Ficino's Way

A fifteenth century philosopher reaches across time, discussing twentieth century concerns like love, depression and job dissatisfaction.

By Alexandra Hartman

Many parallels can be drawn between fifteenth century Florence and twentieth century America. Then as now, the world was expanding rapidly, both socially and philosophically. Religious views were also changing and global boundaries shifted constantly. Confronted with a multitude of new ideas and perspectives, people must have reacted to these developments as we do, with confusion and not a little unease.

Fifteenth century Florentine philosopher Marsilio Ficino spent much of his life translating and interpreting the texts of ancient philosophers whose ideas were earlier overshadowed by Christianity. Ficino wanted to merge classical theory with Christian faith to create a strategy for a happier, more soulful life.

In an odd, circular way, just as Ficino once revived the long-forgotten words of Plato, today his own words, written 500 years ago, are translated and being reinterpreted and searched for relevance today.

Auspicious beginnings
Ficino, born near Florence in 1433, studied medicine and philosophy and was later hired by banking magnate, Cosimo de Medici to translate the ancient works of Plato, Plotinus and others. Medici gave Ficino a villa near Florence to work in, which became known as the Florentine Academy, an informal gathering place for philosophers and thinkers. Here Medici brought members of his family, his business associates and government officials to listen as Ficino interpreted the ancient texts.

Ficino and his followers, known as Neoplatonists, believed religion could save philosophy from a sterile pursuit of the highest good and that philosophy brought wisdom to religion. Like Plato, Ficino believed the soul holds together mind and body but that materialism distracts us from our spirituality. The solution, as the Neoplatonists saw it, was contemplation, which they saw as the way to achieve a balance of knowledge and morality, and indeed, as the goal of life.

Contemporary interpretations
Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, agrees. His book, which promotes Ficino's ideas, struck a chord for 20th century readers, who made it a bestseller for 46 weeks. Moore writes, "Ficino's recommendation is to establish soul in the middle, between spirit and body, as a way to prevent the two from becoming extreme caricatures of themselves." Like Ficino, Moore recommends cultivating a relationship to the world by absorbing music, art, food, landscapes, culture and climate, or what Moore calls, "things rich in what they can offer the soul."

Ficino also embraced the Renaissance concept of a world soul - the belief that an individual's soul is inseparable from the soul in others and he included not just people but things and the environment. He believed the soul establishes unity with an object through contemplation.

Moore's mentor, the Jungian psychologist James Hillman, first revived Ficino's writings and found value in the idea of a world soul, "Ficino said the world is an animal… in all its variety the world shows itself to us as a living being. Each thing has a face and calls for our attention." He maintains that today's religions focus on transcending the world rather than embracing it and he blames much of society's widespread dissatisfaction on neglect of the environment. He writes, "Neglect of the environment is part and parcel of our personal 'insanity'. The world's body must be restored to health, for that body is also the world's soul."

The Renaissance thinkers saw mystery and individuality in what we term biochemical disorder or early childhood dysfunction and Hillman believes that psychologists could learn much by adopting a more Neoplatonic view of man's psyche.

Like Ficino, Thomas Moore asserts that we should appreciate the mystery in human suffering and understand that there is no such thing as a life without problems. Rather than trying to cure patients by reducing them to the "pale common denominator of the adjusted personality," he maintains that current psychology would serve us better if it were seen as ongoing care rather than a cure. He recommends listening to "the deep mysteries in daily turmoil that are precluded by life's fast routine."

A frequent medical complaint in the 15th century was melancholy. Today the malady is equally prevalent but is more commonly referred to as depression. Late in his life, Ficino wrote The Book of Life, which he called, "a book on caring for the health of men of letters." Scholars, according to Ficino, are predisposed to melancholy, especially those who study philosophy. He believed they would be, "the happiest, wisest people of all if not for black bile, which drives them to sadness." Offering spiritual and psychological counsel as well as practical advice, The Book of Life may have been the first self-help manual ever written.

In the Renaissance view, Saturn, the god of philosophical reflection, was responsible for depression and for Ficino, aging and sadness had a role in the making of an individual. For that reason, he told his readers to embrace Saturn, rather than turn away from him, because Saturn had the power to strengthen. This contrasts sharply with the contemporary view of depression as a disease to be fought with therapy and antidepressant drugs.

Ficino offered practical ways to treat depression as well. He warned against too much wine and fatty food saying, "A soul that's suffocated with fat cannot look upon something heavenly." He also suggested spicing foods with cinnamon, saffron or cornflower and recommended a schedule with sufficient time for meditation. He advised readers to live among healthy, friendly people and to choose dwellings, "high up, far from heavy mists and air." Advocating time spent outdoors and the enjoyment of music, he wrote, "A dissonant soul is helped by strumming a lyre and constant singing and melodious playing."

An ancient view of work
Charles Boer, who translated Ficino's Book of Life, published an article in Inc. Magazine in which he asserts that even business owners can benefit from Ficino's wisdom. He cites Ficino's view of destiny, which differs from the contemporary view. Ficino believed our destinies were preconceived in heaven and that the path our lives follow was charted before birth. Today we say we are born with a few innate abilities and struggle as we grow to will ourselves into adulthood and beyond.

Boer notes that Ficino believed we are each made to fulfill a specific purpose. What we do easily, what we talk about, what we love to do, is what heaven meant us to do. As Ficino put it, "Heaven favors things it has begun," and if we choose a vocation we aren't meant to do, we'll be, "deprived of heavenly patronage."

According to Boer, Ficino may have been the first to recommend vacations for the newly born business class. He quotes Ficino, who recommended, "rustication in your life, especially when the business of the city begins to grind you down"

Love - the human condition
Another universal human struggle is love, which has brought both joy and sorrow through the ages and it is a subject with which Ficino dealt extensively. He is best known as the originator of the phrase platonic love, which he saw as more than simply non-sexual love, but as a spiritual bond between two people living a contemplative life and sharing natural community and friendship.

Ficino defined love as, "the desire for union with a beautiful object to make eternity available to mortals," and he saw it as the path to a deeper experience of the soul. But according to Moore, love for Ficino was not about making relationships work, but about love's effect on the soul.

Ficino wrote in his Convivium that the soul lies in both eternity and time and that love allows us to bridge both dimensions. Moore suggests we see love as a chance for an awareness of the divine and if we can learn to appreciate love this way, "it may reveal more than it distorts, like a dream- poetically and obscurely."

Learning
David Fideler, in an essay about teaching the humanities, deplores our culture's frequent preference for productivity and economy over beauty and pleasure. He maintains this concept has even infiltrated our system of higher education, making education simply a means to an end, rather than a chance to nurture what is "fine and beautiful in human nature."

He advocates making learning enjoyable by developing, "a passion and love for all that is fine," and refers to the platonic view that love -- and learning -- is the desire aroused by beauty. Fideler sees ongoing, lifetime learning as an integral part of soul-making and quotes Ficino, who said, "There is a corresponding deepening in the concept of humanitas, that by which man is defined, and it consists in the capacity for love."

In our materialistic, fast-paced culture, it is not surprising that so many people feel dissatisfied. It's easy to believe our situation is unique or that we are the first who have searched for spirituality or grappled with problems like depression or ambivalence. But though times and situations change, emotions and ideals never do and for this reason the words of Marsilio Ficino still speak to us through the centuries.

The members of the Platonic Academy engraved their motto, "Pleasure in the Present," into a stone over their doorway. Today we live in a much different time, but Ficino's words are still relevant. In The Book of Life he wrote, "Live every day happy in the present, for worry in the present steals the present away and steals the future, too and curiosity about the future quickly turns it into the past. Do not allow one single care."

Works Cited
Boer, Charles. "The Book Of Life or, Everything I Need to Know About Running My Business I Learned From the 15th Century." Inc. Magazine May 1993.

Cassirer, Ernst, and others. The Renaissance Philosophy of Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948.

Copenhaver, Brian P. and Charles B. Schmitt. Renaissance Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Ficino, Marsilio. The Book of Life. Trans. Charles Boer. Dallas, Tex.: Spring Publications, 1980.

Fideler, David. "Aphrodite's Companions: Beauty, Love and Pleasure in the Humanities and Daily Life." The Alexandrian Newsletter, Autumn 1994. http://www.cosmopolis.com/df/beauty.html

Hillman, James. A Blue Fire. San Francisco, Calif. : Harper San Francisco, 1989. ---. and Ventura M. We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy-- and the World's Getting Worse. San Francisco, Calif. : Harper San Francisco, 1992.

Jackson, Stanley W. Melancholia and Depression: From Hippocratic Times to Modern Times. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1986.

Kristeller, Paul Oskar, Renaissance Thought and the Arts: Collected Essays. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1990.

Moore, Thomas, Care of the Soul: a Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life. New York: Harper Perennial 1994.