Marsilio Ficino: Melancholy and the Relations between Body, Spirit and Soul

(1)

1

Marsilio Ficino: Melancholy and the Relations between

Body, Spirit and Soul

Aida Kopmels

Master Thesis

University of Amsterdam, August 2014 Supervisor: Dr. Peter J. Forshaw Second reader: Prof. Dr. Wouter J. Hanegraaff

(2)

2

1. Introduction

In Western Esotericism1_{human beings are typically regarded as more than just a physical body.}

According to Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, and subsequent philosophers and medical practitioners throughout history, we also have a spirit and a soul, which are somehow related to the body we inhabit. It is an interesting question whether a disease of one component affects the others, and if so, how somatic, spiritual and psychic afflictions are related.

In this thesis I will investigate a disease that the influential Italian Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) considers to be both physical and spiritual: melancholy. But what does Ficino consider to be the relation of the body to the spirit and the soul, and how does the health or illness of the one influence that of the other? He suggests cures for melancholy in his De vita libri tres (1489), but do those cures affect the body as well as the spirit and soul, or are separate cures needed? These are the questions I hope to answer in this paper. I will investigate Ficino’s writings on melancholy and the soul, and see how he blended Galenic, Hippocratic, Aristotelian and Platonic influences to devise a cure for the illness of the intellectual.

Due to the language barrier I have confined myself to the English translation of Ficino’s De vita, his

Theologia platonica and De amore, although sometimes I compared the English translation to the Latin

text when I suspected that the original choice of words could be important (for example, for

distinguishing between soul (anima) and mind (animus or mens). For De vita libri tres I used the edition of Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark (1998),2 and for Theologia platonica I used Michael Allen’s and James

1_{Although in practice there is a broad consensus on the meaning of “Western esotericism” (see Hanegraaff,} Wouter J. “Introduction.” In Hanegraaff et al (eds.) Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Brill:

Leiden/Boston 2006, vii-xiii, page xi), a satisfactory definition has not been established yet. Antione Faivre was the first to give a definition Faivre, Antoine. L’ésotérisme (Que sais-je 1031). Presses Universitaires de France: Paris 1992). This definition was used by many scholars, but some problems were pointed out by Wouter Hanegraaff (Hanegraaff, “The Study of Western Esotericism: New Approaches to Christian and Secular Culture,” in: Antes, P.; Geertz, A. W.; Warne, R. R. (eds.) New Approaches to the Study of Religion: Regional, Critical, and Historical Approaches. Walter de Gruyter: Berlin/New York 2004, 489–519). See also Stuckrad, Kocku von. Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Brill: Leiden/Boston 2010; Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012

2

Ficino, Marsilio; Clark, J. R.; Kaske, C. V. (eds.; transl.) Three Books on Life. Temple, Arizona: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1998

(5)

5

Hankin’s edition (2001).3 Both of these have parallel translations. Unfortunately I could not find a parallel translation of De amore; so I used the translation of Sears Jayne (2007).4

First I will provide a short introduction to Ficino, his works and his worldview; then I will explore

premodern conceptions of body, spirit and soul: how they developed, how they were understood in the Renaissance, and how they relate to each other, especially in Ficino’s works. I will explain the function of the soul as the linking substance of the higher and the lower spheres, through its intellectual activity and through love. Next will be a summary of the history of melancholy, in order to get a better grasp at Ficino’s understanding of the complexion. Here I will discuss the special care for the scholar, who is subject to melancholy more than most people, and the cures that Ficino prescribes for the body and the spirit, and finally this will lead to some conclusions about the three parts of the human being, how they function, and how they are related.

Marsilio Ficino: his life and works

Like his father, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) was trained in medical practice. Although it is not entirely clear whether he ever finished his degree, he was considered a medical expert.5 He was the personal medical advisor to the de’ Medici family in Florence, where he worked under the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464), and later his grandson Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-1492). Following the council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1445) many were inspired by the Greek scholar George Gemisthos Plethon’s orations on Plato,6 and Greek texts started travelling to the west, where Cosimo de’ Medici collected them. The translation and interpretation of such texts became Ficino’s major occupation, next to that of treating patients.7 He translated all of Plato’s dialogues, the fourteen treatises of the Corpus

3_{Ficino, Marsilio; Allen, M. J. B. (ed.); Hankins, J. (transl.) Platonic Theology, Vol. 1-6. Cambridge/London: Harvard} University Press 2001

4

Ficino, Marsilio; Sears, J. (transl.) Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love. Dallas: Spring Publications 2007. 5_{If he did not finish his degree, he could have been allowed to call himself a doctor after taking an exam of the} Florentine doctor’s guild. See Shaw, James; Welch, Evelyn S. Making and Marketing Medicine in Renaissance Florence, 41-42

6_{Celenza, “The Revival of Platonic Philosophy,” 80} 7

In Renaissance Florence there was a division of labor: the doctor treated patients and made prescriptions, giving the recipe to the apothecary who then prepared the medicine and gave it to the patients. See Shaw; Welch, Making and marketing Medicine in Renaissance Florence, 233; 235. Apothecaries also sold candy, candles, and spice mixes for preparing food. Due to the time spent in line, apthecaries turned into places of literary and intellectual activities, as well as political discussion and networking. Ibid., 38; 88-89

(6)

6

Hermeticum that were known to him,8 Plotinus’ Enneads, and works by other (neo-)Platonic authors such as Iamblichus, Porphyry, Proclus, Synesius and Psellus. Ficino also wrote commentaries on a number of Plato’s dialogues, including Symposium (De amore), Timaeus, Philebus, Parmenides,

Phaedrus, and Sophist. Deeply impressed by the wisdom he found in the writings of the Platonists, he

made it his life ambition to syncretize Christianity and Platonism, which he hoped would revitalize the Christian faith.9 In the introduction to his Theologia platonica (1482) Ficino writes:

I believe-and it is no empty belief- that divine providence has decreed that many who are wrong-headed and unwilling to yield to the authority of divine law alone will at least accept those arguments of the Platonists which fully reinforce the claims of religion … I believe that those for whom the objects of thought are confined to the objects of bodily sensation and who in their wretchedness prefer the shadows of things to things themselves, once they are impressed by the arguments of Plato, will contemplate the higher objects which transcend the senses, and find happiness in putting things themselves before their shadows.10

Ficino believed the young intellectuals in Florence needed convincing argumentations as supplement and support for their Christian beliefs.11 This was his motivation for writing the Theologia platonica, which he considered to be his magnum opus.12 But his bestseller, published seven years later, was De

vita libri tres (1489). The first book was written with an audience of melancholic scholars in mind, and

full of cures that were supposed to diminish the negative effects of black bile, and strengthening its qualities that support intellectual activities. The second book is about obtaining health and a long life, because in orfer to perfect your knowledge, you need to live a long time.13 The third book is on “bringing oneself in harmony with the heavens:” imitating the movements of the planets brings one’s spirit in harmony with the heavens, which eventually brings one closer to God. I will discuss this work later in

8

Ficino published his translation under the title Mercurii Trismegisti Pimander Liber de potestate et sapientia Dei, but was generally known as Pimander, the title of the first treatise. In later editions it was often printed together with the Asclepius.

9

Allen, Marsilio Ficino: his Theology, his Philosophy, his Legacy. Introduction, xx; Allen; Hankins, Platonic Theology, Introduction, vii. See also Cocking, J. M. “Neoplatonism in Christian Guise: The Mystic Way as the Affirmation and Negation of Images,” in Imagination: A Study in the History of Ideas. London: Routledge 1991, 69-89

10

Reor autem (nec vana fides) hoc providentia divina deeretum, ut et perversa multorum ingenia, quae solí divinae legis auctoritati haud facile cedunt, platonieis saltem rationibus religioni admodum sufttagantibus acquiescent… Denique, ut qui ea solum cogitant quae eirca corpora sentiuntur rerumque ipsarum umbras rebus veris infelieiter praeferunt, platonica tandem ratione commoniti er praeter sensum sublimia contemplentur et res ipsas umbris feliciter anteponant. Ficino, Platonic Theology, Proem, 10-11

11_{Hankins, Platonic Theology, Introduction, xiii; see also Hankins, “Monstrous Melancholy,” 38} 12

Hankins, Platonic Theology, Introduction, ix 13

(7)

7

greater detail. While De vita focuses primarily14 on physical health, in the Theologia platonica Ficino sets out to prove the immortality of the soul. So he sees his two major works as complementary to each other: first he wrote a treatise on the soul, and later he composed a ‘body’ to accompany it:

… after translating all [of Plato’s] books, I straightway composed eighteen books concerning the immortality of souls and eternal happiness, so to the best of my ability repaying my Medici father. Thinking I ought next to repay my medical father, I have composed [De vita libri tres]. … But that soul of mine [by which he means his Theologia platonica], even if it leads its life with you as in a blessed homeland, nevertheless, as the theologians say, it is still "unquiet" until it receives this work of natural science as its body. Accept, therefore, o excellent Lorenzo, after those books on the soul these also on the body, and favor these with the same inspiration with which you long ago propitiously favored the others.15

This fits in very well with Ficino’s perception of his role. As a consequence of his double legacy, one from his physical and one from his spiritual father, he saw himself as a doctor of bodies as well as souls:

I, the least of priests, had two fathers - Ficino the doctor and Cosimo de' Medici. From the former I was born, from the latter reborn. The former commended me to Galen16 as both a doctor and a Platonist; the latter consecrated me to the divine Plato And both the one and the other alike dedicated Marsilio to a doctor – Galen, doctor of the body, Plato, doctor of the soul.17

Another aspect of Ficino’s self-image that needs to be addressed here is his episodes of melancholy. Saturn is featured prominently in his horoscope: when Ficino was born, Saturn was rising; he was “born

14

I say primarily, because De vita also stresses the importance of having a healthy soul, and that a body cannot be healthy if the soul is not healthy. See Ficino, De vita libri tres I:26, 160-161

15_{… quando post librorum omnium eius interpretationem, mox decem atque octo De animorum immortalitate} libros et aeterna felicitate composui, ita pro viribus patri mea Medici satisfaciens. Medico vero patri satis deinceps faciendum putans, librum [De vita libri tres] composui. […]At animus iste meus, etsi in beata quadam quasi patria penes te vitam agit, verumtamen, quod et theologi volunt, inquietus est interea, donec opus id physicum tanquam suum corpus accipiat. Accipe igitur, optime Laurenti, post illos de anima hos etiam de corpore libros, eodemque afflatu quo et illis dudum feliciter his aspira. Ficino, De vita libri tres, proem, 102-104

16_{Galen of Pergamon (ca. 131-200/216) was a Greek physician and surgeon, best known for his contributions to} the Hippocratic medical theory of the four humours.

17

Ego sacerdos minimus patres habui duos: Ficinum medicum, Cosmum Medicem. Ex illo natus sum, ex isto renatus. Ille quidem me Galieno tum medico tum Platonico commendavit; hic autem divino consecravit me Platoni. Et hic similiter atque ille Marsilium medico destinavit: Galienus quidem corporum, Plato vero medicus animorum. Ficino, De vita libri tres, proem, 101-102

(8)

8

under Saturn.”18 Saturn was in the ascendant in the sign of Aquarius, one of its own signs, and its “night abode.”19 Having Aquarius, one of the signs ruled by Saturn, in the ascendant is enough to make one Saturnine;20 but Ficino also had Saturn rising in its own sign, which strengthens its influence even more. Furthermore, Ficino’s mars is also in Aquarius, and his Moon is in Capricorn, the other Saturnine sign, giving Saturn power over these planets’ influence in Ficino’s life. Moreover, Saturn is in quartile aspect with the Sun and Mercury:21 quartile aspects are traditionally seen as negative (although Ptolemy just calls it discordant).22 In several letters to his friends, Ficino reveals how he suffers from Saturn’s melancholic influence:

Nowadays, I do not know, so to say, what I want, or perhaps I do not want what I know, and want what I do not know. The safety ensured you by the benevolence of your Jupiter standing in the sign of the Fish is denied me by the malevolence of my Saturn retrogressing in the sign of the Lion.23

However, one of his friends responded with the admonition that he should be grateful to be born under the planet of wisdom:

Did he not regard you, when you were born in Florence, under the same aspect as he regarded the divine Plato, when he first saw the light in Athens? […] Who gave you the strength to travel through Greece and reach even the land of the Egyptians in order to bring back to us the wisdom of that ancient people?24 Whence have you that comprehensive memory, in which all things are present in correct time

18

Clark, De vita libri tres, Introduction, 20 19

Clark, De vita libri tres, Introduction, 19-21; Klibansky; Panofsky; Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy, 256 20

Clark, De vita libri tres, Introduction, 20

21_{Clydesdale, “’Jupiter tames Saturn.’ Astrology in Ficino’s Epistolae,” 123. A picture of Ficino’s horoscope is} printed on page 124.

22_{Clark, De vita libri tres, Introduction, 21}

23_{Ficino, Letters, as cited in Klibansky et al., Saturn and Melancholy, 257} 24

Ficino never left Italy; e.g. Letters Vol. 7, p. 55: in a letter to Bishop Nicholas Báthory he explains that he cannot visit him because “the move will be prevented by Saturn, rising upon us in Aquarius … or it will be forbidden by one of those spirits of Saturn … or perhaps my feeble body, unfit for hardships, will prevent the journey, or my mind, always intent on contemplation, will order me to be still.” Cavalcanti refers to Ficino’s literary travels into ancient texts. In a letter to John of Hungary (Letters Vol. 7, p. 23) Ficino repeats this theme, presenting his birth chart as signifying a “restorer of the ancient teaching” (Cf. Clydesdale, “’Jupiter tames Saturn,’” 126); signifying, but not causing – although Ficino fluctuates between seeing the planets merely as sings or causes of events. See Clark, De vita libri tres, Introduction, 59; Catani, “The Danger of Demons”, 45; Letters Vol. 7, p. 55: “For the Platonists think that human events are indeed sometimes indicated by the stars, but are frequently set in motion by the daemons attending upon the stars, and are finally brought to completion by us human beings, according to our earthly circumstances.”

(9)

9

and place? All these things are gifts from Saturn. Therefore, do not complain of him, seeing that he raised you as high above other men as he himself is above the other planets.25

Ficino’s conclusion was that Saturn indeed induces melancholy, but that this could be “a unique and divine gift.”26 William of Auvergne (1180/90-1249), bishop of Paris, also defended melancholy and Saturn: he recognised the scholarly qualities of melancholy and argued that Saturn’s influence was good in itself, and could only become negative when misused by unworthy humans.27 Picking up on an idea presented in the pseudo-Aristotelian Problem XXX,28 Ficino praised melancholy as a state related to genius. When he wrote De vita, Ficino had a scholarly audience in mind. Believing that intellectual activity could increase melancholy, he inserted remedies to diminish melancholy’s harmful effects so that scholars could profit from its potential benefits. But before I can discuss melancholy and its cures, and how it relates to the structure of man, I would like to provide some background information on Ficino’s worldview.

Ficino’s worldview

Ficino believed that a secret wisdom tradition of ancient theology existed, the prisca theologia, a tradition of absolute Truth, ancient knowledge that was passed on from teacher to pupil. This was of course hidden knowledge, not accessible to just anyone. It was preserved through the ages by a lineage of ancient sages. There are multiple lineages proposed by different Renaissance thinkers, and Ficino himself seems to have changed his mind at some points: in the introduction to his translation of the

Corpus Hermeticum (1471) the lineage consisted of Hermes, Orpheus, Aglaophemus, Pythagoras,

Philolaus, and then Plato,29 in whom the wisdom was perfected.30 Later he decided to start the lineage of prisca theologiae with Zoroaster, whom he believed had composed the Chaldean Oracles.31

According to Christian tradition there were two books of divine revelation, the book of Scripture: the Bible, and the book of Nature: the created world. The reasoning was that as a creation of God, Nature

25

Cavalcanti in a letter to Ficino, as cited in Klibansky et al., Saturn and Melancholy, 258. Cf. Clark, De vita libri tres, Introduction, 22

26_Ibid. 27

Klibansky et al., Saturn and Melancholy, 169 28

For an English translation of the first part, see Klibansky et al., Saturn and Melancholy, 18-29 29_{Celenza, “The Revival of Platonic Philosophy,” 85}

30

Celenza, “Pythagoras in the Renaissance: the Case of Marsilio Ficino,” 680 31

(10)

10

can reveal knowledge about the nature of God: this knowledge could be acquired by reading the book of Scripture, but Nature too was a book in which one who knows how to read it, can learn about God.32

Nature was seen as an organism; Ficino describes the cosmos as an animal.33 As the macrocosm, the world reflected the human being, the microcosm: both have a body, a spirit and a soul, and a mind that connects them to the Divine. These were the five layers of the Ficinian universe: Body, Spirit, Soul, Mind, and God. Intermediary levels were necessary to connect the material world of bodies to the level of God: something perfects as God cannot be directly in touch with something as impure as the material world. Those links are employed in Ficino’s magic, transmitting heavenly gifts down to the ones who know how to make themselves receptive:

Through this, moreover, many people confirm that magic doctrine that by means of lower things which are in accord with higher ones, people can in due season somehow draw to themselves celestial things, and that we can even through the celestials reconcile the supercelestials to us or perhaps wholly insinuate them into us - but this last matter I leave to them.34

Every part of the world is linked to every other part by means of horizontal and vertical connections. The things which occupy the same level in the chains of being are connected horizontally by being on the same terrestrial, celestial or intellectual ‘plane.’35 The vertical links are constituted by means of correspondence: everything in the world is ruled by a planet, and those things are ordered in a

hierarchy. The highest in the hierarchy is a star or a constellation, then a planet, daemons, men, animals, plants, and stones on the lowest level.36 The more items of such a hierarchy can be combined at a time that the planet in the chain is astrologically strong, the more power one can draw from the celestials, or maybe even supercelestials, represented by this chain.

… our wise man - when he knows what or what sort of materials (partly begun by nature, partly completed by art and, although they had been dispersed, grouped together) can receive what or what

32_{Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, 319-326; Hanegraaff, Guide for the Perplexed, 25} 33

… mundus animal in se magis unum est quam quodvis aliud animal, si modo est animal perfectissimum. (...the cosmos is itself an animal more unified than any other animal, the most perfect animal, provided that it is an animal.) Ficino, De vita libri tres 250-251

34

Per haec insuper confirmant nonnulli etiam illud magicum: per inferiora videlicet superioribus consentanea posse ad homines temporibus opportunis coelestia quodammodo trahi, atque etiam per coelestia supercoelestia nobis conciliari vel forsan prorsus insinuari. Sed postremum hoc illi viderint.. Ficino, De vita libri tres III:15, 318-319 35

Clark, De vita libri tres, Introduction, 41 36

(11)

11

sort of influence from the heavens - assembles these materials when that influence is most dominant, he prepares them, he brings them to bear, and he wins through them celestial gifts.37

There are also links that work by analogy: in the mind of Renaissance scholars symbols “are treated as

being what they signify, so that names or images do not just ‘refer’ to persons or things, but somehow

are assumed to contain their very essence,” as Wouter Hanegraaff put it. This should not be treated as a “primitive” way of thinking, as some scholars have done;38 it is a different worldview with its own logic. This kind of magic is based on a Christianised Neoplatonic philosophy. The One, or God, created the world. He is the highest being. The next level is the Divine Mind, which contains the Ideas of everything that God created. In the World Soul there are forms, or seminal reasons corresponding to the Ideas in the Mind, by which the species in matter are formed.39 The World Soul created the constellations and the stars from these seminal reasons, and infused them with the properties belonging to the species. These figures order the world below through specific forms in the World Spirit.40 The consequence is that, following this structure from the bottom up, one can draw down heavenly powers from the highest level by gathering objects related to a specific Idea, which will bring down the powers of the Ideas in the Mind:41

Sometimes it can happen that when you bring seminal reasons to bear on forms, higher gifts too may descend, since reasons in the Anima Mundi are conjoined to the intellectual forms in her and through these to the Ideas of the Divine Mind.42

So Ficino believes that the world “binds itself together,” that all the parts of the world are intimately connected and drawn toward each other by mutual love: “… they say that the world is an animal which is masculine and at the same time feminine throughout and that it everywhere links with itself in the

37

… sic et ille sapiens ubi cognovits quae materiae sive quales partim incohatae natura, partim arte perfectae, etsi sparsae fuerint congregatae, qualem coelitus influxum suscipere possint, has eo regnante potissimum colligit, praeparat, adhibet sibique per eas coelestia vendicat. Ficino, De vita libri tres III:26, 388-389

38

E.g. Lévi-Strauss, C. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1962; Vickers, B. “On the Fucntion of Analogy in the Occult,” in Debus, A.; Merkel, I. (eds) Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe. Washington: Folger Books 1988, 265-292. For Christopher Lechrich’s and Wouter Hanegraaff’s response, see Lechrich, C. I. “The Magic Museum,” in The Occult Mind: Magic in Theory and Practice. New York: Cornell University Press 2007; and Hanegraaff, W. J. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012

39_{Ficino, De vita libri tres III.1, 242-243} 40

Ibid., 242-347 41

Copenhaver, “How to do Magic, and Why: Philosophical Prescriptions,” 389

42

Fieri vero posse quandoque, ut rationibus ad formas sic adhibitis sublimiora quoque dona descendant, quatenus rationes in anima mundi coniunctae sunt intellectualibus eiusdem animae formis, atque per illas divinae mentis ideis. Ficino, De vita libri tres III:26, 390-391

(12)

12

mutual love of its members and so holds together…”43 The power behind Ficino’s magic is love; he even identifies love as a ‘magician.’

Because the whole power of magic consists in love. The work of magic is the attraction one thing by another because of a certain affinity of nature. But the parts of this world, like the parts of a single animal, all deriving from a single author, are joined to each other by the communion of a similar nature.44

Just as nature does, a magician could attract a power from above by using something he knows will attract it. He could use items from the chain corresponding to a certain planet to draw down its powers because the things under the planet contain “baits” or “lures”45 that attract the higher powers because of their natural connection or by intermediary beings:46

The philosopher who knows about natural objects and stars, whom we rightly are accustomed to call a Magus, does the very same things: he seasonably introduces the celestial into the earthly by particular lures just as the farmer interested in grafting brings the fresh graft into the old stock.47

Similarly, Nature is called a sorceress because she works according to the same principles: she uses the natural correspondences to do her work. For Ficino it is important to prove to his readers that his magic is natural. The same point is stressed by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola:

I have indicated that magic has two forms, one of which depends entirely on the work of demons, a thing to be abhorred, so help me God and a monstrous thing. The other, when it is rightly pursued, is nothing else than the utter perfection of natural philosophy.48

43

dicentes mundum esse animal passim masculum simul atque feminam,mutuoque membrorum suorum amore ubi que coire secum, atque ita constare; vinculum vero membrorum inesse per insitam sibi mentem, quae totam infusa per artus agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet. Ficino, De vita libri tres III:26, 386-387

44_{Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love, Speech VI:9, 127; cf. Copenhaver, “Hermes Trismegistus,} Proclus, and the Question of a Philosophy of Magic in the Renaissance,” 87-88

45

Ficino, De vita libri tres III:1, 244-245

46_{In his introduction to Ficino, Clark points out the scholarly debate whether this attraction is mediated by “any} go-between (such as Ficino’s world spirit or Neoplatonic daemons)” or that it happens by natural means (Clark, De vita libri tres, 49). In De Vita Ficino often draws analogies with natural processes like reflecting mirrors (III:26, 324-325) and two resonating lute strings (III:18, 330-331), but Clark points out that in Ficino’s translation of Iamblichus’ De mysteriis “daemons are the authors of cosmic ‘harmonic agreement and … sympathy’” (Clark, De vita libri tres, Introdution, 64;cf. 53). However, this does not necessarily reflect Ficino’s own opinion, and whether he believed this to be true or not, this idea does not seem to be present in De vita.

47

Idem quoque philosophus naturalium rerum astrorumque peritus, quem proprie Magum appellare solemus, certis quibusdam illecebris coelestia terrenis opportune quidem nec aliter inserens quam insitionis studiosus agricola veteri recentem stipiti surculum. Ficino, De vita libri tres III:26, 386-387

(13)

13

Demonic magic was a dangerous practice for two reasons: first of all one could risk persecution by the Church; but maybe even more importantly, for people believing in demons and attributing powers to them, involving them in magical practices could mean risking one’s immortal soul.49 That does not mean that no one did it; Picatrix, a thirteenth century translation of the “most thorough exposition of celestial magic in Arabic”50 is an example of a source that does not even try to hide its demonic magic.51 Ficino however puts a lot of effort into convincing his readers that his magic is licit, and that it only makes use of correspondences and the World Spirit.

48

Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, as cited in Brann, The Debate over the Origin of Genius, 113. 49

Crow, “Miracle or Magic? The Problematic Status of Christian Amulets,” 98

50_{Pingree, "Some of the Sources of the Ghāyat al-Hakim," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol.} 43(1980), 1

51

(14)

14

2. The Soul in the Renaissance

In this section I will investigate the notion of soul in the Renaissance. In order to get a clear idea of its history, I will also shortly mention the two most important sources: Plato and Aristotle.52 Then we can place Ficino’s theory of the soul in context.

Plato and Aristotle on the soul

In ancient philosophy there was no separate discipline of psychology; matters of the soul were ranged under natural philosophy and overlapped with epistemology, metaphysics, rhetoric and medicine.53 Plato’s theory is mostly concerned with metaphysics and ethics. In the Republic Socrates distinguishes three parts of the soul: just like the state needs three classes for it to function properly, so the individual soul has three principles that work together (and sometimes are at war with one another): the rational principle, spirit,54 and appetite. The rational principle is always looking for truth and goodness, the second is responsible for the emotions, and the appetite regulates the bodily functions, and desires like hunger and lust.55 In the Phaedrus the three parts are depicted as a chariot: the rational principle is the charioteer, guiding the two horses, the principles of spirit and appetite. The myth-like account describes how the charioteer attempts to follow the gods in the “great circuit” and see the Ideas, and how the soul, if it cannot control the black horse, loses its wings and incarnates on earth.56 The body can be a negative influence, drawing the soul down by means of lust and appetite, but its beauty can inspire love in the soul for beauty, gradually leading it to higher, purer forms of love, until it is seized by divine madness and attains the vision of the Ideas.57

52_{Lines, “Humanistic and Scholastic Ethics,” 308} 53

Blum, “The Immortality of the Soul,” 211; Kessler; Park, “The concept of Psychology,” 455 54

This is not the medical spirit: the Greek is thymoeides, from thymos: it connotes emotion, desire, or urge. 55_{Plato, The Republic IV. English translation: Lindsay, A.D. (ed.; transl.) Plato’s Republic. London: J.M. Dent & Son;} New York: E.P. Dutton, 1935

56

Plato, Phaedrus. English translation: Hackford, R. (transl.) Plato’s Phaedrus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952

57

Plato, Symposium. English translation: Hunter, R. (transl.) Plato’s Symposium. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004

(15)

15

For Aristotle, the soul is the form or essence of a living being:58 there are two kinds of substance: matter and form. Aristotle explains this by means of the example of an eye.

… if the eye were an animal, eyesight would be its soul, this being the substance as notion or form of the eye. The eye is the matter of eyesight, and in default of eyesight it is no longer an eye, except

equivocally, like an eye in stone or in a picture.59

Soul is “the form of a natural body having in it the capacity of life;”60 having a soul is his definition for being alive. In Metaphysics Aristotle discusses the four causes; the soul is the formal cause. The material

cause is the matter out of which something is made, in the case of humans this is the body; the formal

cause is the form that orders the matter and causes it to have a certain shape. For living things this is the soul. The other two causes are the efficient cause, or the agency responsible for introducing form to matter; for a statue this would be the sculptor, and in our case the parents. The final cause is the function that the thing is supposed to fulfil.61

Renaissance reception

Aristotle criticised Plato on a number of points, among which is his conception of soul. Although the later Platonists attacked Aristotle in turn, traces of Aristotelianism can be traced in Neoplatonic works. The Neoplatonists held that Aristotle and Plato had only differed in words, not in substance, or that, when Aristotle criticised Plato, he had misread the text and they actually agreed.62 Until the twelfth century Neoplatonism was the leading philosophical current; then Aristotelian texts were translated into Latin, and by the thirteenth century Aristotelianism had established itself as the dominant school. The study of philosophy was split in two camps during the Renaissance,63_{when questions of the immortality}

of the soul arose following the Council of Florence-Ferrara (1439).64 Until then the philosophical

discussion of the soul had centered around Aristotle’s texts,65 but George Gemisthos Plethon, part of the

58_{Aristotle, Hicks, R. D. (transl.) De anima.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1907, Book II:1, 51-52} 59

Ibid., 50-53 60

Ibid., 48-49

61_{See Aristotle, Metaphysics V. English transation: Aristotle; Ross, W. D. (transl.) Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Oxford:} Clarendon Press 1966

62

Monfasani, “Marsilio Ficino and the Plato-Aristotle Controversy,” 179-181 63_{Ibid., 183; Kessler; Park, “The Concept of Psychology,” 455}

64

Blum, “The Immortality of the Soul,” 213 65

(16)

16

Byzantine entourage to the Council, pointed out that Aristotle had been inconsistent when he confirmed the immortality of the soul in De anima, but not in his Ethics, leading others to conclude that the soul was mortal.66 Plethon declared Plato’s philosophy superior and initiated the revival of Platonism. As a consequence, Ficino was asked by Lorenzo de’ Medici to translate texts from the Platonic tradition, which shed new light on the soul and its relation to the body and the supernatural world: Plato’s

Republic, Timaeus and Phaedrus, Plotinus’ Enneads, Iamblichus’ Mysteriis, and Sinesius’ Insomniis.67 This led Ficino to settle the question on the soul’s immortality in his Theologia platonica.68 As Ficino believed in a prisca theologia, a unified Truth that was passed on through the ages, he tended to harmonize the different accounts that he found in different philosophical works. Instead of favoring one philosophy over another, he assumed, like the Neoplatonists, that they might be different in verba, but not in res. They meant the same thing, but only used different words in their explanation:69 while Plethon criticized Aristotle for denying the immortality of the soul, Ficino argued that Aristotle may have been ambiguous on the issue, but never explicitly stated that the soul was mortal.70 Ficino also blamed the Averroists for misrepresenting Aristotle’s views and making it appear he argued against the immortality of the soul.71 Later Ficino was criticised by the physician and philosopher Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525), who argued that it is not possible to establish the immortality of the soul through natural reason (ratio naturalis).72 He further criticised Ficino for inserting occult Platonism into natural philosophy.73

Body, spirit and soul in Ficino

As we have seen when we discussed his worldview, Ficino imagines a five-level universe: God, Mind,

66_{Blum, “The Immortality of the Soul,” 213} 67

Kessler; Park, “The Concept of Psychology,” 460. For English translations of these works, see Plato; Jowett, B. (ed) The Dialogues of Plato in Five Volumes. London: Oxford University Press 1832; Plotinus; Armstrong, H.A. (transl.) Enneads I-VI. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1996; Iamblichus; Clarke, E.C. et al. (transl.; eds.) On the Mysteries. Leiden: Brill 2004; Synesius; Myer, I. (transl.) “On Dreams”. Published in The Platonist, Vol. IV, No. 4-6 (1888)

Lines, “Humanistic and Scholastic Ethics,” 308 70

Monfasani, “Marsilio Ficino and the Plato-Aristotle Controversy,” 190 71_{Ibid., 191-192}

72

Boenke, Körper, Spiritus, Geist: Psychologie vor Descartes, 23 73

(17)

17

Soul, Spirit and Body.74 In the Theologia platonica they are presented as God, Angel, Soul, Quality and Body, closely resembling Plotinus’ model of six layers of the One, Mind, Soul, Sense, Nature, and Body.75

Linking the levels of the cosmos

The highest and the lowest level are so opposite that they cannot be linked to each other directly: three intermediary levels are necessary to make the universe a whole. The third essence is the soul, the main subject of this opus:

Now God and body are the extremes of nature and completely different from each other. Angel does not link them, for the whole of angel reaches up towards God and neglects body. For it is with justice that the most perfect of God's creatures and that closest to Him should become completely godlike and pass over into God. Nor does quality connect the two extremes, since it sinks downwards to body, abandons those above, and, having abandoned the incorporeal, becomes corporeal. Thus far all are extremes, and the higher and the lower flee from each other since they lack a proper bond. But the third essence set between them is such that it cleaves to the higher while not abandoning the lower; and in it, therefore, the higher and the lower are linked together.76

There are several groups of dualities that Ficino uses in his arguments: unity – plurality;77 action – passivity;78 being – becoming;79 mover – moved; unchanging – changeable.80 The One is a perfect unity, pure act, pure being, it is the prime mover, and unchanging, while all the opposites belong to Body. The

74

This kind of worldview was held by more people in the Renaissance, such as those in Ficino’s Neoplatonic circle, and Galeotto Marzi, although Marzi did not believe that the immortality of the soul can be proven through rational arguments. See Bekes, E. 'Medical Astrology in Galeotto Marzio's Treatise Dedicated to Lorenzo il Magnifico,’ in Alejandro Coroleu, Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Upsaliensis: Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Congress of neo-Latin Studies, Vol. 1, 211-219; a similar worldview can also be found in Cornelius Agrippa’s De occulta

philosophia (1533). For a scholarly Latin edition see Agrippa; Perrone Compagni, V. De occulta philosophialibri tres. Leiden: Brill 1992

75

Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, 75 76

Deus et corpus extrema sunt in narura, et invicem diversissima. Angelus haec non ligat, nempe in deum torus erigitur, corpora negligit. Iure perfectissima et proxima crearura dei fit tota divina transitque in deum. Qualitas etiam non connectit extrema, nam declinat ad corpus, superiora relinquit, relictis incorporeis fit corporalis. Hucusque extrema sunt omnia, seque invicem superna et inferna fugiunt competenti carentia vinculo. Verum essentia illa tertia interiecta talis existit ut superior teneat, inferiora non deserat, atque ita in ea supera cum inferis colligantur. Ficino, Platonic Theology Vol. 1, III:2, 234-235

77

Ibid., 241; IV:1, 262-263

78_{Ibid., Vol. 1 III:1, 217; Vol. 5, XVI:1, 245} 79

Ibid., Vol. 1 III:2, 233 80

(18)

18

levels in between are mixed, so that little by little the extremes are met in the middle. Here is an example of how God, pure act, is linked to body, passive plurality:

[A]ngel, being created closest to God, retains and yet loses something of God. God possesses unity and stability. Angel cannot retain both; for then it would be God, not angel. Yet it does not lose both either, for the first of God's works and the nearest to Him would then emerge as completely unlike its maker… So it will retain stability but fall away from simple unity, the result being that angel is plurality without movement. Indeed, it is quite reasonable to assign plurality to angel, because, if it were perfect and complete unity, it would be the highest and unlimited power, since power resides in unity. But God alone is unlimited power.81

There is a gradual descent from God, who is single and pure act, through three indermediary levels of Angel, Soul, and Quality, which are gradually less united and active, and more plural and passive, to the level of matter, which is totally plural and passive.

If it is the characteristic of body to receive and to be acted upon, but characteristic of incorporeal nature to give and to act, then in corporeal nature dwells what we call potency (the potency the theologians call receptive or passive), and in incorporeal nature act, that is, the capacity for action. Therefore quality, since it is in a sense incorporeal in itself, has some power to act, and can be referred to as act. But because it is received in matter and divided up and thus made in a way corporeal, it is not pure act but rather act contaminated with the passivity of body. So quality is composed of both act and potency. Soul, though it is separable from matter and on account of this called act, and though it has nothing to do with the passivity of body, nonetheless is not yet pure act. For it is moveable. If something is moved, it obtains through movement what beforehand it had lacked. As it was lacking, it has the potency we call receptive or in a way passive. But as it is acting by moving something, it is act, and whenever it obtains something, it is made act too. Soul then is composed of potency and act.82

81

[A]ngelus proxime deo creatus aliquid dei servat, amittit et aliquid. Deus quidem unitatem habet et statum. Retinere utrumque non potest angelus; esset enim deus ipse, non angelus. Neque etiam amittit utrumque, ne proximum ac primum dei opus evadat opifici dissimillimum. […] Itaque retinebit statum, sed a simplici decidet unitate, ut angelus sit immobilis multitudo. Neque iniuria multitudinem angelo assignamus, quia si sit perfecta et absolutissima unitas, erit summa et interminata potestas, siquidem virtus in unitate consistit. Interminata potestas unus ipse est deus. Ibid., Vol. 1, III:1, 216-219

82_{Porro, si corporis proprium est suscipere atque pati, naturae autem incorporalis proprium dare et agere, in} natura corporali dicitur esse potemia, potemia scilicet, ut aium theologi, susceptive atque passiva: in natura incorporali actus, id est efticacia ad agendum. Ideo qualitas, quia per se quodammodo incorporalis est, aliquam agendi vim habet, unde et actus cognominatur; quia vero in materia suscipitur et dividitur fitque inde

quodammodo corporalis, hinc non merus est actus, sed passione corporis inquinatus. Constat igitur qualitas ex actu atque potemia. Anima, licet sit a materia separabilis atque ob id actus dicatur et a passione corporis aliena,

(19)

19

From the unity and stability of God, we move a level lower, which is linked to the former by its stability, but not the same as God because it is plural: there are numerous orders of angels.83 Participating in God’s stability, Angel does not move, but it moves the lower level, soul.84 Soul is in the middle between active and passive, between stability and movement. It is moveable in that it is moved by Angel, but it is not only moveable; it also moves the body through the qualities, and thus is both mover and moved. Because it is exactly in the middle, it is “the world’s true bond.” 85 Quality is incorporeal and therefore has power to move the body, but it is so close to matter that it is partially passive because of its being incorporated and divided in the body. Elsewhere Ficino explains this by using the quality of whiteness as an example. Whiteness, as a quality, is divided in a body in the sense that “part of whiteness is in part of the flesh: a larger part of whiteness in a larger part of the flesh, a smaller part in a smaller.”86 If white meat is divided, the whiteness will be divided with it, and the same goes for all qualities in all bodies.

Repeatedly Ficino tells us that the human soul is the happiest of all creatures, but it is happiest in heaven, its origin.87 The soul originates directly from God who created the soul from nothing (ex nihilo), so it is related directly to God. It is not created through the level of Mind,88 and proof of this is that the soul can contemplate beyond Mind.89 In heaven, the soul is in the presence of the most perfect universal Ideas,90 surrounded by the divine Truth. On the lower levels the Ideas are increasingly applied to matter, turning from universals to particulars, from the oneness of God to the many of the material world of tamen nondum merus est actus. Est enim mobilis. Si movetur aliquid, per motum nanciscitur quo ante caruerat. Ut carebat, potentiam illam habet, quam susceptivam et quodammodo passivam potentiam nuncupamus. Ut agit movendo nonnihil, est actus, et dum acquirit aliquid, etiam actus efficitur. Est ergo anima ex potenria et actu composita.. Ibid.

83

Ibid., Vol. 1, I:5, 77. This is against what Averroes said: according to him there is only one Mind that is multiplied in matter. Ficino argued against him that Mind needs no matter to be multiplied. Blum, “The Immortality of the Soul,” 216

84

Ficino, Platonic Theology Vol. 1, I:5, 71

85

ulterius mundi copula. Ibid., Vol. 1, III:2, 236-237; cf. ibid, 242-243: ipsa vera est universorum connexio … centrum naturae, universorum medium, mundi series, vultus omnium nodusque et copula mundi. (it is the true bond of everything in the universe … nature's center, the mean of everything in tbe universe, the succession or chain of the world, the countenance of all things, and the knot and bond of tbe world); and Pico della Mirandola, G. Sears, J. (transl.) Commentary on a Canzione of Benivieni by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, New York: Peter Lang, 1984, p. 91: Human nature, the tie and knot of the world, is located in the middle of the hierarchy of being and just as every middle participates in the extremes, so Man, through his various parts, has some relation or correspondence to every part of the world. For this reason he is often called a Microcosm, that is, a little world.

86

pars albedinis secundum physicos in parte sit carnis, et in maiori carnis parte pars maior albedinis, in minore sit minor. Ficino, Platonic Theology Vol. 1, III:2, 236-237

87

Ibid., Vol. 1, I:1, 15

88_{Ibid., Vol. 2, V: 10, 61; V:13, 79-83} 89

Ficino, Meditations on the Soul, 51 90

(20)

20

bodies. The soul does not need a body: processes like contemplation and understanding do not depend on bodily functions.91 Although the soul is happiest in heaven, it wants to go down into the world. It is hungry for knowledge and it already knows the universals of heaven; now it wants to explore the particulars in the world below.92 Nature prepares the fetus in such a way that it attracts the vital spirit,93 or vegetable life;94 she “leads down the spirit from the universe,”95 and the spirit enters the fetus in the second month of gestation. This in turn functions as a bait for the soul,96 which incarnates in the fourth month.97 It enters the body through the heart, the body’s centre. From there it diffuses through natural heat, then through the spirit, then the humours and finally through the members of the body.98

Spirit

In De vita Ficino adheres to the same structure of five layers, but here the intermediary between body and soul is spirit. They fulfil the same function: “the power of our soul is brought to bear on our

members through the spirit…”99 If they are not identical, at least we can say that they work as parallels. It seems appropriate that Ficino works with spirit instead of quality in De vita, since De vita is a medical work and spirit was a medical term in Galenic medicine.100 Spirit seems to be the mail subject of De

vita:101 many of the cures described therein are meant to have some effect on the spirit, which in turn helps improve the health of the body and the soul. The Renaissance notion of spirit dates back to antiquity;102 it was envisioned as a kind of matter so fine that it was invisible. Spirit is made of the finer parts of the blood;103 Ficino describes spirit as “a vapor of blood – pure, subtle, hot and clear.”104 Spirit is

91

Ficino, Meditations on the Soul, 42-44; Platonic Theology Vol. 3, IX:1 11-13 92

Ficino, Platonic Theology Vol. 5, XVI:1, 251 93_{Ficino, De vita libri tres III:6, 265}

94

Ibid. III:24, 377

95

spiritum ab universo deducit. Ibid. III:26, 384-385 96_{Ibid. III:26, 387}

97

Ibid. III:24, 379 98

Ficino, Platonic Theology Vol. 6, XVIII:7, 119

99

animae nostrae virtus per spiritum adhibetur membris… Ficino, De vita libri tres III:1, 246-247

100_{Clark, De vita libri tres, Introduction, 14. Quality is also a term in Galenic medicine (hot, cold, dry or moist), but} it has a different meaning as in Platonic Theology, where it is the fourth level of the cosmos, the intermediary between Soul and Matter, e.g. Platonic Theology I:2

101_{Clark, De vita libri tres, Introduction, 42} 102

Erasistratus (304 – 250 BC), a royal Greek physician, mentioned the natural, vital and animal spirit (pneuma) in his works. See Mason, F. M. A History of the Sciences. New York: Collier Books 1975, 57

103_{Glick et al., Medieval Science, Technology and Medicine: An Encyclopedia, 426} 104

vapor quidam sanguinis purus, subtilis, calidus et lucidus… Ficino, De vita libri tres II:2, 110-111. See also Celenza, “The Revival of Platonic Philosophy,” 89-90

(21)

21

first drawn from the universe in the second month of gestation; my guess is that Ficino means that the body absorbs part of the World Spirit, which is made from the same substance as the human spirit. The only difference between them is that according to Ficino, our spirit is produced out of the humours while the World Spirit emanated from the World Soul and gave itself birth to the elements.105 Later on the body produces its own spirit. Foods are digested in the stomach, where the natural power makes it into blood. The more subtle and clear parts of the blood travel to the heart, where the vital power transforms it into spirit. This spirit then goes to the brain, where the soul uses it for interior and exterior senses by means of the animal power.106 Elsewhere Ficino states that spirits are made out of all the humours,107 and that one should try to temper the humours in a certain proportion to attain the most subtle spirit, but I will return to this later. There are three types of spirit: natural, vital, and animal.108 The natural spirit is the most corporeal,109 the animal spirit is highest in the hierarchy and the least corporeal of the spirits. Traditionally the natural spirit resides in the liver and stomach and takes care of growth, nutrition and reproduction; the vital spirit is located in the heart and is responsible for life and the emotions, and the animal spirit is in the brain, supporting activities like moving the body, common sense, and imagination.110 While Clark states that sense perception is supported by the animal spirit,111 Brent J. Unger says this is the function of the vital spirit, one step closer to the body. Clark cites Walker, who does not refer to a source, but Unger refers to Ficino’s Theologia platonica; here Ficino names the three powers of the soul as “the phantasy, the sense, and the power of nutrition...”112 As each power of the soul is supported by its own spirit, it follows that if sense perception is located in the sensitive soul, it is supported by the spirit corresponding to it. However, in other authors we also find sense perception as a function of the animal spirit, such as Fernel, whose ideas on the spirit and the soul are very similar to Ficino’s.113

105

Ficino, De vita libri tres III:3, 257 106_{Ibid. I:2, 111}

107

Ibid. III:3, 257 108

Helm, “Zwischen Physiologie, Philosophie und Theologie: Die Lehre von den ‘spiritus’ im 16. Jahrhundert,” 287; 290; 298.

109

Ficino, De vita libri tres II:18, 225 110

Clark, De vita libri tres, Introduction, 43 111_Ibid.

112

… phantasiam, sensum et nutriendi virtutem. Ficino, De vita libri tres XVI:5, 262-263 113

(22)

22 Anatomy of the soul

Soul too is a hierarchical structure of three, defined by consensus among scholastic philosophers and largely based on Aristotle.114 Some scholars have created from it an elaborate scheme, but Ficino discerns a nutritive, a sensitive and a rational power in the soul, which seem to be similar to the three souls mentioned by Katharine Park in her article on the organic soul:

The lowest, called the vegetative soul, included the functions basic to all living things: nutrition, growth and reproduction. The second, the sensitive soul, included all of the powers of the vegetative soul as well as the powers of movement and emotion and the ten internal and external senses. The intellective soul, finally, included not only the vegetative and sensitive powers — the organic faculties - but also the three rational powers of intellect, intellective memory (memory of concepts, as opposed to sense images) and will. All living beings were divided into genera according to the kind of soul they possessed: thus plants were animated by a vegetative soul, 'imperfect' animals (including sponges, worms and bivalves) by a partial sensitive soul, 'perfect' animals (including insects, birds and mammals) by a complete sensitive soul and humans by an intellective soul.115

Ficino hardly mentions the three souls in De vita; but he does speak about the powers of the soul, in De

vita116 as well as in Theologia platonica:

If the rational soul has the power of understanding, the most excellent power of all, it also has the powers of perceiving, of nourishing, and of ruling. The sensitive and the nutritive soul is accordingly included in the power of the rational soul,117 together with the form of mixed bodies lacking life.118

In De vita the powers of the soul are parallel to the spirits: there is an animal, a vital and a natural power. In the above citation from Theologia platonica a fourth power is mentioned: This one diverges

114_{Park, “The Organic Soul.” 464-484} 115_{Ibid., 467}

116

E.g. Ficino, De vita libri tres III:6

117

Cf. Ficino, Platonic Theology Vol. 5, XV:7, 91: Ac sicut triangulus est in quadrangulo, sic anima vegetativa in sensitiva, atque haec in anima intellectiva. (And just as the triangle is included in the quadrangle, so the vegetative soul is included in the sensitive, and the latter in the intellective soul.) The three medical spirits were sometimes represented as a triangle in a quadrangle in a circle (Glick et al., Medieval Science, Technology and Medicine: An Encyclopedia, 426); here FIcino employs this figure for the corresponding parts of the soul.

118

Rationalis anima, si intellegendi vim habet omnium praestantissimam, habet etiam sentiendi, alendi atque regendi. Ideo in animae rationalis virtute clauditur anima sensitiva et nutritiva, forma quoque mixtorum vita carentium. Ficino, Platonic Theology Vol. 5, XV:4, 56-57

(23)

23

from the familiar Aristotelian scheme, and Unger writes in his MA thesis that it is of Stoic origin.119 The four powers correspond to four types of form, which the soul uses to perform its task of governing the body. It may seem strange to have four types of form, but Ficino was not the only one who employed different levels of forms between the universal and the individual. The Italian philosopher and

theologian Agostino Nifo (c. 1473-1538 or 1545) applied a Neoplatonic layer over the Aristotelian theory of form and matter, in oder to distinguish three types of form:

one totally separated from matter and universal, like that of the celestial beings; another immersed in matter and therefore individualised, like that of the terrestrial beings; and a third, which is the intermediate between these two extremes, participating in the nature of them both. The third is the human soul, individual with regard to the human body and universal with regard to the spiritual operation of cognition.120

FIcino did something similar: he postulated four types of form in the soul, and identifies them with the powers of the soul:

Endowed with all these forms, the rational soul approaches matter. Through the form or power it has which governs the lot of composite bodies lacking life, it clings as closely as possible to unformed matter, producing in it the complexion of the four elements when it binds the parts of matter together and tempers the elements. Through the form it possesses having the power of plants it clings to a body, which is composed of matter and the complexion, and endows this complexion of the elements with motion towards any point whatsoever in space; and this motion is called life. Through the form proper to living beings it accommodates itself to them and begets the spirit, the instrument of the senses. Through the rational form it governs the other [three] forms.121

1) the lowest form, which is the first mentioned in this citation, is the power of the soul that Ficino calls the “ruling power,” not because it rules the other parts (it is the lowest in the hierarchy of the soul’s powers) but because it is the power that rules the body. Strangely enough Ficino mentions this power

119_{Unger, Prisca Theologia and Human Nature: A Study of Marsilio Ficino’s Ontology of the Soul, 68} 120_{Kessler, E. “The Intellective Soul,” 498}

121

Accedit materiae rationalis anima iis omnibus praedita formis. Per formam suam seu virtutem, quae mixtorum corporum vita carentium gerit vicem, haeret materiae informi quamproxime, atque in ea quatuor elementorum conflat complexionem, dum partes materiae devincit in unum ac temperat elementa. Per formam suam quae plantarum habet vim, haeret corpori ex materia et complexione composito, illique elementorum complexioni tribuit motum in quamlibet loci partem, qui vita vocatur. Per formam animalium propriam iis se accommodat spiritumque procreat, sensuum instrumentum. Per formam rationalem reliquis imperat. Ficino, Platonic Theology Vol. 5, XV:4, 56-57

(24)

24

anywhere else in combination with the nutritive, sensitive and rational powers of the soul). 2) The form that nourishes the body and is here identified with the form of plants is the nutritive power; 3) the form of perception, that of living beings, is the sensitive power, and 4) the rational power is the fourth form containing all of the above powers.

Thus through the lowest of its powers it is the form of matter, through the next lowest it is the form of composite body, through the third it is the form of plants, through the fourth it is the form of an animate creature, or rather the form of the [other three] forms. As a result the rational soul does more than the other forms to form bodies, since it forms them through more powers, and it forms them more purely: with its foot it steps on unformed matter immediately [beneath it], while with its head it gazes afar.122

Three souls, or three powers?

The orthodox position is that humans have only one, intellective, immortal soul, and not also another soul shared with animals or plants.123 Perhaps Ficino agrees, as he speaks of the three powers of the soul rather than three distinct souls. However, there is one place in De vita where Ficino mentions the “sensual soul,”124 or sensitive soul, which is infused in the third month of gestation ruled by Mars, after the “vegetable life”125 in the second month ruled by Jupiter, and before the intellective soul in the fourth month, ruled by the Sun: the three levels of soul are infused in three consecutive months, from low to high.126 The rest of De vita does not mention these levels of soul again, but he does mention their activity in the body: the soul does its work in the body in the form of a natural, vital and animal power. The natural power resides in the liver and stomach, it helps digest the food and make it into blood; the lighter, subtler part of the blood flows to the heart, where the vital power transforms it into spirit; from

122

Itaque per infimam vim suam est forma materiae, per secundam forma est corporis mixti, per tertiam plantae, per quartam forma est animalis, immo forma formarum. Ex quo fit ut rationalis anima et corpora formet magis quam reliquae formae, quia per plures virtutes format, et formet purius, quia informem materiam per pedem suum tangit comminus, per caput autem eminus prospicit. Ibid.

123

Park, “The Organic Soul,” 483

124_{sensualem animam. Ficino, De vita libri tres III:24, 376-377} 125

vegetalem vitam. Ibid. 126

The distribution of the months of gestation among the planets can be found in Ibn Ezra, Mishpetei ha-Mazzalot and Liber de nativitatibus, and in some Arabic astrological sources: Umar b. Farrukhan Tabari, Kitab al-Mawalid (Nativitatibus, 1533); al-Biruni, Kitab al-Tafhim (Kitab al-Tafhim, 1934). See Sela, S. Abraham ibn Ezra on Nativities and Continuous Horoscopy. Leiden: Brill 2013, 44

(25)

25

there the spirit ascends to the brain to support the activity of the rational soul.127 The spirits created by the soul in turn support the activities of the soul that created them,128 and help care for the organs which depend on each respective part of the soul:129 i.e. the natural soul and spirit take care of the digestive organs, the vital soul and spirit of the organs generating passions, and the animal soul and spirit care for the organs necessary for memory and contemplation.

According to Ficino, the three powers of the soul are dependent on the body: “...without the earthly body ... the powers do not realize their operations whether individually or collectively.”130 Only the intellect and reason can function independently,131 which is why these parts of the soul are immortal. The debate of the immortality of the soul started in the Middle Ages, centering around the

interpretation of Aristotle’s De anima. Thomas Aquinas set the example for solving the issue which was followed by later authors: first, offering a “correct” interpretation of Aristotle (which means in accord with theological doctrines), and second, to prove the soul’s immortality by means of theoretical analysis of the anatomy of the soul.132 This is also central to Ficino’s Theologia platonica. He follows the lead of Saint Augustine, who wrote in De immortalitate animae that the soul, as container of Truth, must be eternal because the truth it contains is eternal, and Albertus Magnus, who envisioned the rational soul as ‘‘an image of eternity [that] exists beyond time,” and the sensual soul as a “shadow [umbra] of the rational soul.”133 This is reminiscent of what Ficino calls the idolum, the image of the rational soul, which contains the three powers of the soul.134 It is sometimes identified with the imagination, or the vehicle of the soul mentioned in Plato’s Timaeus and Phaedrus,135 or associated with the “astral body.”136 Walker suggests that Ficino had the Platonic notion of astral body, the aetheric vehicle of the soul, in mind when he stated that the medical spirits could be sublimated and made celestial.137

127

Ficino, De vita libri tres I:2, 110-111 128

Ibid.

129_{Ficino, Platonic Theology Vol. 2, VII:9, 247} 130

Ibid. 131

Ibid., 264-265

Albertus Magnus in a commentary on Aristotle’s De anima, as cited in Blum, “The Immortality of the Soul,” 215 134

Moore, The Planets Within, 52

135_{Ibid., 51; Cocking, Imagination: A Study in the History of Ideas, 182} 136

See Walker, “The Astral Body in Renaissance Medicine.” 137

(26)

26

3. Soul as the glue of the universe

At its creation, the soul longs to descend to the realm of matter and live on earth in order to learn the particulars. But its origin is up there in heaven, and in the end that is where it wants to be. According to Ficino, everything has a beginning and an end-point (except God of course). Ultimately everything strives toward its point of origin; the soul strives to become God, because it is in its nature to do so: 138 “At some point, therefore, our rational soul is able to become God, because, with God inciting it, it naturally strives toward that goal.”139 This could happen in the afterlife, but even in this life it is possible to reach this divine unity. Most people, however, seem to cling more to material riches than spiritual wealth:

Because we foolishly overfeed the body and neglect the soul, the body becomes fat and robust and the soul thin and puny. So it comes about that the soul, in its meager and feeble state, sees physical things as large and strong.140

The soul desires what appears to be big, but fears what appears to be strong, and is torn between desire and dread. Therefore Ficino warns us to “nourish and increase the spirit with spiritual food,141 so that it may at length become mighty and have small regard for physical things.”142 In the long term, material goods are not satisfying.143 Some things on earth participate in the Good and the Beautiful, but are not identical to it: they are like images of the Good, but not the thing itself. The soul trying to satisfy its thirst for the divine Good with material goods is like a man trying to quench his thirst with an image of a glass of wine: it only makes him more thirsty.144 The human soul

seeks the common truth and desires the common good. In the common truth all true things are contained; in the common good, all good things. Consequently, [our soul] naturally seeks all true things, naturally desires all good things… All true and all good is God Himself, who is the first True and the first

138

Ficino, Platonic Theology Vol. 4, VIX:1, 218-221 139

Quamobrem potest animus oster aliquando fiery dues, postquam ad id naturaliter contendit sollicitante deo. Ibid., 224-225

140

Ficino, Meditations on the Soul, 32 141

Unfortunately this edition only gives the English text; I cannot check which Latin word Ficino used for ‘spirit’, but here he seems to use it in the traditional sense, not the medical. That is why I would suggest that the ‘food’ in this sentence is probably religion (see the last citation on page 79 of this thesis) or Truth: “The food of the soul is truth.” Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love V:2, 68; Truth and religion are identical in Ficino. 142_{Ficino, Meditations on the Soul, 32}

143

Ibid., 53-54 144

Marsilio Ficino: Melancholy and the Relations between Body, Spirit and Soul