Editing Marsilio Ficino (section)

=== Theology, astrology, and the soul ===
{{Hermeticism|expand=Historical figures}}
[[File:Angel Appearing to Zacharias (detail) - 1486-90.JPG|thumb|left|''Zachariah in the Temple'' (detail), a fresco by [[Domenico Ghirlandaio]] (1486–1490) in the [[Tornabuoni Chapel]], Florence, showing (L-R): Marsilio Ficino, [[Cristoforo Landino]], [[Angelo Poliziano]] and [[Gentile de' Becchi]] or [[Demetrios Chalkondyles]]]]
Though trained as a physician, Ficino became a priest in 1473.<ref>[[Christiane Joost-Gaugier|Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier]], ''Pythagoras and Renaissance Europe: Finding Heaven'', Cambridge University Press, 2009.</ref><ref>Oskar, Kristeller Paul. [https://books.google.com/books?id=vDhRLwIzp6gC&dq=ficino+priest+1473+Kristeller+Paul+Oskar&pg=PA265 ''Studies in Renaissance thought and letters. IV'']. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, 1996: 565.</ref><ref>{{Cite web
| title = Three Books on Life
| work = World Digital Library
| access-date = 2014-03-01
| date = 26 February 2014
| url = http://www.wdl.org/en/item/11614/
}}</ref> In 1474 Ficino completed his treatise on the immortality of the soul, ''[[Platonic Theology (Ficino)|Theologia Platonica de immortalitate animae]]''<ref name=EB1911/> (Platonic Theology) and ''De Christiana Religione'' (On the Christian Religion), a history of religions and defense of Christianity.<ref name="DeitzKraye1997">{{cite book|last1=Deitz|first1=Luc|title=Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts|last2=Kraye|first2=Jill|chapter=Marsilio Ficino|year=1997|pages=147–155|doi=10.1017/CBO9780511803048.014|isbn=9780511803048}}</ref> In the rush of enthusiasm for every rediscovery from Antiquity, he exhibited some interest in the arts of [[astrology]] (despite denigrating it in relation to divine revelation), which landed him in trouble with the [[Catholic Church]]. In 1489 he was accused of [[Christian heresy|heresy]] before [[Pope Innocent VIII]]<ref name=EB1911/> and was acquitted.

Writing in 1492 Ficino proclaimed: {{blockquote|"This century, like a [[golden age]], has restored to light the [[liberal arts]], which were almost extinct: [[grammar]], poetry, [[rhetoric]], painting, sculpture, architecture, music&nbsp;... this century appears to have perfected [[astrology]]." |source=A letter to a friend (1492)|title=Marcilio Ficino}}

Ficino's letters, extending over the years 1474–1494, survive and have been published.<ref name=EB1911/> He wrote ''De amore'' (Of Love) in 1484. ''[[De vita libri tres]]'' (Three books on life), or ''De triplici vita''<ref name="Walker2000">{{cite book|author=Daniel Pickering Walker|title=Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x-XjCKQi1lgC|date= 2000|publisher=[[Penn State Press]]|isbn=0-271-02045-8|page=3}}</ref> (The Book of Life), published in 1489, provides a great deal of medical and astrological advice for maintaining health and vigor, as well as espousing the [[Neoplatonist]] view of the [[Anima mundi|world's ensoulment]] and its integration with the human soul:
{{blockquote|There will be some men or other, superstitious and blind, who see life plain in even the lowest animals and the meanest plants, but do not see life in the heavens or the world&nbsp;... Now if those little men grant life to the smallest particles of the world, what folly! what envy! neither to know that the Whole, in which 'we live and move and have our being,' is itself alive, nor to wish this to be so.<ref>Marsilio Ficino, ''Three Books on Life'', translated by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark, Tempe AZ: The Renaissance Society of America, 2002.  From the ''Apologia'', p. 399.  (The internal quote is from Acts 17:28.)</ref>}}

One metaphor for this integrated "aliveness" is Ficino's astrology. In the ''Book of Life'', he details the interlinks between behavior and consequence. It talks about a list of things that hold sway over a man's destiny. Regardless, in his later extensive commentary on Plotinus's Ennead III, he actively and systematically repudiated the Neoplatonic account of the soul, the hypostasis Soul's unity, as well as the transmigration of the soul, the soul's eternity as opposed to mere imperishability, and the notion that the soul was created by intermediaries and not by God directly. Instead he preferred to interpret all of these more pagan Neoplatonic points, as Stephen Gersh comments in his Analytic Study of the same work, as moral allegories―in keeping with his general tendency towards concordance between Platonism and Christianity.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gersh |first=Stephen |title=Commentary on Plotinus, Volume 4: "Ennead III", Part 1, Analytical Study |date=23 October 2017 |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2017 |isbn=9780674974982 |edition=1st |location=Harvard |publication-date=23 October 2017 |pages=xxvii-l |language=English |trans-title=Analytical Study}}</ref>