Then followed a series of smaller writings on separate questions of philosophy, translations connected with them, and a life of Plato. Cosimo de’ Medici wished to see the works of Plotinus translated by Ficino, an undertaking to which the latter only devoted himself long after the death of its originator, and to which he was chiefly encouraged by Pico della Mirandola. According to his own words, he recognised in this new task a leading of Providence. As the Latin nations had learned to know Plato, the collector of the traditions of religious philosophy, so they should also learn to know Plotinus, who first drew forth from darkness the theology of the ancients and searched into its mysteries. This work was finished in 1486, and a detailed commentary on it in the summer of 1491. Lorenzo had undertaken to defray the cost of printing, and promised to do the same for a new edition of Plato’s works, the former one being inadequate. But the printing was only completed a month after the death of the generous patron—‘magnifico sumptu Laurentii patriæ servatoris.’ After this came a translation of the mystic theology of the writer calling himself Dionysius the Areopagite. Lorenzo Valla, who surpassed most of his contemporaries in keenness of criticism and knowledge of antiquity, had already raised a doubt as to its genuineness, as had also other writers. But this work, perhaps that of a Platonist of the fifth century, fitted in with Marsilio’s system too well not to be accepted by him as valid testimony; another example showing how, like the Alexandrian school, these later disciples wandered from their original models without knowing or intending it; with this difference, that the Neoplatonism of old ran in sharp contradiction to Christianity, while that of more modern times aimed at a union with it.
The philosophic ‘Macrobioticon,’ an original work, was finished in 1490, and dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici and King Matthias Corvinus. Far more interest attaches to Marsilio’s correspondence, which embraces the twenty years between 1474 and 1494—the only product of his literary activity that has a real value at the present time. In these letters his opinions and motives are mirrored with life-like originality, and they afford much information as to his life, his occupations, his social relations, and his friends. The twelve books (which he, following the example of many contemporaries, arranged himself, because apocryphal writings were in circulation) are all dedicated to men of high position or friends of the author: Giuliano de’ Medici, Federigo of Montefeltro, Matthias Corvinus, Bernardo Bembo, Filippo and Niccolò Valori, and others.
Marsilio’s extraordinary literary activity, the more astonishing in a man of delicate health, did not interfere with the performance of his duties as a priest or as a secular teacher. He preached often, not only in his own parish church at Nevoli, but also in Florence, at the church of the Angeli and in the cathedral. His personal relations, to which his correspondence bears witness, were very numerous. Paol’ Antonio Soderini, Giovanni Cavalcanti, Carlo Marsuppini the younger, Piero and Giovanni Guicciardini, Bernardo Canigiani, Bernardo Dovizj of Bibiena, afterwards cardinal; Lorenzo’s nephew Cosimo de’ Pazzi, Bernardo Rucellai, Pier Filippo Pandolfini, Francesco Sassetti, Ugolini Verini, and many others, were his pupils and remained attached to him; while from Leon Battista Alberti and Cristoforo Landino downwards, all the learned men whom Florence or Italy possessed were in communication with him. At an important moment of his life he called three of these, namely, Piero Soderini (afterwards Gonfaloniere for life), Piero del Nero, and Piero Guicciardini, his three brothers in the search after truth; and on March 6, 1482, he stood sponsor to Guicciardini’s son, afterwards the famous statesman and historian. Foreign lands as well as Italy sent their sons to hear his lectures, and more than one of these foreigners remained gratefully attached to him. Among others he became acquainted with several Germans; Johannes Reuchlin and Ludwig Wergenhans (Nauclerus), provost of Stuttgart, who with Gabriel Biel, professor of scholastic philosophy at Tübingen, and the learned theologian Peter Jacobi, of Arlon in Luxemburg, accompanied Count Eberhard of Würtemberg when in the spring of 1482 he undertook the expedition to Rome, which will be mentioned hereafter. Marsilio maintained the most intimate personal relations with Martin Preninger, chancellor of the bishopric of Constance, and afterwards professor of canon law at Tübingen. This man was twice in Italy in the year 1492 on business of Eberhard’s, and his correspondence with Marsilio bears witness to a friendship and agreement of opinions rare to meet with. Marsilio was wont to say that he possessed two friends, one in Germany, the other in Italy, who represented the alliance between philosophy and jurisprudence, namely, Martinus Uranius (Preninger’s literary name) and Giovan Vittorio Soderini. He had Greek manuscripts copied for his Swabian friend, and kept him informed of what was going on in the field of science, as well as of what he was doing himself. Another of his German correspondents was Georg Herwart of Augsburg, who made his acquaintance in Florence; Reuchlin’s younger brother Dionysius and Johann Strehler of Ulm also received introductions to him, when being sent by the Count of Würtemberg to study in Italy they enjoyed the notice of Lorenzo de’ Medici and were received into the house of Giorgio Antonio Vespucci. Numerous princes, temporal and spiritual, beginning with Matthias Corvinus, who tried vainly to attract him to Ofen like Argyropulos, were in regular correspondence with him, asked his advice on points of theology and philosophy, and sought his criticism on various works.
Amid all these unsought testimonies of honour and confidence, Marsilio Ficino remained simple, unpretending, easily satisfied. His delicate health compelled him to lead a quiet life, and suffices to explain the melancholy humour that often stole over him when alone. Yet in company which he liked, and which afforded food for his mind in unrestrained intercourse, he was cheerful and sympathetic. His musical talents, bringing change and refreshment from serious studies, helped to season his conversation. With his plectrum, an instrument which he himself perfected, he resembled the poet-sages of the mythic age. He was seldom absent from Platonic banquets, and had been an habitual guest of Lorenzo’s grandfather when the latter invited learned men to his house. He loved a country life above all things, and passed a great part of his time on the little estate of Montevecchio. In later years he often went to see Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano, when they were staying in his neighbourhood—the one at Querceto, the other at Fiesole; and still oftener to Lorenzo, when he was living at Careggi. He was received as a welcome guest at the villas of Valori, Canigiani, Cavalcanti, and others. At Montevecchio he instituted a peculiar yearly festival. On SS. Cosmo and Damian’s day he assembled the old tenants (‘coloni’) of his first and greatest patron and entertained them with music and singing. His independence of mind was in no way diminished by intercourse with those who, through birth or a successful career, held a higher position in life. He once wrote thus to Lorenzo de’ Medici, whose fondness for pleasure in his earlier, perhaps also in his later days, appeared to Ficino excessive, and caused him anxiety: ‘In the name of the eternal God I intreat thee, my dearest Prince, to economise every moment of this brief life, lest there come over thee vain remorse for dissipation and irreparable harm. The consciousness of lost time drew deep sighs from the great Cosimo in my presence, when he had reached the age of seventy. Trifling occupations and empty pastimes rob thee of thy true self; they make thee a slave, who art born to be a ruler. Free thyself while thou canst from this miserable servitude; only to-day canst thou do so, for only to-day is thine own; to-morrow it will be too late.’
When the young Raffaelle Riario was made a cardinal, he addressed to him warnings and counsels similar to those given in a like case, fourteen years later, by Lorenzo to his son, who was departing for Rome. He reminded him that, since he owed his high rank not to his own merits, he was the more bound to justify by his manner of life the preference bestowed on him. His memorable appeal to Pope Sixtus IV. during the war of 1478[6] shows how he could combine outspokenness with reverence for the head of the Church, which the Bishop of Arezzo, a far higher dignitary than he, and Francesco Filelfo made light of. His was the frankness of a lover of truth whose soul was filled with grief for the evils which had befallen the flock, and no less for the blots which in an unhappily complicated affair had fallen on the reputation of a supreme pastor who ought to be revered for his wisdom and goodness.
Like a true philosopher, Marsilio Ficino never strove after outward splendour. His income was most modest. Besides his little farm, he received from Lorenzo two benefices of which the revenue was small, as he was obliged to entrust them to curates, but which would have sufficed for his modest requirements had he not been besieged in his later years by a swarm of needy relatives. Without the aid of rich friends, the publication of his works would have been impossible. Amid the restlessness and discontent of the learned men of his time, who were rushing breathlessly after wealth and honours; amid the greediness for ecclesiastical benefices, even among those who were not priests like himself, Marsilio Ficino, contented and devoted to science, is a fine example of the realisation of those philosophic doctrines which in the case of so many were only spiritual luxuries or a means of making money. It is this that gives interest to his character and work, though his writings have lost their value except in their connection with the history of learning. Lorenzo’s attachment to him remained unchanged till his last hour; it shows itself in his poems as vividly as in his letters. ‘Write to me,’ he says in a letter addressed to him from Pisa, about 1473,[7] ‘whatever occurs to your mind, for nothing ever comes from you that is not good; you never have an unworthy thought, so that you can never write me anything that will not be useful or agreeable. What makes me long for your letters is that in them you combine elegance of expression with solidity of contents, so that in both respects they leave nothing to be desired.’ And in the philosophic poem mentioned above, on the independence of happiness from outward position, he thus describes Marsilio’s appearance, with a touch of the warm feeling that inspired Dante on meeting his master Brunetto, at the sight of the ‘dear, good, fatherly face:’
Marsilio is this, of Montevecchio,
Whom heaven has filled with its own special grace,
That to the world its mirror he may be?
This is that faithful follower of the Muses,
In whom are grace and wisdom aye united,
And never separated one from other;
From us and all worthy of highest honour.[8]