Laus Platonici Philosophi

Stephen Clucas, PhD (1987), University of Kent at Canterbury, is Reader in Early Modern Intellectual History at Birkbeck, University of London. He has published widely in early modern history of science and history of philosophy, including John Dee: Interdisciplinary Studies in English Renaissance Thought (2006). He is Editor (with Stephen Gaukroger) of Intellectual History Review.

Peter J. Forshaw, PhD (2004), University of London, is Assistant Professor for History of Western Esotericism in the Early Modern Period at the University of Amsterdam. His research and publications focus on the relation of occult philosophy to science and religion.

Valery Rees is well known in the field of Ficino studies. She has been engaged in the translation project of Ficino's Letters at the School of Economic Science for the past thirty five years. She has published extensively on many aspects of his work as well as wider Renaissance issues.

Scholars and postgraduate students working in Renaissance philosophy (particularly the reception of Platonism) intellectual history, literature, science and religion.

"All fifteen chapters are of high quality...As the editors rightly note in the introduction, collectively these essays demonstrate once again that any reduction of Ficino’s role to that of a translator of ancient philosophical works fails to capture Ficino’s wide-ranging interests and influence." M.V. Dougherty, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 1 (Spring 2012), pp. 185-186.

"Nel complesso il volume fornisce un’analisi assai estesa dal punto di vista sia spazio-temporale che disciplinare." T.K., Bruniana & Campanelliana, anno xviii, 2012: 2, 657-658 pp.

Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction

PART I: THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARSILIO FICINO

Ficino and the God of the Platonists, John Dillon

Monstrous Melancholy: Ficino and the Physiological Causes of Atheism, James Hankins

‘Quo vertam oculos ut te laudem?’ Aspects of Praise in Ficino’s Writing, Valery Rees

The First Pico-Ficino Controversy, Unn Irene Aasdalen

‘Et nuper Plethon’ — Ficino’s Praise of Georgios Gemistos Plethon and his Rational Religion, Paul Richard Blum

Zoroaster and the Flying Egg: Ficino, Psellos and Gerson, Stéphane Toussaint

‘Jupiter tames Saturn’: Astrology in Ficino’s Epistolae, Ruth Clydesdale

Ficino’s Hymns and the Renaissance Platonic Academy, Sarah Klitenic Wear


PART II: THE INFLUENCE OF MARSILIO FICINO

Studied as an Oration: Readers of Pico’s letters, Ancient and Modern, Brian Copenhaver

Platonic Love on the Rocks: Castiglione Counter-Currents in Renaissance Italy, Letizia Panizza

John Dee’s Annotations to Ficino’s Translation of Plato, Stephen Clucas

Marsilio Ficino and the Chemical Art, Peter J. Forshaw

Earth’s Soul and Spontaneous Generation: Fortunio Liceti’s Criticism of Ficino’s Ideas on the Origin of Life, Hiro Hirai

Ficinian Influence on Henry More’s Arguments for the Soul’s Immortality, David Leech

Neo-Platonic modes of concordism versus definitions of difference: Simplicius, Augustinus Steuco and Ralph Cudworth versus Marco Antonio Zimara and Benedictus Pererius, Constance Blackwell

Bibliography
Index