrors the sequence of events which our soul will experience: ‘it is for this reason that our daemon, who is assigned in accordance with the harmony of the world, appropriately adapts, so to speak, our life to fate’.100 However, Ficino is keen to point out that the heavens are the sign, not the cause of the attribution of our daemon: For the souls of men and daemons, just as they exist by nature prior to the celestial motions, are themselves already of such and such a kind prior to such motions. For that reason, Timaeus says that the souls through their affections have previously chosen the lots and forms of

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life offered publicly to them, that the daemons then received them, and that the fatal motions accrued to them in third place. These accrue to them through their vehicles, that is: their celestial bodies, which are adjoined to the celestial emanations and motions. You should therefore think that a celestial lyre produces harmonies varying with the times as Phoebus plays it, and that all souls are concordant with the soul of Phoebus in that, just as these are now in themselves, so are they moved by these rather than those harmonies to enter the dance here in one way and here in another. Therefore, from such a harmony of the celestials by which the soul is touched and especially soothed we come to recognize what kind of soul it is and what kind of daemon it has acquired in its own lot, or what the soul will do primarily in the dance and how it will dance: where much proceeds from the soul, not a little also arises from the condition of the celestial harmony.101 The study of planetary confgurations alone, however, is inadequate to explain the connection between our daemon, fate, and free will. For free will becomes somehow obscured in the time which immediately follows embodiment, when the soul experiences the distress caused by the change of metaphysical status and tends to incline towards those faculties which bind it to fate.102 This condition is shared by all souls alike, regardless of the kind of guiding principle they have. Ficino explains this point quite accurately: [Plotinus] says that our soul is not always formed by intelligence, since right from the beginning, because of the laborious fashioning of the realm of generation, the activity of the vegetal power is stretched beyond its measure, the imagination is cast down toward this vegetal power and similar activities and the reason busies itself around this imagination and similar activities, the vegetal power and the imagination being indeed opposed to intelligence. However, even before we use the discursiveness of reason, we seek the true and the good naturally: that is to say, through the power of knowing itself. Since this power does not seek something totally unknown, there is at least a form of the true and the good naturally implanted in the mind.103 The daemon is like a small boat on which the soul travels through its existence. This boat does not sail on a calm sea, nor does it proceed towards a predetermined end. On the contrary, the daemon is at the mercy of the same winds which buffet the soul, for both the boat and the passenger experience countless situations and events. During this troubled journey, passengers retain their individuality and capacity to make decisions. Plotinus points out that each soul has its own individual way of sitting in the boat and, in the same circumstances, different passengers act in different ways, in line with their own movements, affections and actions.104 ‘The daemon’, writes Ficino in commenting on this passage, ‘rules the soul in the best manner,

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albeit not the best simpliciter but the best relatively to the present quality of that soul’.105 At the end of Enneads III.4 Plotinus manages to save both the role of guardianship exercised by the daemon and the soul’s free will. The daemon, while preventing the soul from sinking below the level of reality to which it belongs, prompts its upwards movement, that is, its inclination to re-join the intellect. Hence, its tutelage does not weaken the freedom of the soul, but strengthens it: being given by God, the daemon can free the soul from the grips of fate. In fact, it is through the daemon that we can return to God. To make this clearer, Ficino cites Pythagoras’s Golden Verses 61–2: ‘Father Zeus, you would surely deliver all from many evils, if you would show all what kind of daimon they have’.106 In other words, the daemon’s silent guidance and protection invigorate the soul’s natural tendency to dedicate itself to intellectual life. Like Apollo’s lyre, it tunes our embodied self to our disembodied self; it shapes our persona, but also helps us to recover our identity as individuals. The concept of attunement and harmony helps us to understand another great mystery of man’s life in the cosmos: the possibility of prophesying future events by looking at planetary confgurations. This was one of the main issues discussed by Plotinus in his work on providence, where he famously defended individual free will against a certain kind of astrology which assumed a necessary link of causation between celestial and earthly events. In his Commentary, Ficino takes great pains to defend Plotinus’s position.

4. The Stars and the Συναμφότερον Ficino’s interest in the mysterious geometry of the heavens forms an extraordinarily important part of his intellectual make-up. The motions and attractive forces of the planets – so far, yet so close to human nature – intrigued him as a philosopher, a physician, and, not least, as a victim of Saturn’s wicked infuence, which at the moment of his birth had impressed upon him the ‘seal of melancholy’.107 Often preoccupied with this planet’s movements through the signs of the zodiac, he long struggled with his Saturnian temperament (not without a pinch of pride for having been born melancholically inclined to ‘otherworldly contemplation’).108 Deeply fascinated with the remote and orderly life of the planets, he believed in the benefts of their celestial gifts as well as in their infuence on the psycho-physiological complexion of those born under them.109 He assumed a strong connection between astrology and humoral psychology, Saturn being associated with melancholy, Mars with choler, and Jupiter with the sanguine temperament. This said, it should be added that Ficino’s attitude towards astrology has been the object of a long, if somewhat inconclusive, debate. Some scholars have accused him of swinging back and forth between acceptance and rejection of this discipline,110 while others have identifed unifying motives

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characterising his position.111 James Hankins claimed that his ‘vacillations on the subject of juridical astrology indicate his interest in forms of astrology not approved by the Church’.112 Ficino’s vacillations and inconsistencies, I believe, will disappear if one excavates his view of providence and fate, which I shall not attempt to do in this chapter. I shall limit my analysis to his interpretation of Plotinus’s view that stars are signs and not causes, hoping that this will contribute to a more nuanced appreciation of Ficino’s own position. Indeed, Ficino’s fascination and concern with astrology, his belief that ‘through a given affect and pursuit of our mind and through the very quality of our spirit we are easily and quickly exposed to those planets which signify the same affect, quality, and pursuit’113 went hand in hand with his vehement attack upon judicial astrology. His unpublished Disputatio contra iudicium astrologorum was written in 1477, three years after the Platonic Theology.114 Some of its parts were incorporated in a 1481 letter to Federico da Montefeltro, as well as in his Commentary on Plotinus.115 In fact, the Disputatio is heavily infuenced by Plotinus’s arguments against astrological causation, even though Ficino expands beyond Plotinus to include, among others, Ptolemy, the Roman sophist Favorinus of Arles, Eusebius, Origen, and Abû Ma’shar. His treatment of these sources reveals a great familiarity with the technical language of astrology, besides a deep knowledge of the theoretical and ethical problems entailed by this discipline. At the philosophical core of the Disputatio lies Ficino’s defence of free will against those who regarded the human soul as a slave to astral fate. In the ‘Proem’ he urges his fellow philosophers to arise against ‘those nefarious small giants (nefasti gigantuli illi)’ who, by claiming to predict the future, try to deprive both man and God of their freedom: Arise all who yearn for freedom and most precious peace. Come, gird yourselves now with the shield and spear of Pallas.116 Ficino’s general view is that even though celestial bodies can act on the living being, i.e. the Plotinian συναμφότερον, they cannot affect the mind.117 Planets infuence and modify psycho-physiological phenomena like humoral imbalance and emotional responses to life events but have no power on the free action of our will. To fully understand Ficino’s attitude towards astrology, however, it is essential to mention the main points which Plotinus makes in Enneads II.3, a text which informed Ficino’s understanding of man’s relation to the heavens to a greater degree than has been previously acknowledged. Indeed, Plotinus speaks through Ficino as early as in the Disputatio, pervades the rich discussion of fate and providence in Book XIII of the Platonic Theology, and – perhaps malgré soi – provides the theoretical premises of the astrological medicine of the De vita. Enneads II.3, as we said, is a late treatise – number 52 in Porphyry’s chronological order. Here Plotinus develops some arguments on astrology

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which he had already discussed in III.1 and IV.4. He investigates, in particular, whether the stars are causes of what happens in the sublunary world.118 His position is that heavenly bodies cannot have causal power, chiefy because it would be impossible for material objects to infuence the soul, which is immaterial and superior to them in nature. He asks: ‘How will they make some men wise and some foolish, some teachers of letters and other of rhetoric, and other lyre-players and practitioners of the other arts, or again rich and poor?’.119 Nevertheless, even though heavenly bodies cannot be causes, Plotinus admits, they ‘co-operate towards the whole, since they are no small part of the heaven’ and ‘signify everything that happens in the sense-world’.120 Ficino was drawn to these topics, as it emerges from the long and detailed commentary he wrote on Enneads II.3 and in which, as we said, he incorporated some material from the Disputatio.121 Here, too, he pairs Plotinus with Origen, whom, as we saw, he identifes with Plotinus’s fellow-student at the school of Ammonius Saccas.122 The two long-time friends, Ficino explains, agreed on many things, including the fact that the stars are not causes of earthly events. Even if they do exert some infuence on this world, as Plotinus acknowledged, it does not amount to complete determination; for if it did, their long-distance action would account also for evil things and would be itself evil. Most importantly, to admit astrological causation would be tantamount to denying any power of action to things within the physical cosmos and deprive man of his freedom of will. Even though both Plotinus and Origen, Ficino says, were unwavering in their refusal of astral determinism, they did admit that planets have a story to tell, that they are ‘signifers’. Their power of signifcation, however, confrms rather than denies divine providence, for prophesy would be impossible unless ‘everywhere things were bound to things, times to times, according to a certain consequential order (nisi res passim rebus, tempora temporibus certo quodam et consequenti ordine necterentur)’.123 To describe the semantics, so to speak, of the stars, both Plotinus and Origen, Ficino points out, used the analogy of writing as an orderly sequence of signifers.124 Plotinus said: ‘Let us suppose that the stars are like characters always being written on the heavens, or written once for all and moving as they perform their task’.125 Likewise, Origen spoke of the heavens as a prophetic book written by God.126 Ficino explains that when the two philosophers mention ‘words in heaven’ (litterae in caelo): they mean the stars and their patterns, whether real or imaginary; the degrees of the signs and their minutes; fnally, the appearance and motion of the planets and all things that follow or accompany these phenomena, wherever they might be.127 After all, Ficino says, the planets seem to serve divine providence in three main respects: (1) they make this universe beautiful, as if God’s mind had

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frst imagined beauty by looking at the Idea of star, (2) they contribute to the effects of natural processes, which we clearly see being favoured by their rays, and (3) they show signs of the future and clues of occult things to daemons and daemonic men alike.128 The language of the stars, however, is better deciphered by daemons than by men, ‘for it is daemons that God seems to have invited to read the book of heavens’.129 Yet, those men who are able to interpret the words of divine providence engraved in the frmament can work in harmony with nature and avoid catastrophes. ‘The wise man will contribute to the work of the stars’, Ficino writes, ‘just as a skilled farmer will do with the natural properties of the earth’.130 For ‘what nature began, the farmer carried through (quae natura inchoavit, agricola perfcit)’ and ‘vice-versa, what the farmer initiates, the heavens bring to completion (quae vicissim exorditur agricola, caelum prorsus absolvit)’.131 Physicians, he adds, have a similar concern for the harmonious relation between heavens and earth. In fact, ‘doctors and every sensible person should treat the sky and the human body in the same way (Ita medicus atque prudens sigillatim erga caelum corpusque nostrum se gerere potest)’.132 To explain how important it is for a physician to be skilled in astrological matters, Ficino reports his frst-hand experience of saving the life of an infant, born in the eighth month of gestation under the noxious infuence of Saturn: I have had frequent proofs of how important the conscientiousness of medicine is for these (and often other) matters and, also, when a child was born in the eighth month after conception, at night, under Saturn stationary in its frst station and ascending in Sagittarius. It was almost dead and, as it seemed, was not going to make it to the third day. However, cured very diligently by us, little by little he recovered its strengths and went on to live many years. I shall not mention in how many ways I warmed up its heart, brain, liver, and stomach and how many things were applied by myself and by the midwife, both externally and internally.133 As a physician well-versed in the journeys, properties, and shades of infuence of the planets, Ficino was aware of the possibility that on the night of that child’s birth the dominant position of Saturn, a cold and dry planet, had caused the organs of the infant’s body to cool and the humours to dry, diminishing the nourishment to the same organs.134 Hence, he was able to promptly identify the remedy which saved the new-born from imminent death. Planets, however, are not the cause of anything in the universe. From their crystalline thrones in the heavenly spheres they undoubtedly exert a powerful infuence on the living creatures bustling about the earth, around which they tranquilly revolve. Intriguingly, however, their perfect and unchangeable nature and the cyclic and inexorable story told by their ordered motions are precisely the reason why planets cannot have causal power on the lower

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realm. In the sublunary world, as Anthony Grafton has it, ‘things change incessantly; the elements play an unending drama, which seems to have no clear script’.135 Heavenly bodies are physically and, even more importantly, metaphysically too remote from the chaotic life of the realm of generation. Up there, it is necessity which rules; down here, contingency. The fows of energy which planets send to earth are often fltered, mediated, and even annihilated by other agents acting closer to us. Ficino distinguishes between ‘remote causes’ (causae remotae) and ‘nearer causes’ (causae propinquiores).136 Despite their power, planets fall into the frst group. Among the ‘nearer causes’ we can include the interaction of our body and soul with the four elements, our physiological drives, the oblivion caused by embodiment, and what today we understand as the make-up of our genetic code. All these factors can transform or dispel the infuences coming from loftier regions. In a passage which we found both in the Disputatio and in the Commentary on Plotinus, Ficino observes: While it passes through the many levels of agent causes, the power of agency (virtus effcax) becomes weaker and, eventually, the very great number of opposite forms is gathered together. It follows, no doubt, that while the power of agency, which becomes gradually weaker, is sometimes more easily hindered by the encounter with different forms, each specifc nature occasionally fails its duty.137 He goes on to explain that even though remote causes are necessary, not so are their effects. The reason for this is that in order for the effects of planetary infuence to be necessarily executed on earth, nearer causes must be necessary too.138 It is important to make clear, however, that the region of infuence of both remote and nearer causes is limited to corporeal and vegetative life (which includes also the lowest levels of psychological activity). Indeed, all of Ficino’s examples in this context focus on the cycle of life and death which governs the life of plants, animals, and embodied souls. For example, he writes: The seminal power of plants and animals does not always produce offspring, nor does it always produce them in a proper and perfect way. Hence, as to what concerns heavenly nature – undoubtedly a necessary thing – such fully developed offspring from a plant or an animal should come forth at certain times. Nevertheless, sometimes, this does not happen, or offspring do not come forth in a perfect shape, as when, for example, the nature itself of the begetter is defective from the inside or hindered from the outside.139 Being material bodies, planets can only affect the passions and changes which belong to matter (both lifeless and ensouled matter),140 provided that there are no nearer causes to flter or annihilate their infuence. For example,

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the cold infuxes coming from Saturn may result in a child’s organs being frostbitten and collapsing, unless an inherited gene (for example, malignant hypothermia), an illness (as when fever results from an infection) or environmental factors (being born near a freplace or in conditions of extreme heat) cause the body’s temperature to rise above average. If planetary infuxes cannot break down the barrier of material or semi-material causes, how could they ever affect the self-sovereign and self-transforming power of the mind?141 On this point, Ficino, like Plotinus, is uncompromising. The role of planets as carriers of meaning is defnitely broader, but not less controversial, for ‘they also signify many things, but not all things in the same way’.142 For ‘given that many things overcome or avoid planetary infuence, it is probable that some things overcome also the power of signifcation of planets’.143 There are, of course, cases in which planets do predict future events that cannot be attributed to a corporeal cause. Ficino believes that the reason why this happens is that the sequence of future events is inscribed in celestial souls, and revealed to us by them through the nods and winks of the stars as it were.144 However, Ficino never tires of repeating that for Plotinus, it is we, not the stars, who are the cause of our future. He makes this clear by recasting the analogy: It is not the case that where we have signs we also on that account have causes, just as the benevolent wink of a father towards his son is not the cause of future favour, but only an indication [that it might occur].145 He goes on to give a specifc example: Hence when through a certain position of Mercury astrologers predict that a wise man is to be born, the body itself of the planet is not the cause of that wisdom. For this [i.e. the body of the planet] does not produce the rational soul, nor, again, does it produce the wisdom proper to the rational soul.146 How, then, could some people be said to have a Mercurial personality, others a Saturnian, others, again, a Jovian, and so on? For Ficino, the answer is that planets can act on an individual’s ‘temperament’, i.e. on the basic physiological and psychological features which lie beneath consciousness. However, they have no power on the ‘character’, that is, the conscious and voluntary dimension of an individual’s life, which may also result from their conscious efforts to modify their temperament. That said, for Ficino it was nevertheless true that the favourable infuence of planets helped reconcile ‘temperament’ and ‘character’, so to speak, promoted the well-being of the συναμφότερον, and helped an individual to be happy in his or her own skin: It would be worthwhile to investigate exactly what region your star and your daemon initially designated you to dwell in and cultivate, because

170 Daemons and Stars there they will favor you more. Assuredly, it is that region in which, as soon as you reach it, your spirit is somehow refreshed through and through, where your sense stays vigorous, where your physical health is stronger, where the majority favor you more, where your wishes come true. Learn about these things, therefore, by experience; select the region where you fnd them; inhabit it in good fortune. When you leave it, your fortune will be bad, unless you return and undertake similar activities.147 Yet, Ficino reiterates that planets cannot affect the free action of reason or the will. To quote Michael Allen, ‘the planets do not act as effcient causes but simply provide the occasion: they are hosts, but the soul is a guest who can come and go as she pleases’.148 That said, a ‘Mercurial’ infant may grow into a wise man. The reason for this is explained by Ficino as follows: The planetary body indicates to us, as it would in the case of a cause and, likewise, in the case of a sign, that the body of the person being born will be suited to the pursuit of wisdom. Like a sign, it portends that the soul which is descending (to speak Platonically) into the body at this time, is familiar with the soul and divine power of Mercury and will be guided by a Mercurial or similar daemon.149 An important aspect of Ficino’s discussion of astrology in the Disputatio and in his commentary on Enneads II.3 is his ridicule of the so-called natal astrology, or genethliac, a sub-discipline of astrology based on the idea that each individual’s personality or life-path can be determined by identifying the natal chart for the exact date, time, and location of an individual’s birth. He observes: Plotinus thinks that the soul enters the body without being compelled to do so through any defnite arrangement of the stars. Indeed, since the ancient nature of the soul itself lies in animating the body, it can also rise above its corporeal and temporal fate.150 The ‘ancient nature of the soul’ is most likely what Plotinus calls ‘a large part subject to affections’ (μέγα τι παθητικόν),151 which those souls that have not escaped the cycle of reincarnation drag along in their disembodied state. Plotinus makes this point clear: The souls go [into the body] neither willingly nor because they are sent, nor is the voluntary element in their going like deliberate choice, but like a natural spontaneous jumping or a passionate natural desire of sexual union or as some men are moved unreasoningly to noble deeds.152 Τι παθητικόν, for both Plotinus and Ficino, was needed to make embodiment Platonically intelligible. For why would souls ever decide to abandon

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the blissful state of discarnation and lock themselves up into the body? Why would they change eternity for time? Surely, there must be an inherent force which causes the soul to crave embodiment, compelling it to descend to a lower, and much less happy, metaphysical status. Following Plotinus, in the Platonic Theology Ficino claims: It [i.e. the soul] is impelled not externally by some kind of violence, nor as a result of its own deliberation, but by a kind of natural instinct, the sort which in this present life produces teeth, hairs, semen, and the rest, each at its appropriate time.153 In the Commentary on Plotinus, he emphasises again that it is its natural ‘care for the body’ (ad hoc [corpus] cura) and not the ‘position of the planets’ (positio siderum) which compels the soul to become embodied. This care is the primary cause of incarnation, upon which follows ‘a sort of disposition acquired through past actions (affectio quaedam ex antecedentibus actionibus acquisita)’. Finally, ‘the choice of reason concurs with the soul’s nature and disposition (postremo rationis electio cum natura tandem et affectione consentiens)’.154 Embodiment, after all, is almost a rythmical process. In it, the soul is attuned to all parts of the universe and aligns itself to their divine motions, ‘just as those who dance tunefully to a song or a melody follow the same patterns not by necessity but at will’.155 This paragraph is indeed of great interest, for here Ficino expands beyond Plotinus’s view that the ‘heavenly circuit acts of itself, co-operating and completing by its own power what the All must accomplish’,156 to describe a ‘real system of connectivity’,157 as Stephen Gersh has it, in which the soul’s nature, its disposition, and the planets, work rythmically towards the beginning of a new life. Ficino explains that when the soul’s nature and disposition (i.e. the Plotinian ‘τι παθητικόν’) are most in harmony with universal nature, they become directed towards the body, thus prompting the soul’s descent.158 Hence, while the rational soul is entirely responsible for the choice of the new life-form, the παθητικόν is the driving force behind incarnation. Once again, Ficino repeats that the planets have no responsibility in initiating this process.159 However, as a part of the universe, he admits, their confguration ‘produces something in us (in nobis effcit aliquid)’, ‘through its operation, conferring what harmonises best with the universe upon the life-sort which requires completion’.160 Indeed, he goes on: Every day, the confguration of the sky is part of the harmony of the All and, as a part, it complies with the nature of the universe, with which, at the same time, the individual nature of the body and of the living being also agree. This is the reason why individual events are carried through by the nature itself of the world along with the nature proper to each single thing. However, they are displayed by the motion and

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In other words, the movements of planets are always in accord with the music of the universe and show this deep attunement through their graceful dance. By identifying their planetary lineage, human beings can choose to bring their life into harmony with the heavens, and to reconcile their being with the divine source.

5. Conclusion Ficino’s view, as we have seen, is that the soul’s higher faculties are free, while the physiological dimension of the living being is infuenced and governed by Nature (understood as the lowest power of the Soul of the World). Both can be signifed by the stars, which also have a certain power on the psychophysiological make up of the individual.162 But he also believed that stars make something in us. In fact, they are in us. As he says in a well-known passage from a letter to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici: ‘the whole heaven is within us (totum in nobis est caelum)’.163 This claim, as Melissa Meriam Bullard has observed, shows that ‘for Ficino the astral forces and humors, which according to accepted wisdom originated in the planets, resided also in man, where they can be more easily observed and managed’.164 However, there is something more in this claim which previous scholarship has never fully articulated. Something which can be understood only in relation to the daemons, which are bound to stars by chains that ‘extend everywhere from the highest to the lowest’.165 As with daemons, stars are, for Ficino, both outside and inside the soul; their powers are the counterpart, in the outside world, of the psycho-physiological features of the συναμφότερον. And just as the daemon is the force which ‘adapts our life to fate’,166 so stars help us carry out our chosen existence in harmony with the universe. In a way, stars, too, are the ‘fulfllers of our choices’, inasmuch as they contribute to our life being fully aligned to the soul’s true nature – and to the universe: Whoever is born possessed of a sound mind is naturally formed by the heavens for some honorable work and way of life. Whoever therefore wants to have the heavens propitious, let him undertake above all this work, this way of life; let him pursue it zealously, for the heavens favor his undertaking. Assuredly for this above all else you were made by nature – the activity which from tender years you do, speak, play-act, choose, dream, imitate; that activity which you try more frequently, which you perform more easily, in which you make the most progress, which you enjoy above all else, which you leave off unwillingly.167 Ficino’s Plotinus belonged to this interconnected world, in which different levels of being were part of the same circuit of divine life continually

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inclining down to material expression while remaining rooted in the intelligible realm. In such a world, daemons were all around human beings. They not only watched over them from a hidden dwelling inside the soul, but their infuences were woven into the fabric of nature, deeply embedded in the heavenly fre and in the air surrounding the earth. They breathed upon the intellect, agitated reason, and turned around the imagination.168 Their ‘centrifugal’ and ‘convertive’ action helped souls in and out of the fate of mortal existence. In this world, planets could reach down for embodied souls, but souls, in turn, could ‘reach up’ for planetary infuences through the subtle art of ‘obtaining life form the heavens’. All these levels of life were not only interconnected, but in attunement – singing and dancing to the same melody, i.e. that of the lyre which the earthly Apollo played on earth but plucked in heaven. Ficino’s Plotinus not only inhabited this world, he unveiled it and read it, and he unravelled its metaphysical threads so that their connection to the divine oneness became clear. However, according to the view of rationalism as the expression of the truest spirit of Hellenic philosophy, championed by Dodds, Ficino’s Plotinus misused and abused the Enneads; he traded Plotinus’s sustained philosophical rigour for the syncretism of his successors, i.e. those same ‘disruptive forces’ who, according to Friedrich Schleiermacher – the superb Plato scholar who in the early nineteenth century famously purifed Platonic scholarship from historical contaminations – shattered ‘the self-autonomy of Plato’s corpus’.169 From such perspectives, by introducing theurgy into his commentary, Ficino had handed over Plotinus to the ‘irrational’. Admittedly, Ficino’s exegetical enterprise produced a Plotinus who was partly immersed in the post-Plotinian fog of magic and superstition which Dodds tried to disperse. However, as I said in the Introduction, Ficino’s Plotinus never ceased to be a sublime metaphysical philosopher. In fact, to the attentive reader of Ficino’s Commentary, Dodds’ s fog will appear as a clear aura in which daemons, the soul’s spiritual bodies, and theurgic devices were integral to a lucidily constructed metaphysics which is resolutely and irreducibily rational. As we have seen, it was precisely because of Plotinus’s luminous metaphysics that Ficino rebuked him for having admitted metensomatosis into animals’ bodies into an otherwise impeccably rational system – for Ficino, a signifcant failure for a philosopher of Plotinus’s stature. If Plotinus’s philosophical narrative made for fullness and rigour in Platonic thought about God and the world, in Ficino’s view, the theurgy of Plotinus’s successors enacted this narrative. By showing the relationship between Being and Becoming in action, theurgy proved the truthfulness and rationality of Plotinus’s philosophy on a practical and even experiential level. Far from expressing a sense of philosophical sloppiness, Iamblichus represented the culmination of Plotinus’s rationality; theurgy acted out the philosophical anthropology encapsulated in Plotinus’s belief that ‘the soul is many things, and all things, both the things above and the things below down to the limits of all life’.170 The metaphysical premises of interconnectedness

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and attunement fnd confrmation at the level of the natural world when, through theurgical practices, we become able to tune in to the divine. On these occasions, we join with the ‘things above’ without leaving the ‘things below’.171 The greatness of Plotinus, for Ficino, relied precisely in the fact that in interpreting Plato’s world, he had structured it in such a way that not only could the human soul stand at the centre of the universe and belong in Intellect, but for the period of our sojourn on earth we are the universe. Just as both daemons and stars are both outside and inside our soul, so, is the universe. This, in Ficino’s eyes, was the most important message of his Plotinus – a Plotinus who, for well over three hundred centuries after the publication of Ficino’s translation and commentary on the Enneads in 1492, contributed to the diffusion in Europe of the three different traditions of Platonism (Platonic, Plotinian, and post-Plotinian) that converged and were blended together in him.

Notes 1 See Apuleius, De deo Socratis, in id., Apologia, Florida, De deo Socratis, ed. and tr. by C. P. Jones, Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 2017. On Platonic daemonology see L. Brisson, S. O’Neill, and A. Timotin (eds.), Neoplatonic Demons and Angels, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018; D. G. Greenbaum, The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Infuence, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016, pp. 236–76; C. Moreschini, Apuleius and the Metamorphoses of Platonism, Turnhout: Brepols, 2015; J. M. Dillon, The Middle Platonists: 80 B. C. to A. D. 220, 2nd rev. ed. with a New Foreword, Ithaca [NY]: Cornell University Press, 1996, pp. 216–24; A. Timotin, La démologie platonicienne. Histoire de la notion de daimôn de Platon aux derniers néoplatoniciens, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012. 2 Apuleius, De deo Socratis, p. 359. 3 Ibid. 4 See Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, p. 133. 5 Ibid. 6 See Brisson, ‘The Angels in Proclus: Messengers of the Gods’, in Neoplatonic Demons and Angels, pp. 209–30. 7 M. J. B. Allen, ‘Ficino and the Tutelary Spirit’, in Il Neoplatonismo nel Rinascimento. Atti del Convegno Internazionale Roma-Firenze 12–15 dicembre 1990, ed. by P. Prini, Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, 1993, pp. 173–84, at p. 175. 8 Ibid. 9 Indeed, all the quotations from Plato in Enneads III.4.3 come from these three dialogues. However, Timotin has recently showed the infuence of Cratylus 398c. See A. Timotin, ‘Proclus’s Critique of Plotinus’s Daemonology’, in Neoplatonic Demons and Angels, pp. 190–208, at pp. 192–4. 10 See, e.g., Plotinus, Enneads III.5.6, 38, IV.3.18, 22–24 and IV.4.30, 30. 11 See Corrias, ‘From Daemonic Reason to Daemonic Imagination’, p. 444. 12 H. J. Blumenthal, ‘Plotinus in the Light of Twenty Years’ Scholarship, 1951– 1971’, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, ed. by W. Haase, T.2, Principat: Bd 36, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1987, I, pp. 528–70; K. Corrigan and P. O’Cleirigh, ‘The Course of Plotinian Scholarship from 1971

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to 1986’, in ibid., pp. 571–623; and R. Dufour, Plotinus: A Bibliography 1950–2000, 2nd rev. ed., Leiden: Brill, 2002. These bibliographies suggest that Enneads III.4.3 awaited exploration for quite a long time. The recent studies that have thrown light on this treatise include: P. Adamson, ‘“Present without Being Present”: Plotinus on Plato’s Daimon’, in Rereading Ancient Philosophy: Old Chestnuts and Sacred Cows, ed. by V. Harte and R. Woolf, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 257–75; Corrias, ‘From Daemonic Reason to Daemonic Imagination’; M. Guyot, ‘Notice’ to Plotinus, Treatise 15 (III, 4). Sur le démon qui nous a reçus en partage, in Plotinus, Traités 7–21, ed. and tr. by L. Brisson and J.-F. Pradeau, Paris: Flammarion, 2003, pp. 333–4; Timotin, ‘Proclus’ Critique of Plotinus’ Demonology’; T. Vidart, ‘The Daimon and the Choice of Life in Plotinus’ Thought’, in Neoplatonic Demons and Angels, pp. 7–18. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.2, III, p. 147. Plotinus habitually uses the adverb ἐνταῦθα to refer to the soul’s embodied existence. Plato, Republic 617e and Phaedo 107d. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.3, 4–6, III, p. 149. See J. M. Dillon, ‘Iamblichus on the Personal Daemon’, Ancient World XXXII (2001), pp. 3–9 (repr. in id., The Platonic Heritage: Further Studies in the History of Platonism and Early Christianity, ch. 22, London and New York: Routledge, 2017), at p. 6. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.3, 5–9, III, p. 149. The verb συγχωρέω shows that the daemon is not completely uninvolved with the present life, but gives its assent to τὸ ἐνεργοῦν, a reminiscence of Republic X.620e. See also Enneads III.4.5, 24–25, III, p. 154. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 284. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 320 [In Plotinum, p. 282; Opera omnia, p. 1712]. Ibid., p. 321 [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘Likewise, you should remember that the power or disposition of the soul, which is just below the latter’s inner daemon, dwells among the works of the present life and is the proper agent of these works. However, the daemon is like a charioteer and ruler of this agent. Moreover, this very active and busy power of the soul cannot achieve anything above the powers of the daemon nor again things equal to the status of the daemon (Item potentiam affectionemve animae quae proxime est sub intimo daemone versari inter vitae praesentis opera propriumque esse operum effectorem, daemonem vero velut aurigam effectoris huius atque rectorem, atque hanc ipsam effectricem negotiosamque potentiam neque supra daemonis vires agere quicquam neque rursus aequalia demonis dignitati)’. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.5, III, p. 153: ‘But if the soul chooses its guardian spirit and chooses its life here in the other world, how have we still [in this world] any power of decision? The choice in the other world which Plato speaks of is really a riddling representation of the soul’s universal and permanent purpose and disposition’. For Ficino’s translation, see In Plotinum, p. 285. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.3, 9, III, p. 149. See Republic, 617e. See Plato, Cratylus, 398b5–c4, where Plato affrms that whether alive or dead, wise men are their own daemons. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 283 [In Plotinum, p. 277; Opera omnia, p. 1707]: ‘Si igitur more plantae vixerit, format post hanc vitam plantae corpus in quo vegetalis potentia tantum agit: sensus autem eiusmodi vitae praesidet tamquam daemon non ut agens sed ut assidens spectator. Similiter si anima vivens ut bestia fat denique bestia sensum cum vegetali dumtaxat exercens, rationalis huic potestas imminet otiosa et tamquam daemon aliquis

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Daemons and Stars observator. Qui vero ratione una cum sensu vivit mentem habet more daemonis assistentem’. Ficino believes that when he identifes the daemon with the soul’s higher part, Plotinus follows both the Timaeus and the Pythagoreans. See ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘Hacin re Plotinus Timaeum ex parte secutus est dicentem potestatem praestantiorem animae esse ducem hominis atque daemonem. Secutus est et carmina Pythagorica quae deum obsecrant ut quo daemone utamur ostendat, deinde declarant unicuique inesse pro daemone quandam naturae propriae divinitatem quae pandere nobis possit occulta’. Gerson, Plotinus, p. 146. In an old article entitled ‘Personality and Individuality’, The North American Review CCXIV (1921), pp. 514–17, Francis Rogers discusses this distinction in an impressively Plotinian way, which makes it worthy of quotation: ‘Individuality is, then, the real I; personality only the seeming. Personality is the incarnation of individuality […]. It is our personalities that greet one another when we meet, “drain the cup before the tavern fre”, do business, discuss politics and the cost of living, and speculate learnedly as to the true nature of immortality. Individuality, on the contrary, is the innermost kernel of our being, is essentially isolated, and seldom, if ever, meets another individuality face to face. It is the friend that Emerson described but never knew. But it is the I that God registers in his eternal books’. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.6, III, p. 157. Ibid., III.5.6, p. 186. Ibid., p. 187. I have changed Armstrong’s ‘spirit’ into ‘daemon’. Ibid. Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, X.14–35. See Allen, ‘Summoning Plotinus: Ficino, Smoke and the Strangled Chickens’, in id., Plato’s Third Eye: Studies in Marsilio Ficino’s Metaphysics and Its Sources (Aldershot: Variorum, 1995), pp. 63–88, at pp. 63–4; Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, pp. 289–91; M. J. Edwards, ‘Two Episodes in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus’, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte XL (1991), pp. 456–64. Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, X.31–33. Timotin, ‘Proclus’ Critique of Plotinus’ Demonology’, p. 194. See also Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. cxiv. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.5, III, p. 155. Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, pp. 132–3. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.3, III, p. 187. On the difference between Plotinus’s and Ficino’s understanding of the daemonic faculty of the soul see Corrias, ‘From Daemonic Reason to Daemonic Imagination’, which is entirely devoted to this topic. See Allen, Icastes, p. 175. See, for example, Ficino, Platonic Theology, XIII.2.25, IV, p. 151: ‘For the most part the phantasy, which most guides the way we live our life, is so intent that with sharpest gaze it ponders its own images within itself. These intensely envisioned images blaze out to the common sense, which we call in the Platonic manner the imagination, and beyond to the lower senses and the spirit. But it is common to claim that this image shining back in the senses and in the spirit is a reality. For people who are awake say that they see a man when they turn to the image of a man fickering in their senses. Similarly people who are asleep say that they see a man when an image of him shines out from the phantasy preserving it and passes through the imagination into the sense and the spirit’. See Ficino’s paraphrase of Iamblichus, De mysteriis II.93.10–15, in Iamblichus De mysteriis, p. 1881: ‘Phantasma, id est, simulacrum missum ab aliquo sine natura eius, sed solum per modum idoli specularis vane trahit animum

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intuentis, fallitque, dum simulat se esse aliquid de cuius natura nihil habet’. On the simulacrum as a shadow see Allen, ‘Life as a Dead Platonist’, pp. 163–73. See also Giglioni, ‘The Matter of the Imagination’, pp. 1–5. Ficino, Three Books on Life, III.15, p. 317. See Iamblichus, De mysteriis, II.10, III.8, and III.13. See Ficino, Three Books on Life, III.18, p. 343: ‘Even the Platonists attribute certain wonderful effects of images to the deception of daemons’. See also id., Iamblichus De mysteriis, p. 1881. Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s ‘Sophist’, in Allen, Icastes, p. 270. Ibid. See Corrias, ‘From Daemonic Reason to Daemonic Imagination’, p. 454. On daemons and the imagination see Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. cxxvi–cxxviii. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. 129–31 [In Plotinum, p. 238; Opera omnia, p. 1688]: ‘Ipsa quoque imaginatio praepotens solo quodam sui actu variis statim corpus qualitatibus affcit atque motibus. Quin etiam (ut tradunt Theologi) daemones imaginationibus suis absque alio instrumento vel actu passim mirabilia faciunt subito prout volunt effcacissimos inde radios emittentes ac saepe motibus imaginationis suae formas extra mirabiles ostendentes eis qui talia inspicere valeant’. On Ficino’s daemonology see: M. J. B. Allen, The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino: A Study of His ‘Phaedrus’ Commentary, Its Sources and Genesis, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1984, pp. 3–22; id., Icastes, esp. chaps. 3 and 5; id., ‘Ficino and the Tutelary Spirit’; id., ‘Summoning Plotinus’; id., ‘Socrates and the Daimonic Voice of Conscience’, in his Synoptic Art, pp. 125–47; id., ‘Marsilio Ficino: Daemonic Mathematics and the Hypotenuse of the Spirit’, in Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe, ed. by A. Grafton and N. Siraisi, Cambridge [MA] and London: MIT, 1999, pp. 121–37; M. De Gandillac, ‘Astres, anges et génies dans Marsile Ficin’, in Umanesimo e esoterismo, ed. by E. Castelli, Padua: CEDAM, 1960, pp. 85–109; Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. cxii–cxxx; Giglioni, ‘Coping with Inner and Outer Daemons’; T. Katinis, ‘Daemonica machinamenta tra Platone e l’umanesimo: a partire da un passo del commento al Sofsta’, in Arte e daimon, ed. by D. Angelucci, Macerata: Quodlibet, 2002, pp. 83–96; V. Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer: A Cultural History of Angels, London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2013, pp. 47–8; K. Sier, ‘Dämonische Vermittlung. Plotin zwischen Platon und Ficino’, in Platon, Plotin und Marsilio Ficino: Studien zu den Vorläufern und zur Rezeption des Florentiner Neuplatonismus, ed. by M.-C. Leitgeb, S. Toussaint, and H. Bannert, Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009, pp. 121–35; S. Toussaint, ‘L’ars de Marsile Ficin, entre esthétique et magie’, in L’art de la Renaissance entre science et magie, ed. by P. Morel, Rome and Paris: Somogy, 2006, pp. 453–67; id., ‘Ficino und das Dämonische’, in Platon, Plotin und Marsilio Ficino, pp. 137–45; id., ‘Le démon de Socrate et la joie de Descartes. Autour de “l’Apologie de Socrate” dans la Lettre à Elisabeth’, in Argumenta in Dialogos Platonis. Teil I: Platoninterpretation und ihre Hermeneutik von der Antike bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts, ed. by A. Neschke-Hentschke, Basel: Schwabe, 2010, pp. 327–49; C. Vasoli, ‘Ficino, la profezia e i sogni, tra gli angeli e i daemoni’, La parola del testo III (1999), pp. 147–63; M. Vanhaelen, ‘L’entreprise de traduction et d’exégèse de Ficin dans les années 1486–1489: Démons et prophétie à l’aube de l’ère savonarolienne’, Humanistica IV (2010), pp. 125–36; Walker, Spiritual and Daemonic Magic, pp. 45–53. In his commentary on the Phaedrus, Ficino identifes cicadas with airy daemons that work for the Muses and mediate sounds through their spiritual bodies. See Allen, The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, p. 195.

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46 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. 285–87 [In Plotinum, p. 278; Opera omnia, p. 1708]: ‘Ubi enim secundum imaginationem vita disponitur, externus daemon noster est aerius – in aere videlicet infmo – ac per imaginationem nostram imaginatione sua nos agitans; ubi vero secundum rationem vivitur, daemon foris ex aere medio ratione sua rationem versat humanam; ubi denique intellectualis est vita, daemon ex aere summo per intelligentiam aspirat intelligentiae. Atque id non tam electione faciunt quam more naturae, nam et in nobis intellectualis lucis excogitatio imaginationem naturaliter movet ad sensibilem lucem imaginandum, et imaginatio in somno movet sensus et in vigilia frequenter affectus modo naturae, atque vicissim passio movet sensus, sensus imaginationem, haec naturaliter rationem’. See also ibid., p. 249 [In Plotinum, p. 250; Opera omnia, p. 1703]: ‘the higher daemons primarily by means of reason act on our reason by persuading simply and calmly, and the lower daemons for the most part by means of imagination and spirit act on our spirit and imagination by arousing certain disturbances, both groups of daemons therefore acting on the will (daemones quidem superiores ratione potissimum agunt in rationem persuadendo simpliciter atque tranquille, inferiores autem imaginatione plurimum atque spiritu in spiritum imaginationemque nostram perturbationes aliquas suscitando, et utrique consequenter agunt voluntatem)’. See Corrias, ‘From Daemonic Reason to Daemonic Imagination’, p. 449. 47 See Allen, Icastes, pp. 175–6, n. 10. 48 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 287 [In Plotinum, p. 278; Opera omnia, p. 1708]: ‘But the more lofty order of daemons acts in a much more hidden way and is constantly calling us back to intelligence in a more tranquil manner (sed excellentior ordo daemonum agit occultius admodum atque tranquillius ad intelligentiam assidue revocans)’. To describe the action of daemons Ficino uses also the verb pulsare as in ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘daemons with their powers constantly disturb our powers (daemones viribus suis nostras assidue pulsant)’. 49 Allen, ‘Socrates and the Daemonic Voice of Conscience’, pp. 142–3. See Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer, p. 48. 50 Allen, ‘Socrates and the Daemonic Voice of Conscience’, p. 143. 51 Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s ‘Timaeus’, in Opera omnia, II, pp. 1438–84, at p. 1469. 52 Here is the story, as Ficino tells it in ibid., pp. 1469–70: ‘This year, 1493, in October, I discovered in Florence a daemon of this kind in a very old, dark, crumbling house belonging to the Galilei family. The daemon in question had been vexing the tenants for the past two months. Relying on a number of proofs, I reached the conclusion that it was a semi-feral daemon, a dumb and unclean spirit, of a Saturnine nature. Therefore, after prayers and expiatory rites, I gave instructions to clean the entire house of its flth, to treat it frequently with specifc fragrances, to whitewash its walls, to light it up and decorate it, so as to prevent the house from becoming once again a receptacle for unclean spirits. And that frst happened the day when the sun entered the sextile aspect of Jupiter, since I gathered that the daemon started to torment the family last August, the day and hour in which Saturn was opposite Jupiter. Once the instructions were carried out, that flthy and Saturnine daemon immediately started to protest, for he could not stand clean things which were associated with Jupiter. The following year, in December, a daemon similar to this one was expelled from the house of a certain Francesco, my cobbler, after it had been dealt with following a similar procedure. That happened according to God’s will, for human beings cannot do such things without God. This is a true story; but anyone can make whatever they like of the cause behind such a prodigious event, provided they never disagree with the truth of theology

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(eiusmodi daemonem hoc anno millesimo quadringentesimo, nonagesimo tertio, Octobris mense in vetustissima et caduca et obscura quadam Galileae familiae domo deprehendi Florentiae, duos iam menses domesticos infestantem, quem pluribus argumentis esse quasi brutum Saturniumque iudicavi, daemonium mutum spiritumque immundum. Iussi igitur post orationes sacrasque expiationes mundari sordibus domum totam, electis odoribus saepe affci, dealbari, illuminari, ornari, ne domus ulterius foret habitaculum immundo spiritui consentaneum. Idque primum feri quo die sol ad sextilem pervenit Iovis aspectum. Nam deprehenderam daemonem cepisse vexare familiam Augusto superiori, quo die, qua hora apponebatur Iovi Saturnus. His igitur observatis, disputavit subito Saturnius et sordidus ille daemon, cui videlicet munda et Iovialia displicerent. Anno sequenti mense Decembri similis huic daemon e laribus Francisci cuiusdam sutoris nostri, observationibus ferme similibus a nobis institutus divinitus est expulsus. Non enim homines haec effcere sine Deo possunt. Historia quidem vera est, rationem vero tantae rei quomodocunque quis velit accipiat, dummodo nunquam a theologiae veritate dissentiat)’. On these two exorcisms see Allen, ‘Summoning Plotinus’, p. 85, n. 53; id., ‘Marsilio Ficino on Saturn’, p. 87; Celenza, ‘Late Antiquity and Florentine Platonism’, pp. 91–91; J. Prins, Echoes of an Invisible World: Marsilio Ficino and Francesco Patrizi on Cosmic Order and Music Theory, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014, pp. 205–6. Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. cxxi. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 287 [In Plotinum, p. 278; Opera omnia, p. 1708]: ‘Ingentia igitur rationaliaque in aere animalia degunt fgura quoque rotunda – qualem fgura haec aeris exigit. Sensus est in toto corpore totus et pro natura aeris acutissimus, motus ratione simili velocissimus, motionis ordo ferme qualis in stellis. Daemones igitur stellae sunt aerii caeli circuitus stellarum caelestium pro viribus imitantes ab ortu ad occasum, atque vicissim statutis ubique temporibus progredientes quoque regredientesque, ac tum ad septentrionem vergentes tum ad meridiem, tum etiam velut in augem ascendentes tum iterum descendentes ordine certo’. The term auge refers to the point of greatest distance of the orbit of a planet from earth. It corresponds to what is nowadays known as the apsis. See Ficino, Three Books on Life, III.15, p. 252. See also Allen, ‘Summoning Plotinus’, p. 69, n. 17. See also Ficino, Commentary on the ‘Phaedrus’, p. 93: ‘After these [the gods], however, follow the hosts of individual divinities in all the world’s spheres: these are commonly called daemons. Though in Iamblichus, Syrianus and Proclus they are distributed into particular orders – into gods, archangels, angels, daemons, principalities and heroes – yet all these particular divinities are, I repeat, commonly named daemonic, and they follow the universal gods. The ample providence in the gods’ possession these daemons have already allotted among themselves after its distribution. Various daemons minister to various gods; or, if many serve the same gods, yet different daemons perform the different offces of the same god’. See Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 289 [In Plotinum, p. 278; Opera omnia, p. 1708]: ‘The Egyptian priest therefore seems to have collected the rays of Plotinus’s daemon and – according to Porphyry’s testimony – to have shown him to the eyes of those present, whether as a worshipper of daemons he achieved this through their gift or whether he poured a certain vapor related to the daemons into the air, the collected rays of the daemon having been displayed by this defnite means (Videtur itaque sacerdos Aegyptius daemonis Plotinici radios congregasse atque [ut Porphyrius testis est] praesentium oculis ostendisse, sive colens daemones hoc eorum munere tunc impetraverit sive

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Daemons and Stars vaporem certum daemonibusque cognatum infuderit aeri quo certo modo radii daemonis congregati patuerint)’. Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]. Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]. Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]. See Adamson, ‘“Present without Being Present”’, p. 266. Rist, The Road to Reality, p. 137. See Chapter 4, p. 132. Plato, Republic, X.617e, ed. and tr. by C. Emlyn-Jones and W. Preddy, Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 2013, pp. 475–7. Plato, Republic, X.620e. See J. Wilberding, ‘The Myth of Er and the Problem of Constitutive Luck’, in Ancient Approaches to Plato’s ‘Republic’, ed. by A. Sheppard, London: BICS, 2013, pp. 87–105. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.5, 12–19, III, pp. 153–5. See also ibid., III.4.6, III, p. 155: ‘What, then, is the nobly good man (σπουδαῖος)? He is the one who acts by his better part. He would not have been a good man if he had the guardian spirit as a partner in his own activity’. The original Greek title of this work is Περὶ τοῦ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν, literally ‘What is Up to Us’. However, since I shall be using James Wilberding’s excellent translation in Porphyry: To Gaurus on How Embryos are Ensouled and On What Is in Our Power, tr. by J. Wilberding, 2nd ed., London: Bloomsbury, 2014, pp. 141–7, I shall keep his ‘On What Is in Our Power’ throughout. On Porphyry, the myth of Er, and the guardian daemon see D.G. Greenbaum, The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origin and Infuence, pp. 236–75; ead., ‘Porphyry of Tyre on the Daimon, Birth and the Stars’ in Neoplatonic Demons and Angels, pp. 102–38; A. P. Johnson, ‘Astrology and the Will in Porphyry of Tyre’, in Causation and Creation in Late Antiquity, ed. by A. Marmodoro and B. D. Prince, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 186–201; J. Wilberding, ‘The Myth of Er’ and id., ‘Introduction’, in On What Is in Our Power, pp. 123–34. Porphyry, On What Is in Our Power, 268f.67–75, p. 142. See Greenbaum, ‘Porphyry of Tyre on the Daimon, Birth and the Stars’, p. 110 and Johnson, ‘Astrology and the Will in Porphyry of Tyre’, pp. 189–91. Porphyry, On What Is in Our Power, 268f.79–81, p. 143. See Wilberding, ‘The Myth of Er’, p. 91: ‘In this way, Porphyry offers a naturalization of the myth’s talk of fate and daemons. The daemon that was said to bind us to a certain kind of life (617e2–3, 620d8–e1) can now be understood entirely in terms of biological laws’. In her ‘Porphyry of Tyre on the Daimon, Birth and the Stars’, p. 111, Greenbaum adds that the daemon ‘must also ratify those components of the second life that have necessitated consequences’. These components can be biological, for example, we may be born tall, blind, beautiful etc. or environmental, for we may be born in a tropical country or in Alaska, to a wealthy family or to a poor one. See Porphyry, On What Is in Our Power, 268f.54–67, p. 142. See Ficino, Argumentum in Platonis Respublicam, pp. 1432–8. Ibid., p. 1436: ‘Nam, et si ex fato est, tam communi quam proprio, novam iam vitam et nunc ut prius eligere: ex consilio tamen est, talem proprie eligere aut talem’. Plotinus, Enneads, II.3.9, II, p. 73. Ibid., p. 75. Ibid. See Plato, Republic, X617e. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 126 [Opera omnia, p. 1629].

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78 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Pristinam virtutem suique rectricem auctoritatem non tam amisisse quam ad tempus intermisisse: quam denique cum partim ipsae decreverint, partim fuerint adiutae divinitus, partim admonitae legibus recipere possint’. 79 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 317 [In Plotinum, p. 281; Opera omnia, p. 1712]. 80 See above, p. 150. 81 Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 317 [In Plotinum, p. 281; Opera omnia, p. 1712]: ‘In sequenti capite memento animam sortiri daemonem talem aut talem propter talem quandam electionem eius atque motionem, non dico propter electiones singulas sed speciem electionis ad quandam vitae speciem dirigentis, neque mutare daemonem quamdiu vitae speciem omnino non mutat’. 82 See Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, IV, p. cxvii. 83 Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 289–91 [In Plotinum, p. 288; Opera omnia, p. 1712]: ‘Memento tamen a summis ad infma passim extendi catenas: itaque a singulis stellis certos daemonum ordines stellarum pedissequos certis affci modis, atque similiter animas a demonibus, a suis ubique suas. Sunt ergo plures in qualibet sphaera tam infra Lunam, quam super Lunam: daemones Saturnii sub Saturno, Ioviique sub Iove, caeterique similiter. Atque inter Saturnios alii etiam in eadem sphaera praestantiores aliis, similiterque Iovii: quemadmodum inter homines solet accidere. Plotinum igitur atque Socratem praestantissimus inter aerios ducit daemon, ductus videlicet a quodam inter aethereos praestantissimo ducto similiter ab aliquo inter caelestes daemones optimo’. On the planets and psychology in Ficino see Allen, ‘Marsilio Ficino on Saturn’; id., Nuptial Arithmetic, pp. 106–42; H. Baron, ‘Willensfreiheit und Astrologie bei Marsilio Ficino und Pico della Mirandola’, in Kultur und Universalgeschichte. Festschrift für W. Goetz, Leipzig-Berlin: Teubner, 1927, pp. 149–55; M. M. Bullard, ‘The Inward Zodiac: A Development in Ficino’s Thought on Astrology’, Renaissance Quarterly XLIII (1990), pp. 687–708; R. Catani, ‘The Danger of Demons: The Astrology of Marsilio Ficino’, Italian Studies LV (2000), pp. 37–52; R. Clydesdale, ‘“Jupiter Tames Saturn”: Astrology in Ficino’s Epistolae’, in Laus Platonici philosophi, 117–32; B. Copenhaver, ‘Astrology and Magic’, in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. by C. P. Schmitt, Q. Skinner, E. Kessler, and J. Kraye, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 264–300; I. P. Couliano, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, tr. by M. Cook, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1987, pp. 44–7; E. Garin, Lo Zodiaco della vita. La polemica sull’astrologia dal Trecento al Cinquecento, Rome: Laterza, 1976, pp. 93–118; S. Howlett, Marsilio Ficino and His World, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 83–90; C. V. Kaske, ‘Marsilio Ficino and the Twelve Gods of the Zodiac’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes XLV (1982), pp. 195–102; ead., ‘Ficino’s Shifting Attitude Towards Astrology in De vita coelitus comparanda, the Letter to Poliziano, and the Apologia to the Cardinals’, in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone, I, pp. 371–81; R. Klibansky, E. Panofsky, and F. Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion and Art, London: Nelson, 1964; T. Moore, The Planets Within: The Astrological Psychology of Marsilio Ficino, Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1981; O. Pompeo Faracovi, Scritto negli astri. L’astrologia nella cultura dell’Occidente, Venice: Marsilio, 1996, esp. pp. 199–218; ead., ‘Introduzione’, in Marsilio Ficino, Scritti sull’ astrologia, tr. by O. Pompeo Faracovi, Milan: BUR, 1999, pp. 5–39; ead., ‘L’oroscopo di Ficino e le sue varianti’, Bruniana & Campanelliana VI (2000), pp. 611–17; C. Trinkaus, ‘Marsilio Ficino and the Ideal of Human Autonomy’, in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone, I, pp. 197–210; C. Vasoli,

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Daemons and Stars ‘Le débat sur l’astrologie à Florence: Ficin, Pic de la Mirandole, Savonarole’, in Divination et controverse religieuse en France au XVIe siècle, Paris: École normale supérieure de jeunes flles, 1987, pp. 19–33; id., ‘Marsilio Ficino e l’astrologia’, in L’astrologia e la sua infuenza nella flosofa, nella letteratura e nell’arte dall’età classica al Rinascimento, ed. by L. Rotondi Secchi Tarugi, Milan: Nuovi orizzonti, 1992, pp. 159–86; Walker, ‘Ficino and Astrology’, in Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Platone, I, pp. 341–49. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. 317–19 [In Plotinum, p. 281; Opera omnia, p. 1712]: ‘Therefore, to the extent that the soul leads a venereal life, it retains a venereal daemon. And if it abstains at some point from lascivious loves, it does not change its kind of daemon as long as it maintains an easygoing propensity to love albeit a respectable love. It still has a venereal daemon but one of a higher rank among the venereal. Similarly, if the soul transfers itself from trade to literature, it serves the mercurial daemon albeit a higher mercurial one. If it turns from religion toward warfare, it changes the kind of daemon and also the rank, since it passes from the jovian to the martial, the soul thereby becoming unfortunate for the frst time (quatenus igitur vitam agit Veneream, daemonem tenere Venereum. Ac si abstineat quandoque lascivis amoribus tamen, quamdiu facile pergit amare quamvis honeste, speciem daemonis non permutat; adhuc enim Venereum habet sed praestantioris inter Venereos ordinis. Similiter si a mercatura conferat se ad litteras, daemonem servat Mercurialem quamvis superiorem; si a religione ad militiam, genus daemonicum mutat et ordinem. Nam a Ioviali transit in Martium, ex quo animus tunc primum infortunatus evadit)’. See Couliano, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, pp. 44–7. See Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.3, III, pp. 17–21: ‘if a man is able to follow the daemon which is above him, he comes to be himself above, living that daemon’s life, and giving the pre-eminence to that better part of himself to which he is being led; and after that spirit he rises to another, until he reaches the heights’. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 319 [In Plotinum, p. 281; Opera omnia, p. 1712]: ‘summa penes animae qualitatem est auctoritas, quandoquidem pro differentia qualitatis animae talem quendam induimus daemonem et exuimus’. Ibid. [ibid.; ibid.]: ‘fortuitous things are arranged for the most part through daemons (per daemones plurimum fortuita dispensantur)’. Iamblichus, De mysteriis, I.64, 1–7, p. 79: ‘In general, then, the divine exercises its rule and presides over the structure of existent things, while the daemonic is in service, and willingly takes on whatever the gods command, putting its hand to whatever the gods conceive and wish and command’. See Ficino, Iamblichus De mysteriis, p. 1878: ‘Deorum providentia universalis est, daemonum vero particularis’ and ibid.: ‘dii sunt architecti, daemones vero ministri, daemones quod occulti sunt sensibus, dii rationi quoque humanae, quod si forte aliquando dii appareant, circa terram adhuc daemonibus aeris erunt praestantiores. Mutatio enim loci, vel offcii, naturam non mutat divinam. Denique dii a potentiis fuentibus in generationem liberi sunt, daemones vero nequaquam’. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 291 [In Plotinum, p. 288; Opera omnia, p. 1708]: ‘Sed numquid unusquisque tantum in eadem sphaera movetur ab unico? Forsitan non ab uno: quamvis enim daemon quilibet altissimam implet regionem ideoque, etiam si non mutet locum, tamen multis in locis possit oberrantem hominem observare atque more stellae ubique attingere radiis, tamen non est probabile, quando quispiam ab oriente usque ad occidentalem plagam peregrinatur, daemonem natura longe praestantiorem velut addictum alicui paedagogum peregrinantis hominis vestigia sequi’. See also Ficino’s

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preface to Book IX of his Letters, in The Letters, VIII, p. 3 [Epistolae, p. 893]: ‘Whenever a book or a man guarded by an angel wanders far and wide, does the angel move around likewise? Certainly not. For the angel, who is called a good daemon and a guiding spirit, is either present everywhere at all times, as Plotinus, Porphyry and Iamblichus believe, or, like a ray of the sun, is easily and swiftly present wherever it wishes to be, reaching here in an instant, and in the same instant being refected back and all around. Indeed, the angel moves much more swiftly and easily, because a ray is the action of a luminous body, whereas an angel exists in its own right. Or, like each person’s star, it governs its own without descending, by spreading its infuence in every direction’. See Plotinus, Enneads III.4.2; Porphyry, De occasionibus XXXIV; Iamblichus, De mysteriis, V.25.6. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 291 [In Plotinum, p. 278; Opera omnia, p. 1708]: ‘If the daemon is not simultaneously everywhere, then there is not just one daemon – that is, numerically one daemon – that is superintending each person but a daemon one in species (si non [daemon] est simul ubique, non daemon tantum unus, id est, numero unus, sed etiam unus specie unicuique praesidet)’. Ibid. [ibid.; ibid]: ‘Solares daemones solari praesunt homini, qui quocumque iverit, in solarium daemonum proprie venit imperium, ipse inquam et unusquisque solaris, similiterque venerei passim incidunt in venereos’. See Rees, From Gabriel to Lucifer, p. 47. Ficino, Three Books on Life, III.23, p. 371. See pp. 170–1. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 132 [Opera omnia, p. 1636]. Ibid. [ibid.]. See Greenbaum, The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology, p. 236. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 132 [Opera omnia, p. 1636]: ‘Daemonem vero dari nobis Aegyptii volunt ab ipso daemonum praeside Deo ad electae iam vitae normam atque ad consonantiam universi electionis tempori concinentem’. See also Ficino, Iamblichus De mysteriis, p. 1905: ‘Porphyrius dicit si quis cognosceret fguram nativitatis dominumque fgurae invenire daemonem suum et per ipsum solveretur a fato nativitatis, sed subdit impossibile esse scire illam et hunc invenire et regulas astronomiae et astrologiae esse incomprehensibiles et incertas, teste etiam Cheremone. Iamblichus dicit daemonem neque cognosci neque dari ab illa fgura et daemonio eius, alioquin non solveret nos a fato nativitatis, sed dari ab antiquiori principio et altiori, scilicet a diis super[ior]ibus, et cum primum anima inclinatur ad sensibilia ad conceptionem et solvi nos a fato non tam per daemonem quam per cultum superioris numinis’. On the different positions of Porphyry and Iamblichus see also Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. 319 [In Plotinum, p. 281; Opera omnia, p. 1712]. On the connection between daemons and stars, see also Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 93 [Opera omnia, p. 1601]: ‘Arbitror equidem caelestes daemones non esse in stellarum fxarum, sed planetarum regione, quasi comites planetarum stellas ac proportione servata, sequi stellarum planetarumque motus, similiterque daemones in aere puro caelestem choream competenti progressione complere. Forte enim sicut daemones, sic stellas planetasque propriis per caelum motibus more animalium gradi quis putabit’. Plotinus, Enneads, III.6.2, 8–19, III, pp. 214. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, V, p. 383 [In Plotinum, p. 370; Opera omnia, p. 1737]. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 132 [Opera omnia, p. 1636]: ‘ideoque proprie daemonem, quoniam ad concentum mundi tribuitur, fato animam (ut ita loquar)

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Daemons and Stars accommodare’. See also Ficino, Epistolae, pp. 865–6: ‘Addunt [Platonici] tot insuper esse humanarum ordines animarum, quot et stellae et daemonum legiones connumerantur, aliasque aliorum tum daemonum, tum siderum, tam naturam, quam munus appellationemque sortiri. Hos vero daemones appellant genios ingenuos duces ingenii, singulos singulis animabus a lege fatali id est, ab ipsa quando animae labuntur in corpus, sphaerarum, omnium dispositione infuxuque nobis accommodatos quibus mentes nostrae quatenus deterioribus quibusdam daemonibus sensibusque non parent, quotidie facili quadam occultaque persuasione ita ferme ducantur, ut naves gubernaculo a gubernatore reguntur’. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, pp. 319–21 [In Plotinum, p. 281; Opera omnia, p. 1712]: ‘Nam animae hominum atque daemonum, sicut natura sunt ante caelestium motiones, sic ante motiones tales in se iam ipsae sunt tales. Ideo Timaeus ait animas per affectiones suas prius elegisse sortes formasque vitarum palam obiectas, deinde daemones accepisse, tertio motiones attigisse fatales atque attigisse per vehicula sua: scilicet, caelestia earum corpora caelestibus infuxibus motionibusque contigua. Caelestem itaque lyram cogita pulsante Phoebo varios in horas concentus effcere, animas autem omnes cum anima Phoebea sic esse concordes ut quales ipsae in se iam sunt talibus potius quam talibus concentibus moveantur veniantque aliae alias in choream saltaturae. Ex tali itaque caelestium harmonia qua tangitur anima praecipueque mulcetur cognoscimus qualis ipsa sit qualemque per se sortita sit daemonem quidve actura sit in chorea potissimum et quomodo saltatura: ubi plurimum procedit ex anima, non parum quoque ex harmoniae caelestis condicione contigit’. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.6. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 323 [In Plotinum, p. 282; Opera omnia, p. 1713]: ‘ait [Plotinus] animam nostram non formari semper intelligentia quoniam statim ab initio, ob operosam generationis fabricam, actus potentiae vegetalis supra modum intenditur ad quem et similia praecipitatur imaginatio circa quam et similia negotiatur et ratio: haec vero intelligentiae sunt opposita. Verumtamen etiam antequam discursibus rationis utamur, appetimus ipsum verum naturaliter atque bonum: per ipsam scilicet cognoscendi potentiam. Cum vero haec non appetat aliquid prorsus incognitum, inest saltem menti veri bonique forma naturaliter insita’. Plotinus, Enneads, III.4.6, III, p. 161: ‘And as the circuit of heaven, like a wind, carries round the man sitting, or even moving about, on the ship, there occur many and various sights and changes and incidents, and, just as in the actual ship, [they occur because] he is moved either by the tossing of the ship or by himself, of his own impulse, whatever it may be, which he has because he is on the ship precisely in his own way’. Ficino, Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. 323 [In Plotinum, p. 282; Opera omnia, p. 1713]: ‘Regit autem animam daemon non quidem simpliciter optime sed optime pro praesenti ipsius animae qualitate’. Pythagoras, Golden Verses 61–2, in J. C. Thom, The Pythagorean Golden Verses, Leiden: Brill, 1994, pp. 93–9, at p. 99. See Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 132 [Opera omnia, p. 1636]: ‘Idcirco Pythagoricus ille cantus orat Iovem ut vel ipse nos ab his malis absolvat vel saltem quo daemone utamur ostendat’. See his letter to Giovanni Cavalcanti in the third book of his Epistolae, p. 735. Allen, ‘Marsilio Ficino on Saturn’, p. 13. Kaske, ‘Introduction’, in Ficino, Three Books on Life, p. 34. See, especially, Kaske, ‘Ficino’s Shifting Attitude Towards Astrology’ and Walker, ‘Ficino and Astrology’. Bullard, ‘The Inward Zodiac’; Garin, Lo Zodiaco della vita, pp. 93–118; Pompeo Faracovi, ‘Introduzione’; and Trinkaus, ‘Marsilio Ficino and the Ideal of Human Autonomy’.

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112 Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, p. 282. 113 Ficino, Three Books on Life, p. 253. 114 Daniel P. Walker, however, believed that only the ‘Proem’ was written in 1477, while the Disputatio itself is to be dated after the publication of the De Vita, that is, in 1493 or 1494. See Walker, ‘Ficino and Astrology’, p. 343. 115 The text of the Disputatio was published in part by Kristeller in Supplementum fcinianum, II, pp. 11–76 from the codex unicus Florence, Biblioteca Centrale Nazionale, MS Magl. XX, 58. There is an Italian translation by Ornella Pompeo Faracovi (Disputa contro il giudizio degli astrologi), in Ficino, Scritti sull’astrologia, pp. 49–174. For the famous letter to Federico da Montefeltro see Epistolae, pp. 849–53. 116 Ficino, Letters, III, p. 76 [Epistolae, p. 781]. See F. Signoriello, ‘Pulci and Ficino: Rethinking the Morgante (cantos XXIV-XXV)’, Rivista di studi italiani XXXV (2017), pp. 80–138. 117 Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, p. 311. 118 On this treatise see P. Adamson, ‘Plotinus on Astrology’, in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy XXXV (2007), pp. 265–91. 119 Plotinus, Enneads, II.3.2, II, pp. 59–61. 120 Ibid., II.3.8, pp. 71–3. 121 See Robichaud, ‘Working with Plotinus’, pp. 132–6. 122 Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 120 [Opera omnia, p. 1621]: ‘Plotinus et Origenes condiscipuli sub Ammonio Alexandrino, ac semper amici, hac in re sicut in plerisque consentiunt: stellas neque omnia facere neque ubi agunt omnino peragere’. Ficino refers to Origen’s Commentary on Genesis 1:14, preserved in book XIII of Philocalia, where Origen discusses astrological issues, taking a position very similar to that of Plotinus: stars do not cause things, but signify them. See, especially, Philocalia, XXIII.1–3 and 14, ed. by J. Armitage Robinson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893, pp. 187–90 and 202. Ficino quotes the very beginning of Philocalia, XXIII.1, where Origen claims that the lights were created to be signs (Περὶ τοῦ εἰς σημεῖα γεγονέναι τοὺς φωστῆρας), p. 187. See Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 120 [Opera omnia, p. 1621]: ‘Quod quidem Origenes in Genesiis commentariis, ubi dicitur stellas fuisse factas in signa’. 123 Ibid. [ibid.]. See Adamson, ‘Plotinus on Astrology’, p. 267: ‘For he [i.e. Plotinus] follows Plato and the Stoics in thinking that the entire physical cosmos is a united system, indeed a single living thing. It is bound together by sumpatheia. Thus the astrologer may by observing one part (the stars), be able to tell what is happening or will happen in another part (the sublunary world), just as an expert in dance can tell, by looking at one part of a dancer, what the rest of the dancer’s body is doing or will be doing’. 124 This analogy was quite commonly used by late ancient philosophers and theologians. In his ‘Introduction’ to St. Maximus the Confessor, On Diffculties in Sacred Scriptures: The Response to Thalassios, tr. by M. Constas, Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018, pp. 3–60, at p. 30, Maximos Constas claims that the analogy between the structure of the material world and the structure of language and speech ‘was partly encouraged by the Greek language itself, in which the word for the “elements” of matter and for the “letters” of the alphabet is one and the same (that is, στοιχεῖα)’. On this analogy in the Renaissance see A. Grafton, ‘Girolamo Cardano and the Tradition of Classical Astrology: The Rothschild Lecture 1995’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society CXLII (1998), pp. 323–54 and S. Heninger, Touches of Sweet Harmony: Pythagorean Cosmology and Renaissance Poetics, San Marino: Huntington Library, 1974.

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125 Plotinus, Enneads, II.3.7, II, p. 69. 126 Origen, Philocalia, XXIII.3, p. 190. 127 Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 122 [Opera omnia, p. 1612]: ‘[Plotinus et Origenes] intelligunt stellas fgurasque tum confectas ex stellis, tum imaginarias. Item signorum gradus partesque minutas, denique planetarum aspectus et motus, et quae consequuntur haec ubilibet vel comitantur’. 128 See ibid., p. 125 [ibid., p. 1628]: ‘Huic autem providentiae legi ad tria potissimum stellae servire videntur. Primo quidem universum hoc ita ferme pulchrum effciunt, sicut stellis divina mens idealibus pulchrum prius excogitavit. Secundo ad effectus conferunt naturales, quos stellarum radiis manifeste foveri videmus. Tertio daemonibus hominibusque daemonicis signa futurorum, latentiumque indicia praestant’. 129 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘illis [i.e. daemonibus] enim caeleste volumen Deus legendum proposuisse videtur’. 130 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘sapiens adiuvabit opus astrorum sicut agricola prudens naturalem terrae virtutem’. 131 Ibid. [ibid.]. 132 Ibid. [ibid.]. In his Cardano’s Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer, Cambridge [MA] and London: Harvard University Press, 1999, p. 12, Anthony Grafton claims that Ficino went as far ‘as to treat astrology as the core of medical doctrine’. 133 Ficino, In Plotinum, pp. 125–6 [Opera omnia, p. 1628]: ‘Quantum vero ad haec medicinae diligentia valeat, compertum habeo et saepe alias et in puero, qui natus octavo conceptionis mense nocte sub Saturno stationario statione prima in Sagittario ascendente, semianimis profecto et vix, ut videbatur, victurus ad triduum, tamen diligentissime curatus a nobis paulatim recepit vires et iam plures annos implevit. Mitto quot modis foverim nato cor, cerebrum, et iecur, et stomachum, rebus tum ipsi, tum nutrici et extra et intus adhibitis’. 134 The idea that the eighth month of gestation was under the rule of Saturn, which brought death to new-born infants was widespread in Medieval astrology and still widely quoted in the early modern period. The danger of death for eightmonth fetuses was also advocated, even though on a purely medical level and with no connection to astrology, in the Hippocratic works On the Seventh Month Child and On the Eighth Month Child and mentioned by Aristotle in On the History of Animals 7.4.584b. See also Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 7.4. On the history of this belief see C. Burnett, ‘Planets and the Development of the Embryo’, in The Human Embryo: Aristotle and the Arabic and European Traditions, ed. by G. R. Dunstan, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1990, pp. 95–112; A. E. Hanson, ‘The Eight Months’ Child and the Etiquette of Birth: Obsit Omen!’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine LXI (1987), pp. 589–602; G. K. Tallmadge, ‘On the Infuence of the Stars on Human Birth’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine XIII (1943), pp. 251–67. It must be said that, for Ficino, Saturn could also have a positive infuence, for instance, when it was used to cool the heat of infections. See Three Books of Life, III.10, p. 284. 135 Grafton, Cardano’s Cosmos, p. 8. 136 See Heitzman, La libertà e il fato, pp. 365–8. 137 Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 223 [Opera omnia, p. 1679]: ‘Cum enim per plurimos deinceps agentium gradus et virtus effcax minuatur et complurima tandem repugnantium formarum confuat multitudo, nimirum sequitur ut propria quaeque natura ab offcio quandoque defciat, dum paulatim debilitata virtus aliquando diversorum occursu facilius impeditur’. This passage and the ones quoted in ns. 137, 138, 140 below are to be found also in Disputatio, Florence, MS Magl. XX, 58, f. 11 and ff. Kristeller has not included them in his critical

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edition but has indicated the textual variants between the codex and the Opera omnia. See Kristeller, Supplementum fcinianum, II, pp. 16–19. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 223 [Opera omnia, p. 1680]: ‘Non enim si causa remota necessaria est, mox eventus inde omnis provenit necessarius, nisi etiam causa propinquior necessaria fuerit’. Ibid., [ibid., p. 1679]: ‘Seminaria plantae animalisve natura prolem suam neque parit semper, neque opportune parit ubique, neque perfectam. Quamvis igitur, quantum ad naturam caelestem pertinet, rem procul dubio necessariam, absoluta proles haec plantae vel animalis certis foret temporibus proventura. Contingit tamen interdum non evenire, vel non provenire perfectam quando scilicet natura generantis propria vel intrinsecus defcit, vel impeditur extrinsecus’. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 128 [Opera omnia, p. 1632]: ‘Faciant ergo stellae non omnia, sed solum quae mundani corporis sunt passiones et motus et quae ex his necessario generantur’. Ibid., p. 224 [Opera omnia, p. 1680]: ‘Proinde si natura corporea, quae et manifestius corpori caelesti subjicitur, et ad unum quiddam potissimum determinata videtur, non necessario caelestes admittit infuxus, tales dico prorsus, quales mittuntur e caelo, multo minus rationalis anima, cuius notio motioque et intima et latissima est, et saepe genus corporale transgreditur, corporique repugnat, caelestem instinctum necessario sequitur, cui sane frustra natura dedisset, ut quotidie consultando possit pro coniecturarum diversitate plura inter se opposita in consultatione proponere, nisi posset ad utrumlibet eligendo se ducere: non posset autem ad utrumlibet se conferre, si certa quotidie constitutione caeli compelleretur ad certum’. Ibid., p. 128 [ibid., p. 1632]: ‘[Stellae] signifcent quoque multa, neque tamen pariter omnia’. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Probabile enim est si plurima stellarum effcientiam superant vel effugiunt, nonnulla quin etiam earum signifcantiam superare’. Ibid., p. 111 [ibid., p. 1610]: ‘Si per illa nobis signifcentur aliqua, quae ad causam corpoream referri non possunt, non aliter id feri posse, nisi in caelestibus animis descripta ft rerum series futurarum, quam nobis quandoque stellarum quasi oculorum nutibus explicent’. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Neque vero ubi signa sunt, continuo sunt et causae, sicut neque propitius paterni oculi nutus in flium benefcii causa est futuri, sed signum’. Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Sic ergo quando per Mercurium certo modo positum astrologi natum sapientem fore predicunt, corpus ipsum planetae non est causa sapientiae. Quod enim non facit animum, neque rursus sapientiam effcit animi propriam’. Ficino, Three Books on Life, III.23, pp. 371–3. Allen, Marsilio Ficino on Saturn, p. 16. Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 111 [Opera omnia, p. 1610]: ‘Sed et velut in causa simul atque signum nobis [corpus planetae] indicat corpus nascentis fore ad obsequium sapientiae temperatum. Et tanquam signum portendit animum (ut Platonice loquar) in corpus eo tempore descendentem, familiarem esse Mercurialis animi atque numinis et Mercuriali quodam vel simili daemone gubernari’. Ibid., p. 128 [ibid.]: ‘Animam vero ad corpus hoc accedere Plotinus existimat, non certa quadam siderum constitutione coactam. Siquidem ante quamlibet novam caeli fguram in antiqua ipsius animae natura est animare corpus est et supergredi corporeum temporaleque fatum’. Plotinus, Enneads, II.3, II, p. 77. Ibid. IV.3.13, IV, p. 79. See Adamson, Plotinus on Astrology, 286, n. 40. Ficino, Platonic Theology, XVII.3.6, VI, p. 37.

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154 Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 129 [Opera omnia, p. 1632]. 155 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Sicut et saltantes in tripudio cum cantu consonant atque sono neque tamen necessitate sunt, sed voluntate concordes’. 156 Plotinus, Enneads, II.3.10, II, p. 77. 157 Gersh, ‘Analytical Study’, in Commentary on Plotinus, IV, p. xiv. 158 Ficino, In Plotinum, p. 129 [Opera omnia, p. 1632]: ‘Natura quidem et affectio tunc potissimum vergit ad corpus cum oportunius consonat universae naturae’. 159 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Talem vero potius aut talem vitae formam accipere in ipsa animae electione consistit, sed utcumque id fat passio vel affectus ingens, quo anima inclinatur ad corpus, non a sideribus irritatur, sed exorditur ab anima’. 160 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Suo videlicet ministerio conferens ad eam vitae sortem impleandam quae maxime congruit universo’. 161 Ibid. [ibid.]: ‘Quaelibet enim in dies confguratio caeli pars est harmoniae totius, et ut pars obsecundat universi naturae, cum qua simul congruit unaquaeque natura, et corporea simul et animalis. Quam ob rem ab ipsa mundi natura simul cum propria uniuscuiusque natura res singulae peraguntur a motu vero et fgura caelestium aliter et aliter quodammodo disponuntur atque ex quadam ad naturam concordia portenduntur’. 162 More specifcally, at the origin of life on earth Ficino postulates a correspondence between individual natures and their communal counterparts within the Soul of the World. This becomes especially clear if we look at his account of how the vegeative soul emerges in the body of the embryo, as in In Plotinum, p. 83 [Opera omnia, p. 1592]: ‘Of course, universal nature, as a universal cause, has a greater effect and acts for a longer time upon the seminal material of the human who is being generated than does this particular human nature. For this individual nature, i.e. the human nature, operates within the same universal power of universal nature. Universal nature, in turn, is channelled into becoming a property of a particular human body through the individual nature of that person. Hence in the fetus of the human who is about to be born, universal nature, guided by the individual nature of the parents, stirs and shapes the seminal matter, working by means of a certain proportion of humours and qualities, and by means of a vital power through which, as through a ‘bait’, the fetus brings life from the rational soul which is now present to itself (Universalis profecto natura in seminalem hominis generandi materiam universalis causae more magis prius diutius agit quam particularis haec humana natura. Natura enim haec propria scilicet virtus humana agit in ipsa communi communis naturae virtute. Ac natura vicissim universalis ad humani corporis huius proprietatem a propria hominis natura dirigitur. In foetu igitur huius hominis nascituri natura universalis per propriam parentum directa naturam agitat materiam seminalem atque format. Proportione quadam humorum et qualitatum vitalique vi affciens: per quam velut escam foetus vitam quandam ab anima rationali iam praesente sibi conciliat)’. Here the main point is that the Soul of the World holds the seminal reasons of all natures existing in the universe. The individual human nature of the embryo – i.e. the human genome – acts within its corresponding seminal reason in the Soul of the World. This, in turn, is directed towards the embryo’s body and, when it reaches it, animates it by means of a vital power, transforming it in a kind of ‘bait’ which lures down the individual rational soul. On this passage see Gersh, ‘Marsilio Ficino as a Commentator on Plotinus’, p. 28. Ficino’s account of the Soul of the World is diffcult, yet highly fascinating, and would need a seperate book to do justice to it. On this topic see H. Hirai, ‘Fortunio Liceti against Marsilio Ficino on the World-Soul and the Origin of Life’, in Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy: Renaissance Debates on Matter, Life and the Soul, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011, pp. 123–250.

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163 Ficino, Epistolae, p. 805. 164 Bullard, ‘The Inward Zodiac’, p. 699. See also Pompeo Faracovi, ‘Tra Ficino e Bruno’, p. 213. 165 See p. above 159. 166 See p. above 162. 167 Ficino, Three Books on Life, III.23, p. 371. 168 See above, p. 154. 169 Robichaud, Plato’s Persona, p. 237. 170 See pp. 19, 111, 113, 173. 171 See pp. 10, 111.

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Index

Abû Ma’shar 11, 165 Adamson, Peter 175n12, 180n60, 185nn118, 123, 187n152 afterlife 94–99, 107n79, 149, 156 Agamemnon 29 Al-Kindi 155 Alcuinus of York 55 Alexander of Aphrodisias 7, 9, 53, 54, 56–58, 60, 68, 69, 70n13, 71n18, 72n26, 73nn26, 29, 80n109, 82 Allen, Michael J. B. 23, 37nn3, 5, 15, 40n39, 42n40, 43nn47, 51, 44nn55, 56, 45nn64, 77, 46nn78, 79, 47n95, 48n101, 49n114, 51n143, 79nn103, 108, 100nn1, 6, 108nn90, 93, 109n98, 138n39, 141n77, 143n108, 144n114, 146n140, 149, 153, 154, 170, 174n7, 176nn31, 38, 177nn40, 42, 45, 178nn47, 49, 50, 179nn52, 54, 181n83, 184n108, 187n148 Ammonius Saccas 27, 46n78, 139n54, 166, 185n122 Andolfo, Matteo 75n50 Anebon (Egyptian priest) 50n129 Angels 123, 139n54, 149, 154, 179n55, 183n89 Annas, Julia 46n81 Aphrodite 160; twofold 131, 145n137, 146nn138, 139 Apollo 162–64, 173, 184n101 Apuleius 148, 174nn1, 2 Aquinas, Thomas 18, 20, 104n56 Aratus 11 Aristotle 1, 7–10, 53–56, 70n2, 71n17, 73n28, 74nn42, 43, 75n54, 76n55, 79nn106, 109, 86, 100nn4, 6, 102n32, 107n80, 117, 125, 143n108, 186n134 Armstrong, Arthur H. 43n47, 71n17, 72n26, 77n82, 103nn41, 48, 176n29

Athena 165 Aubry, Gwenaëlle 73n37, 78n92 Augustine 55 Aurispa, Giovanni 17 Averroes 1, 7–10, 20, 21, 40n39, 41n40, 42nn40, 41, 44, 53, 54, 56, 69, 70n13, 80n109, 81–87, 89, 92, 95, 100, 100nn3, 4, 6, 102n34, 104n56, 140n74, 141n74 Avicenna 126, 142n101 Baron, Hahs 181n83 Barozzi, Pietro 20, 42n44 Benassi, Stefano 138n39 Berti, Enrico 70n6 Berti, Ernesto 39n29 Bessarion 58 Bidez, Joseph 51n142 Blum, Paul Richard 38n19 Blumenthal, H. J. 43n47, 65, 71n17, 72n26, 73n26, 73nn27, 37, 74n41, 75n50, 103n48, 174n12 Boethius 109n97 Bondeson, Jan 143n112 Bos, Abraham P. 51n142 Bréhier, Émile 4 Brisson, Luc 36n2, 174nn1, 6 Brucker, Johann Jakob 13n10 Bruni, Leonardo 39n29, 54 Bruno, Giordano 4, 136n18, 136n26, 137n30 Bullard, Melissa Meriam 172, 181n83, 184n111, 189n164 Burnett, Charles 186n134 Caluori, Damian 72n26, 73nn30, 37, 75n50, 77n73, 78n92, 102n40, 103nn43, 46, 48, 139n40, 145n124 Cardano, Girolamo 4 Carducci, Filippo 17, 22

Index Carneades 125 Casini, Lorenzo 71n21 Catana, Leo 140n74 Catani, Remo 181n83 Cavalcanti, Giovanni 44n59, 100n2, 105n61, 184n107 Celenza, Christopher 47n95, 48n106, 109n102, 179n52 Charrue, Jean-Michel 40n35 Chiaradonna, Riccardo 40n35, 71n17, 140nn67, 69, 71, 141n76, 145n124 Chrysippus 125 Clark, Gordon H. 75n50 Clark, Stephen R. L. 37n2, 49n117, 140n67, 145n124 Clydesdale, Ruth 181n83 Coccia, Emanuele 41n39 Cocking, John M. 138n39 Colet, John 4 Constas, Maximos 185n124 Conti, Daniele 44n59, 45n77 Copenhaver, Brian P. 41n39, 51n136, 100n1, 181n83 Corrias, Anna 13, 37nn2, 6, 41n39, 43n50, 44n55, 51nn139, 140, 52n143, 108n89, 110n115, 135n12, 136n18, 137n30, 138n39, 174n11, 175n12, 176n37, 177n43, 178n46 Corrigan, Kevin 145n124, 174n12 Corsini, Amerigo 15 Couliano, Ioan P. 52n143, 181n83, 182n84 Cranz, F. E. 72n22 Crawford, F. Stuart 42n41 Creuzer, Friedrich 5, 13 Cudworth, Ralph 4, 105n65, 106n65 D’ Ancona, Cristina 101n6, 140n67 daemons 11, 12, 31, 35, 48n105, 97, 98, 109n102, 110n106, 134, 146n139, 148, 149, 152, 153, 159, 160, 173, 178nn46, 48, 182n85, 183n91, 184n100; guardian 11, 22, 35, 43n53, 149–54, 156, 157–59, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 169, 175nn20, 21, 177n43, 178nn40, 52, 179nn54, 55, 180n66, 181n81, 182nn84, 85, 88, 89, 183n90, 184n105, 186nn128, 129 Damascius 33, 93, 107n80 Daniel (prophet) 96, 109n100 Davidson, Herbert A. 41n40, 42nn42, 43, 101n6

213

Davies, Jonathan 70n5 Davies, Martin C. 38n18 De Boer, Sander W. 42n41 De Bovelles, Charles 4 De Gandillac, Maurice 177n45 De Vogel, Cornelia J. 37n11 Del Soldato, Eva 72n23 della Mirandola, Giovanni Pico 38n19, 39n22, 44n56 Della Torre, Arnaldo 38n19, 55, 70n6 Di Dio, Rocco 39nn26, 27 Di Pasquale Barbanti, Maria 51n142 Digby, Kenelm 143n112 Dillon, John M. 45n64, 149, 174n1, 175n16 Diogenes Laertius 69 Dodds E. R. 2, 3, 13, 173, 176n31 Donato, Gerolamo 58 Donini, Pierluigi 13 Dufour, Richard 175n12 Dyer Williams, Lesley-Anne 72n25, 74n37 Dyonisus 133, 134, 147n152 Edwards, Mark J. 46n79, 176n31 embodiment 67, 133, 134, 157, 159, 161, 163, 168, 170, 171, 188n159 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 176n26 Emilsson, E. K. 73n37, 75n50 Er, myth of 29, 132, 156–59 Eusebius 165 evil and good 27–28 evil eye 126, 129–30, 142n105, 143n108 Fabiani, Luca 18, 39n22 fate 12, 19, 35, 85, 158, 159, 161–64, 170, 173, 183n97, 187n150 Fates (goddesses) 156, 158 Favorinus of Arles 165 Fellina, Simone 49n116 Field, Arthur 55, 70nn5–7 Finamore, John F. 32, 48nn110, 111, 49n112, 51n142, 108n97 Förstel, Christian 38n18 Francesco (Marsilio Ficino’s cobbler) 178n52, 179n52 free will 12, 156–60, 175n21, 163, 164, 166 Galen 126, 142n99 Gamaliel 46n78 Garin, Eugenio 181n83, 184n111

214

Index

Gentile, Sebastiano 38nn18, 19, 39nn22, 24, 26, 42n41, 48n103, 49n114 Geoffroy, Marc 42n41 George I (King of England) 143n112 Gersh, Stephen 1, 4, 6, 13, 14, 25, 32, 37nn10, 12, 15, 38n18, 43n45, 45nn64, 72, 47n92, 48nn105, 106, 49nn118, 119, 50n127, 51n136, 62, 76nn61, 63, 67, 79n100, 100nn3, 5, 103n47, 105n57, 107n75, 108nn93, 94, 96, 109n103, 112, 135nn5, 7, 136n23, 144n118, 145n137, 155, 171, 176n33, 177nn43, 45, 179n53, 181n82, 188nn157, 162 Gerson, Lloyd P. 15, 19, 26, 36n2, 37nn11, 13, 40n30, 44n63, 45n75, 48n100, 57, 71nn16, 17, 19, 73n27, 74n38, 75n50, 76n54, 87, 93, 102n37, 103n46, 105n58, 107n78, 108n87, 135n4, 136n23, 145n124, 150, 176n25 Giglioni, Guido 41n39, 50n131, 51n135, 64, 71n21, 76n56, 77n78, 78n91, 102n22, 124, 138nn37, 39, 139nn48, 62, 141nn82, 84, 144n118, 145nn128, 129, 131, 177nn40, 45 Giles of Viterbo 4 Giorgi, Francesco 4 God 3, 8, 12, 23, 24, 26, 28, 30, 45n76, 48n100, 53, 94, 97, 104, 125, 130, 131, 154, 158, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 173, 176n26, 178n52; ascent to 3, 23, 24, 26, 30, 31, 94, 46n82, 174; likeness to 28, 46n81, 67 Goulet, Richard 46n79 Grafton, Anthony 168, 185n124, 186nn132, 135 Greenbaum, Dorian Gieseler 174n1, 180nn68, 69, 71, 183n96 Grendler, Paul F. 41n39, 42n44 Gurtler, Gary Michael 75n50 Gutas, Dimitri 36n2, 101n6 Guyot, Matthieu 108n95, 175n12 Hadot, Pierre 25, 45n70, 79n104 Hager, F. P. 72n26 Hankins, James 41n39, 47n95, 72n23, 77n69, 140n66, 142nn99, 101, 164, 185n112 Hanson, Ann E. 186n134

Harpocratius 109n97 Harvey, Karen 143n112 Hasse, Dag Nikolaus 41n39, 42nn41, 44, 142nn101, 102 Heitzman, Marian 135n13, 138nn39, 42, 145n127, 186n136 Helleman-Elgersma, Wypkie 104n54 Heninger, S. K. 185n124 Henry, Paul 38nn17, 19, 39n27, 40n34, 72n26 Hercules 110n109 Hermann, F.-G. 77n83 Hermes (Mercurius) Trismegistus 109n99 Hippocrates 126, 142n99 Hirai, Hiro 188n162 Hough, Samuel J. 70n5 Howlett, Sophia 181n83 Huby, Pamela 80n111 hylomorphism 58, 76n55, 77n69 Iamblichus 1–3, 11, 28, 30, 32–36, 47n89, 48nn103, 110, 49nn111, 120, 50nn121, 123, 127–30, 134, 75n54, 76n54, 79n109, 80n111, 96, 107n80, 108n97, 127, 143n114, 148, 152, 153, 162, 176n40, 177n41, 179n55, 182n88, 183nn89, 97 imagination 10, 11, 53, 60, 61, 67, 75nn48, 49, 78n93, 84, 85, 86, 87, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 102nn30, 31, 32, 102n35, 109n102, 110n106, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116–34, 135nn5, 10, 136nn17, 18, 20, 23, 26, 137n32, 138nn44, 45, 139nn56, 59, 61, 62, 140n64, 141n74, 143n111, 144n115, 146n143, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 156, 158, 173, 176n39, 177nn43, 44, 178n46; its accompanying emotions 125–26, 127, 132, 146n143, 161, 163 Inge, William Ralph 94, 108n86 intellect (intellectus) 7, 8, 9, 10, 60, 65–66, 69, 74n43, 75nn48, 54, 78nn87, 93, 80nn112, 113, 84–85, 87, 89, 90, 92, 93, 98, 99, 100n1, 101nn14, 17, 102nn33, 34, 103n47, 105n61, 106n74, 107n80, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 121, 123, 131, 134, 135nn5, 16, 17, 136nn23, 24, 138n33, 139n63, 140n64, 150, 151, 152, 154, 156,

Index 176n24, 178nn46, 48, 163, 164, 165, 173, 184n101; agent see nous poiêtikos; as a hypostasis (Intellect) 3, 7, 45n64, 47n90, 53, 60, 69, 74n38, 83, 84, 86, 87, 89, 91, 98, 99, 106nn67, 74, 113, 115, 118, 121, 136n18, 138n33, 151, 152, 174; potential see nous pathêtikos; undescended 3, 9, 31, 32, 35, 56, 68, 82–83, 94, 107n80, 151, 152 Iorio, Dominick A. 41n39 Isidore of Seville 55, 70n11 Ivry, Alfred L. 42n42 Jesus Christ 27, 45n76, 46n80, 94 John of Hungary 8 Johnson, Aaron P. 180nn68, 69 Julian 50n123 Jupiter 160; planet 178n52, 179n52, 180n83, 164 Kalligas, Paul 73n37, 103n48 Kane, Murray 144n116 Karamanolis, George 71n17, 73n37 Kaske, Carol V. 181n83, 184nn109, 110 Katz, Joseph 46n80 Kessler, Eckhard 72n23 King, Richard A. H. 140nn67, 68 Kissling, R. C. 51n142 Klein, Robert 52n143, 138n39 Klibansky, Raymond 181n83 Kraye, Jill 41n39, 44n55, 70n6, 71n21 Kristeller, Paul Oskar 38nn18, 19, 22, 39nn23, 29, 41n39, 42n41, 45n64, 50n132, 52n143, 55, 68, 70nn5, 8, 71n21, 79nn105, 108, 100n4, 108nn85, 93, 135n13, 138n39, 185nn115, 117, 186n137, 187n137 Kroll, Wilhelm 2 Lachesis (goddess) 157 Lavecchia, Salvatore 46n81 light 89, 92, 100n1, 106n74, 107n74, 135n8 Lines, David A. 55, 70nn6, 7 Lloyd, Anthony C. 49n111 love 129–30, 134, 146n139, 147n157 Luhtala, Anneli 70n12 Luke (evangelist) 45n76 Lysias 130 Mahoney, Edward P. 104nn50, 56 Mamo, Plato Salvador 103n48

215

man-God relationship 23, 24, 26, 28, 30, 31, 44n59, 76n54, 94 Marcel, Raymond 38n18 Mariani Zini, Fosca 135n13, 138n39 Mark (evangelist) 26, 45n76 Mars (god) 160; planet 164 Martelli, Braccio 31, 35 Martin, Craig 42n44 matter 125, 133, 134, 168 Matthew (evangelist) 45n76 Matton, Sylvain 13 Maximus of Tyre 148 Maximus the Confessor 185n124 Medici, Cosimo de’ 16, 17, 38n19 Medici, Giovanni de’ 33 Medici, Lorenzo (di Pierfrancesco) de’ 172 Medici, Lorenzo de’ 14, 16, 40n36, 51n136 Megna, Paola 32, 49nn114, 115 melancholy 96, 164 memory 93, 98, 110nn109, 110, 113, 121, 122, 123, 136n20, 140n66; as recollection 75n54, 121–23, 140n74, 141nn74, 76, 77 Mercury (planet), p. 169, 170, 187n146 Meredith, Anthony 46n80 metensomatosis 29, 30, 36, 47nn92, 94, 95, 48n102, 95–96, 108n96, 109nn98, 102, 149, 151 mind (mens) see intellect Miscomini, Antonio 16 Mohammed, Ovey N. 41n40 Monfasani, John 41n39, 42n44, 79n107 monopsychism 9–10, 20, 40n39, 41n40, 53, 56, 69, 70n13, 81, 86, 87, 91, 100n5, 104n56, 105n61 Montefeltro, Federico da 165, 185n115 Moore, Thomas 181n83 More, Henry 4 Moreschini, Claudio 157n1 Moser, Georg Heinrich 5 Moses 23, 24, 34 Muñoz-Hutchinson, Danny 73n37, 74n39, 78n92, 140nn67, 69, 72 Narbonne, Jean-Marc 46n80 Nebuchadnezzar 96, 109n100 necessity (goddess) 156, 158 Nemesius of Emesa 108n97 Niccolò Niccoli 17, 38n18 Nikulin, Dmitri 140n67 Noble, Christopher 73n37, 76n55

216

Index

Nous pathêtikos 7, 8, 10, 20, 53, 54, 69, 80n113, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 101n19 Nous poiêtikos 7, 8, 10, 20, 53, 54, 84, 85, 101n19 Numenius of Apamea 109n97, 148 Nutton, Vivian 142n99 Nyvlt, Mark J. 71n17 O’ Cleirigh, Padraig 174n12 O’ Meara Dominic, J. 14, 37n9, 38n19, 43n53, 45n76, 79n107 O’ Neill, Seamus 174n1 Ogren, Brian 52n143, 108n93 Olivi, Peter John 77n69 Olympiodorus 33, 50n121 Origen 27, 165, 166, 185n122, 186n126 Orpheus 29 Pallas see Athena Palmer, Ada 72n23 Pannonius, Janus 16 Panofsky, Erwin 181n83 Paul (Saint) 5, 28, 34, 44n59, 46n82, 47n82 Perrone Compagni, Vittoria 142n101 Phaedrus 130 Phillips, John 73n37, 107n80 Phoebus see Apollo Pino, Tikhon Alexander 72n25, 73n27, 74n37 Planets 11, 164, 166–69, 171, 172 Plato 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 38n19, 39n26, 40n37, 43nn51, 53, 47nn93, 94, 48n99, 56, 57, 75n54, 79n109, 80n111, 82, 86, 125; and Aristotle 57, 68, 79–80n109, 82, 96, 100, 100n4, 109nn104, 105, 117, 142n95, 143n114, 146n141, 148, 153, 158, 174n9, 175nn14, 21, 23, 180nn63, 64, 180n76, 174, 185n123 Pliny the Elder 143n108, 186n134 Pluta, Olaf 71n21 Plutarch 79n109, 107n80, 148 Pompeo Faracovi, Ornella 181n83, 184n111, 185n115, 189n164 Pomponazzi, Pietro 58 Porphyry 1, 11, 15, 23, 30–33, 36, 37n3, 46nn78, 79, 48nn105, 123, 50nn126, 129, 57, 64, 77n70, 107n80, 108n97, 151, 157, 158,

162, 165, 176nn31, 32, 179n56, 180nn68, 69, 70, 183nn89, 97 Prins, Jacomien 179n52 Priscianus Lydus 7, 31, 69, 79n108, 80n111 Proclus 1, 2, 18, 30, 32, 36, 48n111, 50nn126, 127, 51nn139, 142, 97, 106n65, 107n80, 109n105, 148, 149, 179n55 Pseudo-Areopagite, Dyonisus 18 Pseusippus 107n80 Ptolemy 11, 165 Pyrrho 125 Pythagoras 75n54, 164, 184n106 Pythagoreans 22, 43n53 reason (ratio) 60, 67, 68, 74n43, 75nn44, 45, 48, 78n93, 84, 86, 98, 101n17, 102n32, 111–13, 115, 117, 119, 120, 123, 130–32, 134, 135n10, 136nn17, 18, 23, 26, 137nn27, 28, 29, 30, 137n32, 138n33, 139nn57, 59, 73, 140n64, 149, 150, 154, 156, 157, 163, 173, 176n24, 178n40, 184n101 Rees, Valery 46n82, 47n82, 79n103, 177n45, 178n49, 183n91 Reeve, Michael D. 143n110, 144n115 Remes, Pauliina 73n32, 135n4, 140n67 Rich, Audrey N.M. 48n100, 74n37 Rist, John Michael 37n11, 44n59, 48n108, 73n27, 103n48, 180n61 Rizzo Silvia 39n26 Robichaud, Denis J.-J. 3, 7, 13, 14, 16, 37nn2, 3, 7, 38nn18, 21, 44n62, 47n85, 48nn103, 104, 70nn6, 7, 76n54, 144n118, 185n121, 189n169 Rogers, Francis 176n26 Rotondò, Antonio 55, 70nn6, 7 Russell, Daniel C. 46n81 Saccenti, Riccardo 38n21 Saffrey, Henri Dominique 13n13, 37n9, 38nn18, 19, 39nn25, 28, 44n53, 48n104, 50n122 Saturn (planet) 38n19, 178n52, 179n52, 180n83, 167, 169, 186nn133, 134 Saxl, Fritz 181n83 Schelnhorn, Johann Georg 13 Schibli, Hermann S. 139nn50, 51 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 173 Schmitt, Charles B. 41n39, 79n108

Index Schroeder, Frederic M. 72n26 Scot, Michael 20, 42n41 Scutariotes, Johannes 17, 18 Sedley, David 46n81 Seligman, S. A. 143n112 sense perception 29, 59, 84, 114, 115–17, 122, 128, 145n126 senses, outer 112, 113, 115–16, 117, 123, 124, 135nn10, 17, 136nn18, 23, 138nn34, 35, 36, 44, 149, 150, 175n24, 176nn24, 39, 178n46 Sensi, Mario 70n6 Sharples, Robert W. 72n26 Shaw, Gregory 34, 35, 49nn111, 120, 50n134, 148, 152, 174n4, 176n35 Sier, Kurt 177n45 Signoriello, Federica 185n116 Simplicius 86, 102n32 Sirat, Colette 42n41 Smith, Andrew 51n142 Socrates 21, 27, 90, 97, 98, 100, 105n63, 117, 160, 180n83 Sorabji, Richard 82, 100n5, 102n32, 107nn72, 84 Soranzo, Matteo 37n2 soul 65–66, 68, 74n41, 75n47, 76n52, 78n87, 79nn102, 105, 83, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 98, 99, 101n14, 103n47, 104n57, 105n57, 107n76, 111, 112, 125, 126, 127, 129, 131, 134, 135nn5, 8, 9, 136n21, 138n44, 142n104, 144nn123, 124, 152, 153, 159, 182nn84, 85, 161, 163, 168, 171, 172; as a hypostasis 87, 88, 89, 93; irrational 60, 74n40, 93, 96, 99, 107n80, 114, 118, 119, 121, 142n96, 158; its idolum 57, 59, 60, 62, 68, 74n39, 76nn57, 58, 62, 93, 94; its union with the body (living being) 9, 57, 58, 59, 62–68, 74n38, 76nn62, 65, 77nn69, 75, 78nn88, 89, 88, 165; its vegetative power 67, 75n49, 76n62, 78n93, 112, 128–29, 132, 140n64, 144n122, 150, 156, 158, 175n24, 161, 163, 184n101; rational 60, 66, 67–68, 74nn38, 40, 77n69, 78nn88, 89, 90, 79nn105, 110, 115, 91, 99, 105n69, 107n80, 109n98, 110n115, 111, 114, 117, 118, 119, 126, 127, 130, 161, 169, 171, 187n141; undescended 9, 56, 59, 90; unity of (Plotinus’s doctrine)

217

87–89, 103nn43, 47; of the world 9, 20, 73n36, 87, 89, 90, 91, 105n63, 106n67, 131, 132–33, 134, 144n118, 146n139, 162, 172, 188n162 Speusippus 107n80, 125 spiritus 63, 64, 76n67, 95, 108n93, 116, 128–29, 134, 144nn118, 121, 122, 145n126, 164, 170, 176n39 St. André, Nathaniel 143n112 Stamatellos, Giannis 37n2, 48n100, 139n53 stars 11, 12, 134, 146n139, 153, 155, 157, 159, 162, 164, 166, 167, 170, 184n100, 186n127, 187nn139, 142, 143 Steel, Carlos 49n112 Synesius of Cyrene 1, 31 Syrianus 179n55 Tallmadge, G. Kasten 186n134 Tambrun, Brigitte 38n19, 52n143 Taormina, Daniela P. 49n111 Taylor, Richard C. 42n42, 101n6 Taylor, Thomas 4 Terracciano, Pasquale 138n39 Thamyras 29 Themistius 75n54, 76n54, 79n109, 82, 83, 86, 101n6, 102n32 Theodore of Asine 32, 108n97 Theophrastus 7, 68, 79nn108, 109, 80nn111, 112, 83 Theurgy 2, 3, 31, 32, 34, 48n110, 51nn134, 135, 173 Tignosi, Niccolò (Niccolò da Foligno) 54, 55, 70n6 Timaeus of Locri 97, 110n106, 162, 184n101 Timotin, Andrei 151, 174nn1, 9, 175n12, 176n33 Titans 133, 134, 147n152 Tocco, Felice 136n18 Toft, Mary 143n112 Tornau, Christian 43n47, 73n27 Toussaint, Stéphane 38n19, 52n143, 177n45 transmigration see metensomatosis Trinkaus, Charles 181n83, 184n111 Turner, John D. 46n80 tutelary spirit see guardian daemon Valori, Filippo 48n105 Valori, Niccolò 48n105 van den Berg, Robert M. 49nn111, 117

218

Index

Vanhaelen, Maude 44n56, 100n4, 177n45 Vasoli, Cesare 177n45, 181n83 vehicle of the soul 51nn142, 143, 62, 92, 95–99, 108nn91, 93, 109nn98, 99, 109n105, 110nn106, 109, 110, 112, 161, 163, 173 Venus see Aphrodite Vernia, Nicoletto 104n50 Vidart, Thomas 175n12 Walker, Daniel P. 52n143, 108n93, 177n45, 182n83, 184n110, 185n114 Wallis, R. T. 36n2, 37n4, 182n83

Warren, Edward W. 118, 139n47, 140nn67, 68 Westerink, L. G. 33, 50nn122, 123 Wilberding, James 180nn65, 67, 68 Wildberg, Christian 146n150 Wolters, Albert M. 38n22 Xenocrates 107n80 Yhap, Jennifer 75n50 Yount, David J. 37n11 Zambelli, Paola 142n101 Zippel, Giuseppe 38n18