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An Early Record of Marsilio Ficino

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Samuel Jones Hough
Samuel Jones Hough*
Affiliation:
Annmary Brown Memorial, Brown University
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Extract

The importance of Marsilio Ficino, and the paucity of documentation regarding his early life and intellectual influences, gives special value to a brief but suggestive reference to him, made in October 1451. The reference is in the Libro creditori e debitori of Maestro Giovanni Chellini now owned by the Istituto di Storia Economica of the Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi in Milan. During a search of the volume for indications of Chellini's ownership and use of books I came upon this entry:

I record that on the 28th of October 1451 I lent to Maestro Marsilio, son of Maestro Fecino, who is tutoring Piero de’ Pazzi, a Logic of Maestro Paul of Venice on rag paper, bound in boards covered with leather, in the presence of Maestro Piero di Antonio Dini, elected to read logic in the University of Florence. Returned.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1977 , pp. 301 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1977

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References

1 The account book is the first volume of the Saminiati Archive owned by the Institute. The entry is found on folio 172 recto (pp. 1237-38 of Father Davide's typescript available at the Institute). The manuscript was first brought to light by Maddalena, Aldo de in ‘Les Archives Saminiati: de l'économie à l'histoire de l'art’ in Annates: Economies, Sociétés, Civilizations, 14 (1955), 738–744 Google Scholar. The Italian text reads: ‘Ricordo che a dì 28 d'ottobre 1451 io prestai al maestro Marsilio di maestro Fecino che sta per ripetitore cum Piero de Pazzi una loyca di maestro Paulo da Vinegia in carte di bambagia in asse legata coperta di cuoio presente maestro Piero di Antonio Dini eletto a leggere loyca nello studio di Firenze. Riebbi.’

2 The earliest record of Ficino until now has been a letter of September 13, 1454, published as ‘Lettera di Marsilio’ in Rinascimento (May 1950, pp. 25-42) and in Kristeller's, Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters (Rome, 1956), pp. 139–150 Google Scholar.

Torre, Arnaldo Della, Storia dell'Accademia Platonica a Firenze (Florence, 1902)Google Scholar, devoted a long chapter to Ficino as a young man (ch. II, III). Pp. 485-496 of that work offered a construction of the events of Ficino's youth which had him beginning his philosophical studies only in October 1451 with St. Antonino and then, later, studying with Niccolò di Iacopo Tignosi da Foligno. Marcel, Raymond, Marsilio Ficino 1433-1499 (Paris, 1958), pp. 125 Google Scholar, 162-189, followed Delia Torre and added no facts, although he sacrificed clarity of structure for interpretation. Both authors considered early Platonic teaching and the circle of the Medici dominant influences in Ficino's earliest education. P. O. Kristeller's article ‘Per la biografia di Marsilio Ficino,’ published in his Studies, pp. 191-211, is the clearest summary of the biographical facts and offers an alternate interpretation which more closely corresponds with the situation as presented in this note.

For a discussion of the various forms of Ficino's name used during his youth, see Marcel, p. 124.

3 Fundamental are Kristeller's various writings including ‘The Scholastic Background of Marsilio Ficino’ in his Studies, pp. 35-97; The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino (New York, 1943); and the valuable notes to the Supplementum Ficinianum (Florence, 1937).

4 Gherardi, Alessandro, Statuti della Università e Studio Fiorentino (Florence, 1881), p. 463 Google Scholar, document ccv.

On October 27, 1451, Dini borrowed a ‘loica d'Alberto colli sofismo d'Alberto insieme … in prestanza per qualche mese perchè è eletto a leggere loyca portollo uno suo fanciullo a nome Simone.’ This refers to Albert of Saxony's (ca. 1316-90) Logica and Sophismata, both based on the Nominalist courses which Albert taught at Paris, 1350-60. It indicates Dini's intellectual predilection and suggests the course of reading for his students.

5 Professor Kristeller has conveniently summarized recent studies on Paulus Venetus in ‘Humanists and Scholars of the Religious Orders,’ published as Appendix B to his ‘The Contribution of Religious Orders to Renaissance Thought and Learning,’ now gathered in his Medieval Aspects of Renaissance Learning (Durham, N.C., 1974), p. 149.

Kristeller's Studies, p. 143 n, had indicated the possibility of Paulus Venetus’ being familiar to Ficino. See also p. 577 n.

6 A convenient profile of Pazzi is available in Martines, Lauro, Social World of the Florentine Humanists (Princeton, 1963), pp. 342–343 Google Scholar. There is information in Kristeller's note in Supplementum Ficinianum, II, 322.

Ficino's relationship to Pazzi seems to have remained close, as indicated by his ‘Lucretian’ letter (probably of 1457) to Pazzi. Found at Piacenza by Professor Kristeller, the letter is published in Supplementum Ficinianum, 11, 84-85 (with Kristeller's note on Pazzi at p. 322). There is a warm reference in a letter to Bartolommeo di Niccolo Valori: ‘Bartholomeus Valor, vir admodum elegans et, ut ita dixerim, urbis nostrae delitiae, una cum socero suo Petro Paccio, clarissimo, equite, enarrationibus disputationibusque in Platonem nostris frequenter interfuit, atque omni studio celebravit’ (Ficino, Opera [Basle, 1576], II, 1136). In a letter of 1492 (Ficino, Opera, 1, 936), ‘Petrus Pazius is listed among the friends of his youth.

7 Vespasiano da Bisticci is the source of the information about Pazzi's tutor. He twice told the story—in his life of Piero (Paolo D'Ancona and Erhard Aeschlimann's edition of Vespasiano's Vite [Milan, 1951], p. 500) and of Niccolo Niccoli (p. 440)—of Pazzi's ‘conversion’ to classical studies by Niccoli. Vespasiano and his editors thought that Giovanni Pontano (1426-1503) was the teacher, but he was born much too late. Lorenzo Mehus in his life of Ambrogio Traversari (volume one of Traversari's Latinae Epistolae [Florence, 1759), pp. xx-xxi] corrected the name to Tommaso Pontano. Confusion has ensued because Delia Torre in the index to his Storia (p. 855) ‘corrects’ the quotation by Vespasiano (p. 226 of the Storia) to indicate that Ludovico (1409-30), a lawyer, was indicated. Lauro Martines in the profile cited above makes the same mistake.