The Accademia Platonica di Firenze or Platonic Academy of Florence was an informal discussion group which formed around

Marsilio Ficino Marsilio Ficino (; Latin name: ; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver of ...

in the

Florentine Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in History of Italy, Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe an ...

of the fifteenth century.

History

In about 1462

Cosimo de' Medici Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (27 September 1389 – 1 August 1464) was an Italian banker and politician who established the Medici family as effective rulers of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance. His power derived from his wealth ...

established the young

at Montevecchio, a villa close to his own

Villa di Careggi The Villa Medici at Careggi is a patrician villa in the hills near Florence, Tuscany, central Italy. History The villa was among the first of a number of Medici villas, notable as the site of the Platonic Academy founded by Cosimo de' Medici, ...

in the Florentine countryside. There Ficino, who was an ardent

Neo-Platonist Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some id ...

, was to study ancient Greek and work on translating the works of

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

into Latin. Ficino became the central figure of an informal group of people interested in his work, who both corresponded and met for intellectual discussions at Montevecchio, at Careggi, or perhaps in Florence itself. It was never a formal body – it had no statutes and kept no records of membership – and there is no contemporary evidence that it was ever known as a "

Platonic academy The Academy (Ancient Greek: Ἀκαδημία) was founded by Plato in c. 387 BC in Classical Athens, Athens. Aristotle studied there for twenty years (367–347 BC) before founding his own school, the Lyceum (classical), Lyceum. The Academy ...

". Arnaldo della Torre identified about a hundred people as participants in the group, among them Alessandro Braccesi, Demetrius Chalcondylas,

Cristoforo Landino Cristoforo Landino (1424 in Pratovecchio, Casentino, Florence – 24 September 1498 in Borgo alla Collina, Casentino) was an Italian humanist and an important figure of the Florentine Renaissance. Biography From a family with ties to the ...

Angelo Poliziano Agnolo (Angelo) Ambrogini (14 July 1454 – 24 September 1494), commonly known by his nickname Poliziano (; anglicized as Politian; Latin: '' Politianus''), was an Italian classical scholar and poet of the Florentine Renaissance. His scho ...

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (24 February 1463 – 17 November 1494) was an Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when, at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, ...

and

Lorenzo de' Medici Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici (; 1 January 1449 – 8 April 1492) was an Italian statesman, banker, ''de facto'' ruler of the Florentine Republic and the most powerful and enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. Also known as Lorenzo ...

. Among those who Ficino specifically stated had never been among his ''auditores'' ('listeners') are Benedetto Accolti,

Leon Battista Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer; he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymaths. H ...

, Demetrius Chalcondylas, Cristoforo Landino, Poliziano, and Pico della Mirandola. According to some accounts, the group continued to meet after the death of Ficino in 1499, centred round

Francesco Cattani da Diacceto Francesco Cattani da Diacceto (16 November 1466 – 10 April 1522) was a Florentine Neoplatonist philosopher of the Italian Renaissance. Life Diacceto was born in Florence on 16 November 1466, the son of Zanobi Cattani da Diacceto and Lion ...

. Meetings were no longer at Careggi but in the Orti Oricellari, the gardens of the

Palazzo Rucellai Palazzo Rucellai is a palatial fifteenth-century townhouse on the Via della Vigna Nuova in Florence, Italy. The Rucellai Palace is believed by most scholars to have been designed for Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai by Leon Battista Alberti betwee ...

, made available by

Bernardo Rucellai Bernardo Rucellai (11 August 1448 – 7 October 1514), also known as Bernardo di Giovanni Rucellai or as la, Bernardus Oricellarius, italic=no, was a member of the Florentine political and social elite. He was the son of Giovanni di Paolo R ...

. The group was dissolved in 1522 in the aftermath of the plot to assassinate Giulio de' Medici. Other accounts give an earlier date of 1492–1494 for the dissolution of the group, suggesting that the meetings in the Orti Oricellari were not directly connected, although many of the same people participated in them.

History

References

Further reading