BMCR 2009.06.41: Weizmann on Allen, Marsilio Ficino: Commentaries on Plato. Volume I, Phaedrus and Ion. The I Tatti Renaissance Library

Michael J. B. Allen (ed.), Marsilio Ficino: Commentaries on Plato.
Volume I, Phaedrus and Ion. The I Tatti Renaissance Library.
Cambridge, Mass./London:  Harvard University Press, Pp. lix, 269.  ISBN
978-0-674-03119-7.  $29.95.

Reviewed by A. Ch. F. Weizmann, Abbaye de Latroun Israel
([email protected])
Word count:  1547 words
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Table of Contents: 1."The Mythical Hymn" of the "Phaedrus". 2.
Commentary on the "Phaedrus". 3. Comment on and Chapter Summaries of
the "Phaedrus". 4. Introduction to the "Ion". Appendix 1: Heaven and
World. Appendix 2: The Prague Manuscript. Appendix 3: Ficino's Notes on
MS Riccardianus.

This fine edition of Marsilio Ficino's Commentaries on Plato (Volume I:
"Phaedrus" and "Ion") is edited and translated by Michael J.B. Allen,
Distinguished Professor of English, University of California, Los
Angeles, and published in the excellent collection "The I Tatti
Renaissance Library" by Harvard University Press. Prof. Allen has
studied over much time the thought and works of Marsilio Ficino
(1433-1499) particularly with the well remembered scholar and master
Paul Oskar Kristeller. Prof Allen has published important studies about
Ficino such as The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino (1984). He published
also in the "I Tatti Renaissance Library", with critical editions and
introductions, some volumes of the"Theologia Platonica" of the same
Ficino.

Marsilio Ficino was indeed a fascinating personality of the
Renaissance: priest and magus, Hellenist scholar and original
Neo-Platonist. His translations from Plato into Latin are essential to
research profoundly the history of the Platonic reception in the
Florentine Renaissance and in the formation of the Neo-Platonist
tradition of thought.

The present edition and annotated translation of "Phaedrus" and "Ion"
is an example of outstanding scholarship. Prof. Allen with his high
expertise and sympathy for the Neo-Platonist trend and particularly for
Ficino widens our understanding of such projects. As it is known, the
"Phaedrus" deals with some of the main Platonic issues: theogony,
eschatology, purification of the soul, etc. The purification of the
soul and the beauty in all its forms are in particular significant in
our dialogue. The same Marsilio Ficino avowed, following the purest
Platonic tradition, that Phaedrus is Plato's paradigmatic youth on the
way to archetypal Beauty.

"The celestial Plato", as Ficino himself loved to declare, exemplified
in the "Phaedrus" "Beauty in all its forms". Prof. Allen, in his
detailed and erudite Introduction, explains how and in what measure
that Beauty pervades the motivation of Ficino's translation and
commentary. Marsilio Ficino is thus understood in the context of the
Neo-Platonist attempts to comprehend Platonic intuitions and teachings.
Prof. Allen considers that Ficino was "unquestionably" the most gifted
western philosopher and translator of Platonic concepts and images.
Even compared with Cusanus, Bessarion or Pico della Mirandola, the
project of Ficino merited approval most, but notwithstanding it
remained only in a sketch and we don't know why.[[1]]

Prof. Allen's edition and translation is a first-rate work and one of
its merits is to introduce the reader in the "Weltanschauung" of Ficino
and the other Neo-Platonists as Interpreters of Plato. In fact the
actual book is a revised edition of his Marsilio Ficino and the
Phaedran Charioteer (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1981).

We know that generally "traduttore traditore" and perhaps it is of
universal application without exception, but, in this present edition
and translation, the translation flows elegantly from the original
Latin to a readable and correct English style, delighting the lovers of
such texts.

Coming back to this edition it is interesting to draw attention to one
-- perchance the most relevant -- subject matter in our Neo-Platonist
texts: the paradigmatic way of the soul (of gods and humans). The
mythical Hymn of the "Phaedrus", effectively, is one of the most
noteworthy creations of "Plato noster", as Ficino loved to say. "At
Phaedrus gratia pulchritudinis disputat de amore" (transl. Allen: " . .
. but the "Phaedrus" talks about love for beauty's sake", pp.38-39).
The soul is embedded and embroidered in and through Beauty because so
the soul experiences liberation and purification. The chariots are the
symbol used here. They are "celestia ac sempiterna". The purification
of the soul is this process directing toward the consecration to God
according to the Platonic and Neo-Platonic intuitions and images.
Ficino, in his commentary, analyses with detail the characteristics and
division of such dynamic life of the soul: immortality, movement and
self-movement, frenzy, inspiration, love. Several references to other
Platonic dialogues allows Ficino to offer a overview of the main themes
of the book within the most general framework of the Platonic creation.

So the principle of motion and the soul as fountain and principle
("fons et principium . . .", p.62) of the universal motion continually
flows "ex ipsa in ipsam et in alia" ("of itself, into itself, and into
others . . .", p.61). It is the soul: a central theme particularly
concerning the idea of the beautiful and good surrounding the own soul
in the way of purification. The Introduction of Marsilio to the
"Phaedrus" ended with his remarks as regards the four worlds and the
twelve gods. The four worlds are (cf. "Timaeus"): "mundus sive caelum"
("world or heaven is a universe itself of forms", p.93); "qui mundus
corporeus appelatur" ("the world's corporeal machine", id.); "anima
mundane" ("world-soul", id.) and "qui mundus dicitur animalis"
("animate world . . .", id.) .The third world or heaven is above the
animate world: it is the "intellectualis mundus" ("intellectual world",
id.) that is the perfection of the intellectual forms "in ascensu"
(p.92).

Heaven, as Ficino interprets it (cf. also his references to the
"Cratylus" ) "interpretatur visionem superna spectantem" ("the vision
that gazes up at supernals", p.103) within the process of conversion
through the intellectual to the intelligible.

After the Introduction, Ficino comments on and summarizes the chapters
(exactly 53) of the "Phaedrus". In fact, his commentary was based in
the mythical hymn of the "Phaedrus" (243E-257A). It is very interesting
how Ficino, faithful to Plato, says that the charioteer and the horse
in divine souls is the Good (boni). But our ("nostri") charioteer and
horses are in midst of difficulties and aloofness from the Good:
"Dicitur autem aurigatio nostra difficilis, quoniam motus quidem
superioris equi ad intelligibilia, inferioris autem ad sensibilia
vergit, ad genitarumque declinat" ("Our charioteering is said to be
difficult (246B4), because, while the superior horse's motion turns
aside towards the intelligible, the inferior horse's motion turns aside
to the sensible and descends to generation", p.121). Here we find, as
Prof Allen said, a key pattern in Ficino and the Neo-Platonists: we
must wait til the homecoming to our beginning and source, waiting our
fully restoration ("et nostra tandem in patriam restituta", p.120).

The summaries and commentaries of each chapter are, generally speaking,
tiny but highly intense, filled with metaphors, allegorical
significations, mythological references, and particularly with links to
other Platonic dialogues and Neo-Platonic concepts. In the last chapter
53 Ficino deals with Socrates, the prayer to the god Pan and
principally the main thesis of the text: Beauty and Wisdom, with the
meaning that Beauty is Wisdom.

There follows the Introduction to Plato's "Ion": "Argumentum Marsilii
Ficini Florentini in Platonis "Ionem" de furore poetico ad Laurentium
Medicem" (pp.194-207).

Marsilio speaks firstly and directly to his protector Lorenzo di Medici
("optime Laurenti", p.194) and discusses "mentis alienationem"
("alienation of the mind", p. 195) that is the definition of frenzy.
There are different types or expressions of frenzy but Ficino,
following the Platonic text, gives special attention to the "ipsum
unum" ( "the One itself", id.) which is the principle of all: from the
One the soul begins the way of multiplicity and division and finally
from the One also the soul ascends from the Time to Eternity.

Four types of frenzy are present in the "Phaedrus" text (cf also the
"Symposium" about love or last frenzy): the first frenzy tempers
dissonances; the second makes the tempered parts one whole from the
parts; the third makes one whole above ("supra") the parts; and the
fourth leads the soul to the One (cf. pp.198-199).

In the "Ion" Plato talks about the poetic frenzy that truly guides the
soul from death to life, "ex oblivione lethea ad divinorum
reminiscentiam revocat, exagitat, stimulat et inflammat ad ea quae
contemplatur et praesagit carminibus exprimenda" ("from Lethean
oblivion to the remembrance of things divine: it recalls, excites,
goads and inflames the soul to express in songs the things it
contemplates and foretells", p.201). The reference Ficino makes to the
Homeric conception of poetic rhapsodic inspiration and certainly to
other Platonic dialogues ("The Laws") widens our appraisal. Poetry is a
gift of God and the Muses. Plato says God but he means Apollo, while
the Muses are the souls of the world's spheres. The commentary
finishes, like an enclosure, also with a gentle reference to Lorenzo
("optime Laurenti", p.206) perhaps full of rhetorical courteousness.

There are three appendices to Mr. Allen's excellent edition of Ficino:
"Heaven and World", "The Prague Manuscript" and "Ficino's Note on MS
Riccardianus 70". The first is about the ontological ranks in
"Phaedrus" and terminological fine distinctions in Ficino; the second
concerns the discovery by Paul Oskar Kristeller in the late 1970s of a
very relevant manuscript in Prague from Italy (fifteenth century), and
of its importance in the textual history of Ficino's works. The last
appendix is about the notes written from Ficino in the actual MS.
Riccardianus 70 from the Riccardiana Library and the influence of
Proclus' commentary on the "Phaedrus" in the interpretation of Ficino.
The Appendices and the Final Notes, written with elegant conciseness
and great erudition, are witness of the high quality of this edition
and the competence of his editor.

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Notes:


1.   See Prof. Allen's more detailed explanation of the "Phaedrus" in
his The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino: A Study of His "Phaedrus"
Commentary, Its Sources and Genesis (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1984).