The Italian Renaissance | Neoplatonism (Lecture 19)

Lecture 19: The Humanists, beginning with Petrarch, largely rejected the philosophy and the methodology of the Middle Ages known as Scholasticism, that is, the application of Aristotelian logic to theology. This did not mean that they rejected the original writings of either Aristotle or his teacher, Plato. On the contrary, both enjoyed great status as classical writers. Many of the dialogues of Plato were only just becoming available with the spread of Greek texts in the late 14th and early 15th centuries; thus, there was a sense of novel discovery. Even more important, Platonism had had a substantial influence on early Christianity. Such concepts as the immortality of the soul and the interconnection of all creation had deep roots in Platonic thought.

The impetus to institutionalize Neoplatonism in the Renaissance was Cosimo de’Medici’s decision to commission the young scholar Marsilio Ficino (d. 1499) to translate the Platonic corpus into Latin. Soon, Ficino gathered around him a group of learned laymen and scholars whose interest in Plato turned his study into a kind of court; its members included such luminaries as Lorenzo the Magnificent, Angelo Poliziano (d. 1494), and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (d. 1494), as well as such artists as Botticelli (d. 1510) and Michelangelo (d. 1564).

Primary Source Texts:
Kenneth R. Bartlett, “Florentine Neoplatonism and Mysticism,” pp. 117–137, in The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance.

Secondary Sources:
James Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance.

Supplementary Reading:
Nesca A. Robb, Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance.

Lecture 20: https://rumble.com/v4y40gl-the-italian-renaissance-milan-under-the-visconti-lecture-20.html