Marsilio Ficino adopted the concept of love from Plato and the Neoplatonists in order to elaborate his philosophy of humanity and divinity. In commenting on Plato’s Symposium, he employed amor/eros for his philosophical theology according to which God and the universe are united: love is that which binds all levels together. As such a mediator and power, it engages humans as a species, as individuals, and in societies. Love is the formula that makes the metaphysical reality intelligible and teachable. Love divides the good from the abject and sets the standard that is attainable and binding for all.

The scope of the immortality debate in the Renaissance

The debate during the Renaissance over the immortality of the soul encompassed epistemology, metaphysics, and theology. The metaphysical question was whether there is something spiritual that gives life to human beings, such that they are endowed with an ontological status superior to animals and a lasting reality. If this is true, then there is a human soul that transcends the perishable body. But a problemarises: what is the evidence for this, and what does it mean for man to be essentially spiritual? If one were to deny the need for any ontological difference between beasts and men - and that would entail abolishing the principle of life or soul as something distinct from body - then the fact of consciousness and truth over and beyond particular beings demands explanation.

Hence an epistemological problem arises from the metaphysical one. For the mere possibility that animation and spirit might be illusions or misconceptions of life and thought raises a question of epistemology. This, however, is not to be pursued in terms of formal logic, but by way of reflection upon the working of the human mind inasmuch as it seems to be the “place” (or subject) where claims are proffered that transcend particulars and where reflexivity seems to reside. The question is, then, whether the “place” of truth is coextensive with truth itself, and - supposing truth has an ontological status beyond that of physical things - whether the mind or intellect as this “place” shares that ontological status. That is to say: is the intellect as eternal as the truths it is supposed to and tries to think?

“If you like him, have him write poetry rather than theological stuff, for that suits him better, since the Count lacks the foundations and hasn't seen as much as is needed for someone who writes on theology.” This is the advice from Pope Innocent VIII that the ambassador Giovanni Lanfredini reported to his employer Lorenzo de' Medici on October 2, 1489, regarding the continuously hazardous theological publications of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. It is unlikely that the Pope had these lines in mind, which the Count had written not long before:

In tinkering with theology, Pico had attracted the ire of the pope, who, of course, had enough theologians in his service to issue condemnations and warnings. But peaceful Florence, that is, Lorenzo de' Medici, managed to obtain a brief from the next pope, Alexander VI, that absolved the protégé from any suspicion of heresy. Gianfrancesco Pico, Giovanni's nephew, did not fail to put that at the head of his edition of his uncle's works.

Giovanni Pico and his literary talents, his proficiency and orthodoxy in theology, his allegiance to the Medici, and the religious policy of Rome – all this was at stake. To begin with the religious policy: when Giovanni Pico called for a great council in Rome to discuss 900 theses in late 1486, he encountered immediate suspicion and enmity.