Ficino Summer – Shepheard-Walwyn Publishers

On the Nature of Love

SheaFowb429Aslf — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 08:04:05 +0000

Finalist in 2015-16 PEOPLE’S BOOK PRIZE for Non-Fiction “Ways of falling in love” was one of the topics discussed when nine men gathered at Careggi, outside Florence, on November 7th 1468, to honour Plato’s birthday. After the meal, his Symposium was read, and the guests – now reduced to seven – spoke on the nature of love. Other topics they covered include: “It is easy to fall in love.

Source

When Philosophers Rule

SheaFowb429Aslf — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 08:03:55 +0000

“Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils, – no, nor the human race, as I believe, – and then only will this our State have a…

Source

Gardens of Philosophy: Ficino on Plato

SheaFowb429Aslf — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 08:03:49 +0000

This is the first volume in the Commentaries by Ficino on Plato’s Writings series. What made the Renaissance tick? Why had it such a force that its thinking spread from a small group of scholars in Florence, working in their own brilliant ways but coming together in a small villa on the Florentine hillside where Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) lived, to affect the thinking of the whole of Europe…

Source

Evermore Shall Be So

SheaFowb429Aslf — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 05:50:14 +0000

‘Having translated the works of Plato and the major Neo-Platonists from Greek into Latin, Ficino was in a unique position to provide commentaries on Plato’s dialogues, explaining the substance of the dialogue in the context of the whole corpus of Platonic thought and Renaissance Florence. To Ficino, however, philosophy was much more than an intellectual exercise. As a canon of Florence Cathedral…

Source

All Things Natural

SheaFowb429Aslf — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 06:20:50 +0000

Ficino’s commentary on Plato’s Timaeus offers the English reader, for the first time, an opportunity to share the insights of this highly influential Renaissance philosopher into one of Plato’s most important and controversial works. Here are discussed the perennial questions which affect us all: What is the nature of the universe? How did it begin? Does it have a cause outside itself?

Source